What to Pack for Your Dog's Boarding Stay: The Complete Checklist

Packing for your dog’s boarding stay is a lot like packing for a kid’s sleepover — the goal is simple: everything familiar, everything labeled, nothing left to chance. A well-packed bag means your dog eats their own food, gets their meds exactly right, and has a piece of home to curl up with. A rushed bag usually means a phone call from the airport.

Here’s the checklist we wish every client packed by, built from years of drop-offs.

The Food

This is the big one. Sudden food changes are the number one cause of upset stomachs in boarding dogs — new food plus a new place is a lot for a digestive system to handle at once.

• Pack your dog’s regular food, with a little extra in case your return gets delayed by weather or travel.
• Pre-portioning meals into labeled bags is a kindness we’ll never say no to, but a clearly labeled container works fine too.
• Write the feeding instructions down: how much, how many times a day, and any mix-ins or toppers your dog expects. (“He won’t eat it dry” is exactly the kind of detail we want.)
• A few of their usual treats are welcome. Brand-new treats are not — a boarding stay is the wrong week to experiment.

Medications and Health Items

If your dog takes medication, this section matters more than everything else on the list combined.

• Send medications in their original labeled containers. The pharmacy label has the drug name, the dose, and your vet’s information — all of which we need, and none of which a plain pill organizer tells us.
• Add a written medication sheet: what it is, the dose, what time of day, and how your dog takes it (in food, in a pill pocket, the old “hide it in cheese and pretend it’s a treat” maneuver — we know them all).
• Make sure flea and tick prevention is current, and note the date it was last given.
• Include supplements too, labeled the same way. If it goes in your dog daily at home, it should keep going in while they’re with us.

The Everyday Gear

• A flat collar with ID tags — and before you pack, check that the phone number on the tag is actually current. You’d be surprised.
• Their regular leash, and their harness if that’s what they walk in.
• Anything they wear daily at home. If a dog is used to sleeping in a sweater in an air-conditioned house, pack the sweater.

Skip the fancy stuff. Your dog does not need a wardrobe.

Something That Smells Like Home

Pack one comfort item: a blanket, a worn t-shirt of yours, a favorite (washable) toy. The point isn’t the object — it’s the smell. Familiar scent is one of the fastest ways a dog settles in a new place.

Two tips from experience:

• Send something that smells like your house now, not something freshly laundered. The laundry is the enemy of this particular magic trick.
• Don’t send the one irreplaceable, childhood, can’t-be-bought-again treasure. Send the second-favorite. Things occasionally get chewed, dragged through the yard, or loved to death, and we never want a comfort item to become a heartbreak.

The Paperwork

Nobody’s favorite part, but it protects your dog.

• Vaccination records. Every boarder should be able to show current vaccinations — and for the record, all dogs staying with us must be spayed or neutered. If it’s your first stay, we’ll go over records together at your Meet & Greet, so you’re not scrambling on drop-off day.
• An emergency contact who isn’t you. If you’re on a plane or off the grid, we need a local person who can make decisions and, if it ever came to it, pick your dog up.
• Your vet’s name, address, and phone number. If your dog needs care while you’re away, minutes spent hunting for this are minutes wasted.
• Written care notes. Feeding schedule, bathroom habits, fears (thunder? the vacuum? the mailman?), quirks, commands they know, and the things that make them them. The counter-surfer, the sock thief, the one who must be told he’s a good boy before he’ll eat — tell us. It’s the stuff that turns care into their care.

What Not to Pack

A short list, offered with love:

• A mountain of toys. One or two favorites; the rest just get lost in the shuffle.
• Rawhide or brand-new chews they’ve never had — unfamiliar chews plus an unfamiliar stomach is a gamble.
• Their giant bed from home. We’ve got plenty of soft places to land, and big beds are the first casualty of a muddy yard day.
• Anything you’d be sad to lose.

Ready for Drop-Off Day

Pack the night before, keep drop-off calm and quick (long emotional goodbyes are harder on dogs than short cheerful ones), and you’re done. If getting to us is the tricky part, our pet taxi can pick up within five miles for $45.

First stay coming up? Call or text 914-257-3917 or email customerservice@justhappydogs.com — every new client starts with a Meet & Greet, and we’ll walk you through all of this in person. We serve pet families in Peekskill, Cortlandt Manor, Yorktown Heights, Ossining, Tarrytown, White Plains, and across Putnam, Dutchess, Rockland, and Orange counties.

Happy packing — we’ll see your dog soon.