The holiday boarding rush starts in September

Labor Day is behind us, summer boarding has emptied out, and the runs look quiet. They will not stay that way. The kennels that end December with full runs and no angry voicemails are the ones that settle their holiday policy, open bookings and clean up their profile in September, while the phone is still quiet enough to think.

Last year’s holiday travel, in numbers

AAA’s forecasts for the 2025 holidays show the size of what is coming:

• Thanksgiving: AAA projected 81.8 million people traveling at least 50 miles from home between Tuesday, November 25 and Monday, December 1, and called Thanksgiving “the single busiest holiday for travel.”
• Year end: AAA projected 122.4 million travelers over the 13-day period from December 20 to January 1.

Not every traveler has a dog, and not every dog boards. But those are the weeks when every owner who does need a kennel needs one on the same nights, and by the time they start calling, the best-run facilities are already full and working a waitlist.

Grooming peaks on its own curve

Boarding follows travel dates. Grooming follows the calendar of photos and visiting family. MoeGo, the grooming software company, describes Halloween through New Year as “the busiest stretch of the year for most grooming salons,” and anyone who has worked a grooming table in December knows why: every regular wants the dog clean for the holidays, in the same two weeks.

That has two consequences for September:

• The holiday appointments go to whoever books them first. Offer them to your regulars now, before you open them to everyone.
• Every grooming client who walks out in September and October without the next appointment on the calendar is a December slot you will be juggling later. Book the next groom at checkout, every time, and the holiday book fills itself with people you already know.

Write the holiday policy before the phone rings

In July, MoeGo published holiday planning advice built around a “Christmas in July” window, quoting Carmen Rustenbeck of the International Boarding and Pet Services Association: plan holiday rates, staffing and marketing months ahead. Its suggestions include mandatory, non-refundable deposits at booking and two-night minimums for major holidays. Those are one vendor’s recommendations, not industry rules, but every kennel needs answers to the same questions:

• What deposit is required, and when is it refundable?
• Is there a minimum stay over Thanksgiving and the year-end weeks?
• What is the cutoff for cancellations?
• Which dates are blacked out for new clients, if any?

Post the answers on your booking page and in your Google profile, and send them to your regulars. A written policy turns December’s hardest conversations into a link.

Send owners to the vet in October

The most avoidable holiday problem is the dog who arrives for a ten-day stay with an expired vaccine. The owner is leaving for the airport, you cannot take the dog, and the review that follows will not mention your policy.

In Colorado this is not just policy. The state’s pet care facility rules require boarding and grooming facilities to hold records of current rabies vaccines for dogs, cats and ferrets over 16 weeks old, current distemper and parvovirus vaccines for dogs over 8 weeks old, and FVRCP for cats over 8 weeks old. Wherever you are, the fix is the same: an October reminder to every holiday booking that lists your requirements and asks owners to check expiry dates and book their vet now.

It also answers the worry owners carry into boarding season. When respiratory illness in dogs made the news in late 2023, Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine told owners to avoid boarding kennels and daycares if they were unsure about the health of the other dogs there. A facility that publishes its vaccine requirements and cleaning routine answers that question before anyone has to ask it.

Get ready for the calls, and the reviews after them

Holiday booking season is also the busiest stretch for calls and, a few weeks later, for reviews. Two things to settle now:

• Who answers. From October the phone rings while everyone is grooming or in the yard. A missed-call text-back or a voice agent that books dates, quotes the vaccine rules and takes the deposit keeps those callers from moving down the list.
• Who replies to reviews. In the shops we work with, reviews arrive in a wave after the holiday stays, good and bad. Decide who answers them and how fast, and keep replies personal.

One change to watch: in August, Google began moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads, starting with a first group of home and storefront services. Pet grooming and Pet boarding were not in that first group, so a kennel running these ads should check its account before changing anything this season, and watch for the move to reach the pet categories in a later phase.

What to do this month

• Write your holiday policy: deposit, minimum stay, cancellation cutoff, and post it on your booking page and profile.
• Open Thanksgiving and year-end boarding to your regulars first, with a firm date before you open it to everyone.
• Start booking the next groom at checkout for every client, so the December book is built from people you know.
• Schedule an October vaccine reminder for every holiday booking, with your requirements spelled out.
• Decide who answers the phone and replies to reviews from October to January, and put it on the staff schedule.

The busiest weeks of your year are about ten weeks away, and most of the work that makes them calm happens now. Our page for pet groomers and boarding kennels maps the whole year, and if the phone is the weak point, our voice and chat agents can book holiday dates and collect deposits while you are with the dogs.