Eight in the morning, and the card is out of date
A family is at the gate with the carrier, the car packed, a flight at two. The vaccination card shows a booster given nine days ago, and your policy needs it done a fortnight before arrival. Or there is no card at all, because the vet has it. Or the cat has not been treated for fleas and you have twenty other cats in the block.
Now you are the person standing between a family and their holiday. Whatever happens next, somebody's day is ruined and a review is at risk, and none of it was avoidable.
Every cattery has this story. It is a website problem long before it is a doorstep problem.
Why it happens
Requirements usually live in one of three bad places. Inside the booking confirmation email, which is read once in March for a stay in August. In the terms and conditions, which nobody reads. Or in the owner's head, from the phone call, remembered wrongly.
What they are rarely in is a page an owner can read before booking, written plainly, with the timing on it.
State them where a decision is being made
Requirements belong as their own content, linked from every pen page and from the booking step. Four sections, in the owner's language.
Vaccination. Name the course you require and say how long before arrival it must be completed. Say what you need to see: the card, a photograph of it, or a record from the vet. Say what happens for a first course versus a booster, because those have different timing. Say what happens if the booster is due during a long stay.
Flea and worm treatment. What you require, how recently, and whether a specific type is needed. Say what happens if a cat arrives with fleas, honestly, because that is the policy owners most want to know and least want to ask about.
Health and behaviour. Cats on medication, cats with conditions, elderly cats, cats that have never been boarded. Not to exclude them, but to say what you need to know in advance and what you can handle.
What to bring, and what not to. Food if you feed the cat's own, medication in its original packaging with the vet's label, the vaccination card, a piece of bedding that smells of home, and your vet's details. And what you supply, so nobody arrives with a litter tray in the boot.
Say why, in one line each
"A fortnight before arrival, because that is how long the vaccine takes to give full protection." An owner who understands the reason does not argue with the rule and does not think you are being difficult. It also makes it much easier for you to hold the line at the gate, because the site said it, said why, and she agreed to it at booking.
Confirm it at the booking, not after it
The site states the requirement. The booking flow then has to capture it. Revelation Pets, Gingr, PetExec and Kennel Connection all handle vaccination records against a pet profile in some form, usually with an expiry date and a reminder. Set yours up so the booking cannot complete without the vaccination date and the medication notes, and so a record with an expiry inside the stay flags before arrival rather than on the day.
Two places, both needed. The site so she can check whether she is eligible tonight at half past ten, the software so the record exists and expires.
The reminder that stops the doorstep
The stay is booked in March for August. Somewhere in between, something has to say: your cat's booster expires on this date, which is inside your stay, please book it in. That is a scheduled reminder from the booking software, and it is the single most useful piece of automation a cattery runs.
If the software will not do it, a diary check a fortnight before each arrival will. Either way it happens before the car is packed.
Put the same words in three places
The requirements page, the booking flow, and the confirmation email should use the same sentences. Not paraphrases, the same words. Where they differ, an owner remembers whichever was loosest, and you get to argue about it at eight in the morning.
What it is worth
Fewer cancelled stays and fewer refunds. Fewer arguments at the gate in July. No cat turned away into a family's holiday. And, less obviously, more bookings, because the owner who could not find the rules and did not want to ring is a booking you never knew you lost.
Where this sits
Requirements written as their own content, linked from every pen page and confirmed in the booking flow with expiry reminders, are part of how we build a cattery website, and the same vaccination and consent pattern runs through our pet business websites. Packages are on pricing. Regulations on animal boarding and what you must display vary by country, so treat this as orientation and check what applies where you trade.