The page that stops the drop-off argument
Every cattery has had the same morning. A family with a taxi waiting, a cat in a carrier, and a vaccination card that shows a booster given four days ago. You cannot take the cat. They say nobody told them. Somebody probably did, on the phone, in June.
Requirements missed until drop-off is one of the three things that costs a cattery real money, and it is almost entirely a website problem. The fix is a requirements page written once, stated plainly, and repeated at every point where the owner touches your business. Here is how to build it.
Put it on its own page with a plain URL
Not buried in an FAQ accordion, not in a terms PDF, not only in the confirmation email. A page called something like Requirements or Before your cat stays, at a URL you can read out over the phone. It is linked from the header or the booking area, from every pen type page, from the price page and from the confirmation your booking platform sends.
The reason is simple. When an owner rings to ask, you want to be able to say "it is all on the requirements page" and have them find it in one tap, on a phone, while you are still talking.
Vaccinations: state the timing, not just the vaccine
The failure is almost never the vaccine. It is the timing. So write both.
Which vaccinations you require, using the names owners see on their own cards. Whether the course must be complete for a cat that has never been vaccinated. How many days before arrival the vaccination or booster must have been given, because a cat vaccinated the week of the stay is not protected. What happens when a booster has lapsed, including how far in advance they need to restart. That the card or certificate must come with the cat, or be uploaded at booking.
Then one sentence on why, in owner language: every cat in the building is protected by every other cat being protected. Owners accept a rule they understand.
Flea and worm treatment
Say which treatments you accept, when they must have been given relative to arrival, and what you do if a cat arrives untreated. Most catteries treat on site and charge for it. Publish that, and it stops being a surprise.
What to bring, and what not to
A short list beats a paragraph.
Bring: the vaccination card, their own food for the stay, any medication in original packaging with the vet's dispensing label, and your own vet's details. Bring a familiar blanket or an unwashed jumper if you use them.
Do not bring: whatever your setup does not allow, whether that is beds you cannot wash between cats, litter trays, or toys you cannot disinfect. Say what you supply instead, so the list does not read as a refusal.
Carriers: whether you keep them for the stay or send them home, and that the carrier must be secure enough for collection day.
The other rules that belong here
Minimum and maximum stay. Arrival and collection windows, and what you charge for a late collection. Whether cats from different households can share a pen and what happens with siblings. Neutering and age requirements. Whether you take unwell or elderly cats and what you need from their vet. Your emergency vet arrangement and the consent it requires.
Each of these is a phone call you are currently taking. Each is two sentences on this page.
Confirm it in the booking, not just on the page
Stating it is half the job. The booking flow has to collect it. Revelation Pets, Gingr, PetExec and Kennel Connection all carry vaccination records with expiry dates on the pet profile, along with owner accounts and signed agreements, so configure the platform so a first booking cannot complete without the vaccination detail and the consent, and so expiry reminders go out before a returning cat is due to stay again.
That reminder is the single most valuable setting on the list. A returning customer whose booster expired in March finds out in June, from an automated email, not on the doorstep in August.
Say it three times
Once on the requirements page. Once as a short summary next to the booking button, three or four lines, no more. Once in the confirmation email, with a link back. Owners skim. Repetition at the three moments they are actually paying attention does more than any amount of detail in one place.
Keep it editable and dated
Requirements change when guidance changes or your insurer asks for something new. Build the page as content you can edit yourself, and put a "last updated" date on it. That date does two things: it tells owners the page is current, and it tells you when you last checked it against what you actually enforce.
Where this sits
Stated requirements confirmed at booking is one of the six must-haves on a cattery website we build, alongside the pen photography and the routine page, and the same pattern of collecting records at first booking runs through our pet business websites generally. What packages include is on pricing. The page is not paperwork. It is the thing that means nobody is turned away with a taxi waiting.