The short answer
The assessment day is the first thing a new owner can book, and the only thing. Your requirements, vaccination, neutering and temperament, are stated plainly on the site so owners arrive prepared, and the records and consents are collected in the booking platform at registration rather than on a clipboard at the door.
Three moving parts: the site explains, the platform collects, the assessment decides. Here is what each does.
The assessment is the front door
New dogs cannot book daycare days or a boarding stay. They book an assessment, and the day calendar opens in their account only once it has been passed. Set it up in Gingr, PetExec, Revelation Pets or Kennel Connection as its own bookable service with its own capacity, restricted to the days you actually run assessments, and require the pet profile to be complete before it can be booked.
Cap the number per day. Midweek mornings, when the group is settled, work better than a busy Monday. Two unknown dogs in a morning is as many as most handlers want.
What the site says about the assessment
On its own page, linked from both service pages and the header: what happens on the day, how long it takes, what it costs or that it is free, what to bring, when you will hear the outcome, and what happens if the dog turns out not to suit group daycare.
That last one is the sentence most kennels leave out and the one owners of anxious dogs are looking for. Saying honestly that some dogs are not right for a group, and naming what you can offer instead if anything, is what makes a careful owner ring you rather than the place that promises everything.
What the site says about requirements
Plain statements, with a short reason attached to each:
- Which vaccinations, how recent, and the gap you require before arrival.
- Whether kennel cough is required, and whether a titre test is accepted.
- Flea and worm treatment within a stated period.
- Neutering from a stated age, if you require it, and your policy on bitches in season.
- That every dog is assessed, and that group daycare does not suit every dog.
- No dog with sickness, diarrhoea or a suspected contagious condition, and the wait you ask for.
- For boarding, what to bring: food, medication in its original packaging with written instructions, bedding if you allow it.
A reason turns a rule into sense. "The kennel cough vaccine needs two weeks to work in a group setting" ends the argument at the door before it starts.
What the platform collects
At registration, before the assessment: vaccination records with expiry dates and a certificate photo uploaded from the owner's phone, neutering status, feeding and medication notes, behaviour notes, vet details and an alternative, emergency contact, and your signed agreements, boarding terms, treatment consent, off-lead and group play consent, photo permission.
Turn on expiry reminders. Storing a date rather than a tick box is what lets the platform chase a lapsing booster before a stay rather than after.
Nothing health-related goes through a website form. A form that emails vaccination dates to an inbox is a second copy nobody checks, and it puts personal data about a family in a mailbox.
What the desk does
Looks at the day sheet for amber. Green profile, dog comes in. Amber, the automated reminder has already gone and someone sends a nudge or asks for the card at the door. For boarding, run that check a week before arrival, not on the morning, because a lapsed booster in August is a family who cannot travel.
After the assessment
Send a written outcome the same day. If the dog is accepted, the message contains the link to book days and the package options. If it is not, it says so kindly, with the reason and what would help.
The commonest leak in a daycare is a dog that passed its assessment three weeks ago and never booked, because nobody sent the link. Automate that message and the leak closes.
The one thing to test
Once a quarter, from your own phone, register a fictional pet, upload a certificate, sign the agreements and book an assessment. Then try to book a daycare day for that unassessed dog and confirm you cannot. Platforms change their intake flows without telling anyone.
Where this sits
Assessment first and requirements stated are two of the six must-haves on the dog daycare and boarding websites we build. It is the daycare version of a pattern every pet business website needs, and it bites hardest here, because the business is taking on a dog's whole day and sometimes its whole week.