Doggy Day Care FAQs

Doggy day care is exactly as it suggests, daytime care for your dogs, just like a school or nursery. The centres which provide this service offer facilities, whose hours typically reflect the average working day. Meaning you can be reassured your dog is being well looked after while you are at work or away for the day. Depending on the individual centre’s structure, owners can often drop their dogs off at day care, or they can be picked up from your home. At Bruce’s doggy day care facilities we provide the option of home collection or drop off services to best suit your needs. If opting for home collection when putting your dog in day care, we have custom designed doggy buses in order for your pooch to travel safely and in style. 

Whether it’s keeping your dog entertained through playtime, midday snoozes or socialising with friends, we go the extra mile to ensure your dog has the best experience while at doggy day care. Activities your dog will experience at day care at Bruce’s includes weekly dog enrichment activities, scavenger hunts and hide & treat games and themed dog enrichment events.

Definitely! The early stages of your dog’s life are key to developing essential social and life skills. We accept puppies from 12 weeks, so long as they have had their 2nd vaccinations. Read more about puppy preschool.

At Bruce’s we pride ourselves on providing a doggy day care environment where dogs can have the best day ever, building friendships, enjoying enrichment activities and growing in confidence.

It is important that all dogs at Bruce’s are suited to our doggy day care so that they, and their furry friends, can enjoy the best day care experience. This is why we can’t accept all dogs. Doggy day care doesn’t suit everyone, some breeds and some individual dogs can find the day care environment over stimulating. This includes dogs who have not been neutered over 18 months old and females in season. For more information on why we never want to set a dog up to fail, please click here.

Our ‘Is Bruce’s right for me?’ approach ensures that the dogs in our care will thrive and play happily in the Bruce’s doggy day care environment.

If you have any questions, please get in touch and our team will be happy to chat about our enrolment process and doggy day care environment with you.

The welfare of dogs is our absolute priority. Every decision we make as a business puts dog welfare first. We are known for innovation and setting new standards. But we’re not perfect, and like any responsible person or business, we take concerns seriously, investigate thoroughly, and act quickly when improvements are needed. We are proud of our culture, our high standards, and our track record of constant improvement.

As some of you are aware, we have recently been subject to a vicious smear campaign. To reassure customers, read the response to the smear campaign here.

Dog day care is a regulated sector, and Bruce’s consistently holds the highest star ratings across all our centres. Since 2018, we’ve had 34 licensing inspections — many unannounced — across 11 boroughs. This level of scrutiny is unmatched in the UK, and we’re proud to consistently meet or often exceed these highest standards. To go even further, we are introducing independent audits at every centre, carried out more frequently than licensing visits, to give our customers even greater confidence.
Figures correct as of September 2025

Yes. Each centre is licensed with the relevant borough. Our founder, Bruce, played a key role advising DEFRA and drafting the licensing regulations, so this is something we are knowledgeable and passionate about.

Yes. Bruce’s is insured to professionally care for dogs, with specialist Animal Trade Insurers in place. Our insurance covers public liability; day care; custody and control of your pet; loss of keys and home boarding.

The Bruce’s doggy day care enrolment is an easy process. We showcase the benefits of our premium doggy day care service and how you can sign up in 4 simple steps. The steps include: 1] Submit an enquiry 2] Get a callback from one of our dog-loving team. 3] Set up subscription. 4] Onboarding information collected to ensure your dog’s safety. Then let the adventures begin! For more information on our enrolment process please visit our doggy day care enrolment information hub.

Bruce’s calculates monthly subscriptions fees based on a 51 week annual period, which excludes one week where we are closed over the Christmas period. For example, if your dog attends 2 days per week at a rate of £45 per day. You monthly fee will be (£45 (day rate) x 2 (days attended per week)) x 51 (weeks) / 12 (months) = £382.50

Our standard doggy day care pricing is shown via our pricing block that can be found on many different pages across our website, including our homepage, each local Bruce’s centre pages and our membership package pages, such as our most popular Champ membership package . To view the pricing of our three tiers of membership packages, locate a pricing block and either select your local Bruce’s centres from the dropdown menu or enter your postcode to find your local Bruce’s centre and select ‘Go’. Either of these actions will update the prices shown in the three block below for each membership pack.

Yes, we recommend you do! Book in a time for a Welcome Meeting with our team,  so we can show you around and get to know your dog. We can advise if doggy day care is suited to your dog and how they will benefit.

Yes. There is a minimum booking of 1 full day each week on an ongoing basis. This ensures all the dogs and team are familiar, happy and settled. However, we understand that you may need flexibility from time to time which is why all of our customers have the opportunity to swap days on request, subject to availability. Customers can also ‘bank’ the days they can’t attend and will have 2 months to use these on another day, again subject to availability.

Licensing regulations allow up to 10 dogs per person, or 8 to 1 for the highest standard. At Bruce’s, we plan for an average of 6.5 dogs per team member. This gives us headroom for sickness, holidays and breaks, and means we always meet or exceed licensing requirements. As our team has grown we have the added flexibility to move people around the business to top up where needed. Many of our colleagues work across our centres helping, sharing ideas and best practice and offering additional support.

Yes. Your dog will be under constant supervision by our team of experienced carers and will never be left unattended.

No. In fact, one of the reasons people choose Bruce’s is that our expert team and happy, social dynamic often helps with dog training. Many parents have noticed an improvement in their dog’s behaviour after coming to Bruce’s.

At Bruce’s, we carefully group dogs in their dedicated field by size and personality which helps to keep play styles aligned. Also, we are proud of our record of only accepting social dogs. Our ‘Is Bruce’s right for me?’ approach ensures all of the dogs are happy in one another’s company, so it is unlikely your dog will not get on with another dog. In fact, the dogs usually form their own social groups with dogs at the centre who enjoy similar activities! However, if an altercation does occur, our expert team of carers are always on hand and trained to manage this quickly and effectively.

First, we will assess the situation and call you to discuss. If we can’t get hold of you and urgent medical attention is required, we will take your dog to your nominated veterinary practice or, depending on the circumstances, the nearest veterinary practice. We have consent to act as guardians. We also have a 24-hour emergency phone line, so if anything happens to your dog, even when they are not in our care, we are on hand to help.

Our buses are custom-designed with over £10,000 invested in each fit-out. They feature climate control, professionally fitted secure crate systems, airflow management, vibration-control flooring, and real-time GPS tracking. Drivers are supported with performance monitoring technology, compliance software for daily checks, and training to manage unexpected delays safely. And it’s clear the dogs love the buses too — their excitement at pick-up and the feedback we receive from owners show that travel is a positive and enjoyable part of their day. Many dogs prefer to travel with a companion, and others prefer solo. We operate a buddy system that caters for both.

Journey times vary with traffic, seasons, route changes and other elements out of our control, but we continually optimise to keep them as short as possible. We reverse collection and drop off route order where possible, add buses to split routes, reduce capacity or catchment size to minimise travel time as part of ongoing monitoring and optimisation.

Buses are capped at 16 dogs and we do not overbook – our systems prevent this from happening. If needed, we reduce capacity further to keep routes efficient.

We go above and beyond licensing requirements with a dedicated Dog Travel Experience Policy focused on safety, comfort, and enrichment. We also hold a DEFRA animal transportation authorisation which further ensures animal welfare regulations are met.

Bruce’s Country Hills was taken on from another operator. A small number of routes were longer than our usual journey times. We have made numerous changes to improve these routes and are making further optimisations to improve them further with a plan to move them to another centre to shorten them further in the future.

Yes. A Bruce’s Dog travels in style, and we proudly take travel comfort very seriously! Our doggy buses are fitted with special air conditioning, have beds and big, comfortable compartments. Each bus has data tracking so we can measure and monitor driving style, so we’re ensuring a smooth journey.  Read more about home collection and drop off.

No. Our handy check in and out system means you will always know when your dog is collected and dropped home. Our drivers can hold your key and details securely, with no reference linking your address and keys.

Dogs love the outdoors and natural play is part of their enrichment. Our centres have acres of secure fields plus warm, clean indoor areas for rest. Facilities are cleaned daily, and we continually invest in upgrades like groundworks for enhanced drainage, planting of trees, wash stations, and new shelters

All of the dogs have a warm home-time rinse if they are muddy. We dry them off before they hop on the bus, and if you provide a towel we can also give them another dry when they get home too!

As a predominantly outdoor day care, our centres are based in natural, rural settings where mains gas and electricity aren’t always available. To ensure dogs stay warm and comfortable, we use portable gas heaters with fixed secondary guards, along with warm showers in winter.
Dogs have constant access to heated indoor spaces, but most choose to play outdoors — which is exactly what our customers want. In winter, we encourage owners to send coats for short-haired breeds, and every dog is given a warm water rinse and towel dry before heading home.

Yes. All heaters are fitted with guards, and we’ve added secondary guards that are fixed to the wall for extra safety. Warmth and safety are built into every part of a Bruce’s day.

Crates are used only for short, specific reasons such as rest, feeding or at an owner’s request. We do not put multiple dogs in a crate. We also provide partitioned areas for downtime. We’re reviewing our use of crates further, because while many dogs enjoy them, we recognise images can be misrepresented.

While we continue to open centres, bringing high quality dog day care services to new communities, this is not at the expense of maintaining and improving our existing facilities. Running a high-quality day care requires constant investment. We reinvest significantly every year in additional groundworks and drainage, shelter and shade, heating, dog wash stations and enrichment features. This ensures our facilities keep pace with the highest standards of care.