The flight is booked, and then comes the question that puts the brakes on all that excitement: where does the dog go? Three paths lead there, and which one fits you two comes down mostly to your dog.
The trip is booked, the excitement is real, and then your eyes land on the dog in his bed. Two weeks in Crete, wonderful. But where does he go? To your best friend, who loves him but has never had a dog? To the boarding kennel you only know from its website? Or to someone who cares for dogs professionally, whom you've never actually met?
here's no single answer that's right for every dog. But there is a pretty good method for finding the right one for yours, and it doesn't start with the options out there. It starts with your dog.
Let's go through them one by one, with the honest pros and cons.
In-home care with a sitter. Your dog stays in his own home, on his own blanket, surrounded by his usual smells and walking routes. For anxious dogs, seniors, and dogs on a medication schedule, this is often the gentlest option. The tradeoff: the sitter moves through your home, so you need real trust, and you're paying for their presence, not just the time they spend with your dog.
Boarding kennel or dog hotel. Clear structure, someone experienced on hand around the clock, and dogs who enjoy company often really thrive there. A boarding kennel is less suited to very insecure dogs who get lost in an unfamiliar group, and to dogs who don't do well with other dogs they don't know. What matters is whether the chemistry between your dog and the staff is right, not how big or fancy the facility is.
Family or friends. The underrated classic. If your dog already knows and likes the person, you're halfway there emotionally. But love doesn't replace experience: someone who's never had a dog often underestimates how much daily work is involved, and that a dog in an unfamiliar place might scratch at the door or slip out given the chance. An honest conversation beforehand matters more here than with any professional.
| In-Home Sitter | Boarding | Family/Friends | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | routine-loving dogs, seniors, medications | social, healthy dogs | someone your dog already trusts |
| Trickier for | tight budgets | insecure dogs | little dog experience |
| Environment | stays the same | new, structured | new, but familiar people |
| Cost | medium to high | medium | usually low |
| What to check | trust, availability | license, exercise, group size | daily routine, safety, honesty |
Prices vary a lot by region, season, and service level; the figures below are rough guides in Germany, drawn from comparison sites and provider listings, not fixed rates. In big cities, almost everything sits at the higher end, holidays often come with surcharges, and during peak season many providers require a minimum booking length.
When you're planning, factor in the soft costs too: the drive to the kennel, a trial day beforehand, and, if you can swing it, one buffer night after you get back so you both settle in without rushing.
It's worth being thorough here, because the gap between loving care and mere storage is huge, and you can't see it in photos.
One very concrete thing to check is official licensing. In Germany, anyone who cares for or houses other people's dogs commercially generally needs a permit under the Animal Welfare Act, which requires proof of expertise and reliability. How strictly that's applied in individual cases is up to the local veterinary office, and casual, unpaid care between friends usually doesn't fall under it. There's no public register, so the simplest check is just to ask directly: can I see your permit?
Questions about the daily routine are just as revealing, since German regulations require daily exercise outside the kennel run, several periods of contact with a caregiver each day, and regular contact with other dogs for every dog in care. That gives you a few good questions to ask:
A red flag, by the way, is less about an uncomfortable answer and more about no answer at all. Anyone who doesn't want you looking around, doesn't ask any questions about your dog, or says yes immediately without ever meeting him, is telling you exactly how much care actually goes into it.
Almost every boarding provider requires current vaccinations for a stay. It helps to know the difference between a requirement and a house rule: the standard core vaccines are considered baseline for every dog, while the vaccine against kennel cough complex is a risk-based recommendation, meant exactly for situations with close dog-to-dog contact, like boarding, dog school, or daycare. Whether it's required comes down to each kennel's own policy.
Because some vaccines take a while to reach full protection, the same principle applies to all of them: plan ahead, not the week before you leave. Your vet's office is the best place to figure out what makes sense for your dog and when the timing should happen, together with a look at the vaccination record.
One thing many people only think about once it's an emergency: a treatment authorization. Without written permission, vet clinics are hesitant to perform non-urgent treatment on someone else's animal, and nobody wants to make major decisions over the phone from vacation. A short written authorization with a cost limit and your contact details takes the pressure off everyone involved. It's worth a call to your insurer about liability too: for private, unpaid care, the "caretaker clause" in your policy usually covers it, while a commercial provider needs their own business liability insurance.
What to send along is quick to list, and it makes the transition noticeably easier on your dog:
And then there's the goodbye itself. Keep it short and calm, as hard as that is. A long, emotional farewell doesn't make things easier for your dog; it signals that something big is happening. Hand him over, pass the leash, and go. For more on what's going on in his head once you're gone, and why most dogs handle it just fine, read our post on separation anxiety in dogs.
Almost everyone has it. That look back at the car, wondering if he thinks you're not coming back, the strange feeling while you're checking him in. What actually helps is a realistic look at what we know: new situations mean stress for dogs at first, that's measurable, and that stress eases with attention, routine, and time. What makes it manageable isn't how many stars the facility has; it's familiarity and reliability: people he knows, objects he knows, the same routines, and a meet-and-greet that doesn't happen on departure day.
A dog who goes into the right kind of care, well prepared, has an unusual stretch of time there, not a bad one. And you get to go on vacation without anything to feel guilty about.
When you pick him up, you'll see the same scene almost everyone does: first that disbelieving freeze, then the explosion. He'll sniff you all over, like he's trying to read back through the entire trip, and once you're home he'll sleep twelve hours straight.
For that moment to look like that, all you need beforehand is two things: care that actually fits your dog, and the time to choose it without rushing. In the Souldog app, you can find sitters near you and get to know them before you book, with profiles, messaging, and everything you'd want to talk through in advance. And if your dog ends up preferring the boarding kennel after all, that's a good outcome too. What matters most is that you chose it together.
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