Our favorite place is $40 for a weekend night and $35 for week nights (SF bay area). Another place charges $50/night and they have a 24/7 camera so you can catch a glimpse of your dog while away. Our dog doesn’t like to be crated and both of these are non-crating places. Definitely adds up but finding the right place really is priceless.
We dog sit/house sit for a friend’s 2 basset hounds. We stay at their house, the dogs are not crated, they have the choice to sleep on the bed or on the sofa. We walk them 2x/day, and if we are in the yard, they are outside with us. We also drive them to a doggie park to play. If we leave the house, it is never more than 2 hours. We are paid $75/day. One of them also receives medication. I also house sit for another friend’s 3 small dogs and baby, but they fly me out to San Francisco!
@anxiousmom - until you’ve gone 6 months without an incident, could you find someone to stay with your dog while you are gone?
My S was hired by a co-worker to house-sit/dog-sit their 4 dogs. All 4 were elderly and on special medications, had special feeding requirements, etc. I don’t know how much she paid him. And by the way, none of them were “her” dogs - they were all originally the pets of her adult children.
We have an elderly dog, and when we go away, we have a dog sitter in our apartment building. They tried bringing him to stay overnight at their place, but he seemed too anxious, so they just come to our apartment and keep him company, take him out, etc.
We watch the neighbor’s dog for free when they travel. I figure it saves us money because we get to play with, feed, walk, hug, and cuddle/pet a very sweet dog without the cost of owning one ourselves (and no picking up poop).
I pay $50 per night for one dog and $40 for second dog in a shared “suite.” I also pay an additional $26 a day for daycare for bigger dog (wee dog doesn’t like daycare.) All the suites have video cameras as do the daycare rooms so I can watch my dogs 24/7 when we are away. I could board them for less but the owner (who we adopted bigger dog from last year) owns a 22 acre animal sanctuary and all the profits from her boarding and spa business goes to support the sanctuary. It’s my way of supporting the sanctuary.
I have a question for those of you who board your dog on occasion. (As an aside, we pay $50/night and that’s pretty much standard in my area).
Our usual place is not a home but is a daycare that has overnight guests sleep in and around a loft where an employee sleeps with them. They can be in a kennel or not, it’s up to the owner. It’s nice, and it’s fun to see the pictures of all shapes and sizes of dogs sleeping on couches, the bed, etc.
We have a last minute opportunity to go away for a few days, and our guy is completely full. I stopped in one of our original places that we used when our boy was a puppy (about 6 years ago). (Our usual place is much closer, smaller and more convenient; and more like "family). I think the original place I stopped in yesterday is a franchise of a national “chain.” It’s very well-run and organized, clean and lovely, conscientious employees. The dogs are kenneled but seem content. BUT - there are many, many dogs (I think they hold over 100 spots for boarders, maybe even up to 150), and I really surprised, and alarmed, I guess, to find out that between the time the final employee leave at 7:30 at night and they return at 6:30 the following morning, there are no employees on the premises with the dogs.
It’s in a very secluded location, but they assured me that there are cameras on the exterior, and alarms, and the fire department arrives within minutes if an alarm of any sort goes off, and notifies the owners who live down the street. But putting aside fire and theft (dognapping!), what if a dog is in distress in the middle of the night? And even a 5 minute response delay could really be tragic in the event of fire, etc. There are NOT cameras overlooking the kennel area where the dogs sleep so the owner or employees can check on them during the night.
Am I overreacting? Is this the norm? I like everything else about the place, except maybe the number of dogs, and of course it can’t compare to our usual spot, but I am just curious if this is normal or not (maybe for those who don’t think of their dogs as children, like many of us do)!
I wouldn’t leave my dog in that type of setup, but I tend to be somewhat neurotic about boarding situations.
Friends of ours left their German Shephard at a new facility and didn’t realize that this place did not have people staying on site with the pups.
There was an electrical fire and all the dogs were killed including friends GSD.
Not worth the chance, in my opinion.
No way, I would never leave my girls in that situation. What if they had some distress (or needed an emergency snuggle) in the middle of the night?
Our latest lady only watches small, old dogs. The dogs sleep in her room, she charges $40 for both of them. That’s pretty much what we’ve always paid, and we stay with people forever. We have had two of our caregivers die, and one get terminal cancer. 
it doesn’t take people long to fall in love with gentle, sweet Cavaliers, so people always find a way to take them.
Mr R worked at a facility like that and most of the dogs were fine with it (much less than 12 hours though- more like 7-8 hours). There are dogs that definitely don’t mind that type of situation and there are those that do. I wouldn’t leave either of our current pups in a facility like that because they are needy.
Just…up to 150 dogs. Holy crap.
We pay $12 per day for day care. I think the base rate for overnight stays is something like $38. I am not sure, because the kennel we use–which we love–has extra costs for options including nature walks out in the country (1 dog with 1 day care attendant), tummy rubs, pool play, and treats, in addition to the standard dog play activities. The owners live on site, and there is always someone there.
They are also very attentive to the dogs. We had an older dog who had a health emergency during a stay, and got a call in the middle of the night about him, to make emergency vet arrangements. He had another 7 good years after that.
We used Rover.com and had a great experience.
We try to swap with friends as our D’s dog–who seems to be here for long periods–is unreliable with the dogs.
My niece did dog sitting. She charged $10/day for just the house, $20 if there is a cat $30 if there is a dog. She was good and for a dog would go at least 2x and walk the dog. Sometimes she stayed overnight because it was easier. My daughter fills in for her now. There is kid sitting too, and its almost like she makes more for the dog and doesn’t have to do spelling words with the dogs.
We either use the teenage neighbor, our good friend adult neighbor or on a rare occasion the doggie day care that also has overnights. Our dog loves being around other dogs and I think her first choice might be the doggie day care. The doggie day care bills itself as a pet resort. It’s in the country on 25 acres and is well maintained. As long as the dogs are socialized, they let them play outside most of the day. Our girl always come back from there tired and happy. We pay $30/day for boarding and pay the neighbor boy $12/day. Our dog is young, well behaved and easy to care for.
We use a “Camp Bow Wow” franchise in the northeast. It’s pretty great and our dog loves to go. Socialization moist of the day and safely in a BIG crate at night. The have “cams” so you can check in on your dog from anywhere. It’s pricey though, like the higher prices listed above.
They are franchises so the staff may differ. We used another location one time and did not dig the vibe there.
I haven’t gone anywhere except to visit family since I’ve had my current golden girl, and I drive and bring her with me. My family knows that if they want to see me, they have to take my dog, too. She’s a good traveler, and very well behaved. 
A close friend and I take care of each other’s dogs as necessary. He and his pooch, who can be a challenge for many because of early abuse, stay here frequently, so she feels at home here, and I am one of the few people she really likes.
One of my nieces has a fairly new rescue dog, who languished in a shelter for months, so they don’t want to kennel her. They are going to Europe for two weeks, so she’s driving up here with the dog, and I will take care of her until they get back, at which point I will drive her back down to CT. I’m hoping to train her to have a good recall during that time! She LOVES to play with my girl, and there is a fenced dog park in the area to which I can take them where she’ll be safe.
There is a kennel in our area where I feel comfortable leaving my dogs. The owner lives on the property, and he saved the life of our GSD many years ago when he came down with bloat. Because he lost the last champion GSD he bred to bloat, he makes sure that the dogs are all checked on during the late evening. Like the place @QuantMech mentioned, they have a very reasonable basic rate, and you can pay a little extra for walks and play sessions.
@Postmodern - Camp Bow Wow is the actually the facility I mentioned in earlier post. I just looked up its main website and they have 130 locations in the US (based out of Colorado). The one I visited, also in the Northeast, did not have cameras so you could view at nighttime, days only. My dog loved his daytime visit, of course; he likes socializing with the other pups.
But between the sheer number of dogs and the leaving them all overnight thing, I just feel uneasy about boarding. What are your experiences with this? I am just going to go with my gut instinct (sort of like the way we all figure out parenting ) and just find another place for boarding. But I worry that the more commercial ones, which are more likely to have last minute availability unlike the home options, will all have the same practice of leaving the boarders alone overnight.
@NinaReilly , the Camp Bow Wow we go to is not as large as some others, and they have multiple rooms for socializing so they sequester the dogs appropriately. The cams are cool so you can see how your dog is getting on. I recommend trying a “day camp” for half a day and watch and see how your dog likes it. Our dog is very sweet but very submissive, so at an unfiltered dog run she gets hassled by that one a-h dog. (You know the one… 
but at CBW she seems to fit in nicely. Since our camp is so popular and always full they will reject trouble dogs and magically make space for dogs they know behave.