Dog boarding & daycare in St. Louis, MO

Eleven of the 81 St. Louis-area websites we reviewed say anything about overnight staffing, and four of those eleven are one chain's FAQ. The 31 listings that publish a nightly rate have a median of $51.

The St. Louis market in this index is the counties of the Census metro area plus places within 30 miles of downtown, and that metro crosses the Mississippi. It holds 109 listings: 83 in Missouri and 26 in Illinois. Eighty-four are dedicated boarding or daycare facilities and 11 are veterinary practices. We reached and reviewed 81 of their 98 websites field by field, 64 in Missouri and 17 in Illinois. Every disclosure figure below uses 81 as its denominator, not 109, and every share is also given as a count, because several of these sites are the same website listed more than once.

Missouri is a Tier B state. The Department of Agriculture licenses and inspects boarding kennels under the Animal Care Facilities Act, but it publishes no licensee list, so there is no license number in this index to check, and no record was retrieved from the Department when we checked on 2026-10-19. The City of St. Louis adds a kennel permit, and the rules of the surrounding Missouri counties were not mapped. All of that applies to the 83 Missouri listings only. Illinois rules were not researched, so for the 26 Illinois listings this index says nothing about licensing at all. A state license is a floor, not a quality grade, and nothing here says which facility holds what.

Start with the overnight question, because it is the one a boarding owner asks last and should ask first. Eleven facilities (13.6% of 81) say anything about it. Ten say a person is there. Arch City Dog Boarding says its owner "lives on site so your pup is not left alone overnight", and Benny's Bed and Biscuits in Maryville says its owners "live on site in the caretaker's apartment". Love Unleashed, which has two listings, says "we are staffed 24 hours so the dogs are never alone, day or night". Happy Tails STL says "trained staff members are always on-site", and The Barkford says it is "staffed 24/7". The other four are Kennelwood locations repeating one chain FAQ: "Our boarding staff cares for pets around the clock 365 days a year." One facility says the opposite. Hounds Town in St. Charles says it has no staff staying overnight, and points to "an established routine for weekends and holidays". The other 70 reviewed sites are silent, which is a fact about a website on a date and not a finding about the care.

The supervision numbers are thin. Three listings publish a staff-to-dog ratio (3.7%): both Petropolis locations, with "no more than 15 dogs per attendant", and Happy Dog Spot, with "about 15 dogs for each staff member". Three publish a maximum group size: the same two Petropolis pages cap playgroups at 25, and Holly Hills Pet Hotel takes out "groups of 5-8 dogs". No site publishes a capacity. Six listings publish an injury or emergency policy. Arch City and four Kennelwood pages promise a call, and Kennelwood says "we will contact you or your emergency contact person" if a pet is ill or injured. Pack Leader, Plus... is the only one that addresses a bite, and puts the bill on the biting dog's owner.

Who pays the vet is a separate question, and ten listings answer it. Kennelwood's four pages charge "A required resort fee of $15 per pet & per boarding visit" that covers unexpected illness or injury up to $500. Arch City says its insurance pays when a dog is hurt in its care. Hounds Town, Lucky Dog Barks and Recreation, Happy Dog Spot and Benny's put the cost on the owner. Silver Maple Pet Center says only that it will call the owner's vet if the owner cannot be reached.

How a boarded dog spends the day is stated by 12 listings, and the answers do not compare. At one end are Kennelwood's "All, pets 4 times throughout the day" and Sled & Breakfast's "kenneled for a short time 3x a day". At the other end, Happy Tails promises "up to 10 hours of play daily". Eleven listings describe a play model: seven say open play all day and four say open play with enforced rest. Twenty-two describe an option for a dog that does not join the group. Twelve say so plainly, four sell it as a paid add-on, and six describe it as an arrangement for some dogs.

Admission is where operators say the most. Forty-seven (58.0%) publish a vaccination list, and all 47 require rabies, distemper and Bordetella. Canine influenza is required by 12, seven of them No Leash Needed branches, and recommended by 14, and 21 do not mention it, so the same dog can be admitted at one facility and turned away at another. None of the 47 lists leptospirosis as a separate requirement, though several name DHLPP, a combination that includes it. Only one, D J's Pet Camp & Cat Chalet, says how far ahead Bordetella must be given, "2 weeks before drop-off". Thirty (37.0%) say they will ask for proof of vaccination, and seven require a negative fecal test.

Thirty-three publish a spay and neuter policy. Sixteen require it outright, 13 require it only for group play, and four do not require it. The ages stated across 25 listings run from 6 months, the most common answer at 16 listings, to 12 months at Happy Tails, which says "All dogs over 12 months old must be spayed or neutered to board with us." Traveling Tails Inn says "All new dogs must be spayed or neutered by 9 months". On the other side, Petropolis says "We do not require dogs to be spayed or neutered to participate in group play", with exceptions for intact males over 12 months and females in heat, and Hyped Hounds in Belleville says "we have no rules against intact dogs coming to stay or play". Thirty-six publish a temperament evaluation or meet-and-greet policy: 18 require one, nine require a free one, eight attach conditions, and one, Grateful Pets, says no meet-and-greet is needed. Fourteen state a tour policy, and seven of them are No Leash Needed branches saying tours are by appointment.

Price is findable at 31 of the 98 websites our pricing crawler reached (31.6%). Among those 31, the median overnight rate is $51, with the middle half between $44 and $53, a spread of 1.2x. Kansas City, the other Missouri market in the index, sits at a $45 median, Dallas at $50 and Chicago at $60. The lowest first-dog rate we found is $20 at Estes Kennels in Godfrey and the highest $80 at Canine Social of Troy, both on the Illinois side. Thirty-three publish a daycare rate, with a median of $38, from $15 at Stargate Kennel to $48 at the Petropolis pair. These are first-dog standard rates, not the cost of a holiday week.

One structural caveat belongs on every number here. Twenty-seven of the 109 listings share a website with at least one other listing, across eight sites. No Leash Needed has seven listings, Kennelwood five, Dogtopia four and The Watering Bowl three, and Camp Bow Wow, Petropolis, Puppingham Palace and Love Unleashed have two each. Kennelwood alone supplies four of the ten overnight answers that say yes, four of the six incident policies and four of the ten vet-cost answers. A good part of this market's disclosure was decided once and counted several times.

None of this is a ranking and none of it is a judgment. Experienced operators disagree in good faith about whether a person must be in the building overnight, whether play should run all day, and whether an intact dog belongs in a group, and an unpublished answer may still be given by phone or at a tour. What the index measures is narrower: which of these facts you can find out before you call.