Dog Boarding Cancellation Policy: Peak-Season Wording With AI

State the peak dates, take a deposit of about half the stay, and tie refunds to notice: the deposit back (less a small admin fee) with a month's warning, half back with two weeks' warning, and nothing back after that unless you re-let the kennel. Give an AI your numbers and ask for plain-English clauses, then check every figure.

Peak dates need their own rules because a cancelled kennel costs you most when you cannot refill it, and the short-notice cancellations are the ones you refill least often. A one-night deposit can cover a quiet week and still leave a hole at New Year. The right amounts come from your own record of cancelled bookings and how many you re-let, not from copying another kennel's page.

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What a cancelled kennel costs you, by notice given

A cancellation only costs money if the kennel stays empty. The chance of refilling it drops as the date approaches, so the loss is uneven: small with a month's notice, close to the whole booking inside a week. Pull last year's cancelled peak bookings into a sheet with three columns and nothing else: days of notice before arrival, booking value, and whether you re-let the kennel (yes or no). No guest or dog names are needed.

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The figures below are illustrative: a 20-kennel business, a peak rate of $70 a night, an average booking of five nights ($350), and 40 peak bookings cancelled last year.

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The last column is the share of cancellations that stayed empty, multiplied by the $350 booking. Twenty bookings stayed empty, so 20 × $350 = $7,000 of revenue went missing. Half of it ($3,500) came from the ten bookings cancelled inside a week, which is why one flat rule fits peak dates so badly.

With only nine or ten cancellations in a band the rates wobble. If you have fewer than about thirty cancelled peak bookings in total, treat the percentages as a first guess and review them after a season.

An assistant can do the grouping, but ask for formulas rather than a finished table. Language models slip on arithmetic over many rows, and the re-let rate is the number the rest of the policy leans on.

Here is a CSV of last year's cancelled peak bookings with the columns
days_notice, booking_value, relet (yes or no). There are no names in it.
Group the rows into four bands: 30 or more days, 14 to 29, 7 to 13, and
under 7. For each band give the number cancelled, the number re-let, the
re-let rate as a percentage, and the average loss per cancellation
(booking value x share not re-let). Then give me the spreadsheet formulas
(COUNTIFS and AVERAGEIFS) that reproduce each number so I can check them.
[paste the rows]

Run the formulas in your own sheet. If they disagree with the table the assistant wrote, trust the formulas.

Pick peak and blackout dates from occupancy, not the calendar

Holidays are a guess at demand. Your own booking history is the evidence. Mark a night as peak when at least 85% of your kennels were booked a month ahead last year, and as blackout when it was 95% or more. Those thresholds are a starting point; choose ones that match how full you like to be. The AI can find the date ranges if you paste a table of date, kennels booked 30 days out, and total kennels. It needs no guest details at all.

Three date types are enough for most kennels.

'Blackout' means different things to different owners. Some use it for dates when no refunds are given, others for dates when no new bookings are taken. Define yours in a single sentence on the booking page. For the width of the window, remember that guests travelling for a holiday drop off a day or two before it and collect a day or two after, so two days either side of the holiday itself is a sensible first draft. Your occupancy table will show whether yours should be wider or narrower.

Deposit tiers that follow the cost of an empty kennel

Now turn the loss column into rules. Take a $350 booking with a 50% deposit ($175). Set what you keep in each notice band close to the average loss in the table above, then round to figures a guest can remember.

The 'you keep' column tracks the loss column on purpose. A charge that follows your likely loss, and drops to an admin fee when you refill the kennel, reads as compensation rather than punishment. A legal glossary states the general principle this way: courts will not enforce a pre-agreed charge that is punitive. Whether and how that applies where you trade is a question for a solicitor (the last section lists what to ask), but a tier table built from your own cancellations gives them something concrete to review.

The re-let row costs you little, because those are the bookings you did refill, and it does most of the work of keeping the policy fair. It also gives a guest a reason to cancel early and tell you quickly. If you prefer credit to refunds, swap 'refunded' for 'held as credit for six months' in the top two rows; some guests accept credit more readily than a lost deposit.

Peak-season policy wording to copy

This is the whole policy in plain English. Replace the figures and dates with your own, and treat it as a draft for your solicitor, not a finished contract.

Peak-season bookings

1. Dates. Peak dates are [dates]. Blackout dates are [dates]. They are listed on our booking page and in your confirmation. Every other date follows our standard policy.

2. Minimum stay. Peak bookings need at least 3 nights. Blackout bookings need at least 4.

3. Deposit. We take a deposit of 50% of the stay when you book. For blackout dates the balance is due 21 days before arrival. For peak dates it is due on arrival.

4. Cancelling a peak booking. 30 days or more before arrival: we refund your deposit, less a $20 admin fee. 14 to 29 days before: we refund half of your deposit. 7 to 13 days before: we keep your deposit. Fewer than 7 days before, or if you do not arrive: we keep your deposit and charge a further 40% of the stay.

5. Cancelling a blackout booking. We keep your deposit and refund any balance you have already paid. If we re-let your kennel, see 6.

6. If we re-let your kennel. If we fill your kennel for the same dates, we refund everything above the $20 admin fee, whatever the notice. We will tell you either way within three working days of your arrival date.

7. How we count. Notice runs from the moment we receive your cancellation until 12 noon on your arrival date, in calendar days.

8. Changing dates. Peak bookings made 30 days or more ahead can be moved once, free of charge, to other peak or standard dates where we have space. Any other change counts as a cancellation and a new booking.

9. Going home early. Peak and blackout stays are charged in full if your dog leaves early, unless your dog is unwell (see 10).

10. Illness and emergencies. If your dog is unwell or you have an emergency, tell us as soon as you can. With a vet's note or other evidence we will move the booking, or hold your deposit as credit for 6 months instead of keeping it.

11. Vaccinations. Your dog's vaccinations must be valid until the day they go home. If we can't accept your dog on arrival because they are not, we treat it as a cancellation inside 7 days.

12. If we cancel. If we have to cancel for any reason, such as illness on site or a staffing problem, we refund everything you have paid.

Three choices in that wording are deliberate. Clause 7 fixes how days are counted, because 'seven days' otherwise means calendar days to one guest and working days to another. Clause 6 turns 're-let' from a vague hope into a promise with a deadline. And clause 11 closes a gap many policies leave open: the dog turned away at the desk for an out-of-date certificate. The dog boarding intake form tutorial covers how to check vaccination proof before it gets that far.

Making the AI cite a fact line for every clause

Put your numbers in as a facts list, tell the assistant to use nothing else, and make it show where each clause came from.

You are drafting a peak-season cancellation policy for a dog boarding
business. Plain English, no legal jargon (no "hereinafter",
"notwithstanding", "the Client"). Write to "you" and "we".
Use ONLY these facts. If something you need is missing, ask me for it
instead of inventing it.
- Peak dates: [dates]. Blackout dates: [dates]. Everything else is standard.
- Minimum stay: peak 3 nights, blackout 4 nights.
- Deposit: 50% of the stay at booking. Balance: on arrival (peak), 21 days
  before arrival (blackout).
- Peak cancellations by notice before arrival: 30+ days = deposit refunded
  less a $20 admin fee; 14-29 days = half the deposit refunded; 7-13 days =
  deposit kept; under 7 days or no-show = deposit kept plus a further 40%
  of the stay.
- Blackout cancellations: deposit kept, any balance already paid refunded,
  unless we re-let (see re-let rule).
- Re-let: if we re-let the kennel, refund everything above the $20 fee.
- Days are calendar days, counted to 12 noon on the arrival date.
- One free date change on peak bookings made 30+ days ahead.
- Early collection: charged in full unless the dog is unwell.
- Illness or emergency: with evidence, move the booking or hold the deposit
  as credit for 6 months.
- If we cancel: full refund.
Write (1) the policy as numbered clauses, under 350 words; (2) a 60-word
summary for the booking page; (3) one sentence for the tick box.
Then add a table: clause number | the fact line it came from. Mark any
clause with no source line as UNSOURCED.

A first draft (illustrative, shortened) came back with this summary and these clauses:

Summary for the booking page: Peak and blackout dates need a 50% deposit. Deposits are non-refundable. If you cancel early we will do our best to help, and we always try to re-let your kennel.

2. Minimum stay. All peak and blackout bookings need a minimum stay of 3 nights.

6. Re-let. If we re-let your kennel, we will refund the difference. Refunds are processed within 5 to 7 working days.

10. Illness. If your dog is unwell, send us a vet's note within 24 hours of cancelling and we will hold your deposit as credit for 6 months.

It reads smoothly, and four of those lines would start an argument with a guest.

• The summary contradicts the tiers. 'Deposits are non-refundable' is false for anyone who cancels a month ahead. This is the most damaging kind of error, because a guest will quote whichever version is kinder.
• The minimum stay is wrong for blackout dates. The facts say four nights; the draft says three.
• Clause 6 is vaguer than the facts and adds a promise. 'Refund the difference' replaces 'everything above the $20 admin fee', and the 5 to 7 working days was never supplied.
• Clause 10 invents a deadline. Twenty-four hours is hard on a guest whose dog is taken ill on a Saturday night.

The source table at the end catches this without rereading every word: the processing time and the 24-hour limit appear as UNSOURCED, which means the assistant made them up. Then test the wording. Ask the assistant to invent five awkward bookings, answer each using only the policy text, and say so when it cannot. A typical gap this finds is whether a cancellation at 3pm on the fourteenth day counts as fourteen days or thirteen. Clause 7 exists to settle that.

Illness, emergencies and closures

Exceptions are where goodwill lives, and where a policy falls apart if each one is improvised. Decide the usual answers before the first awkward phone call.

• The dog is unwell. Ask for a vet's note, then move the booking or hold the deposit as credit. No cancellation charge.
• The owner has an emergency. Ask what evidence you will accept before the situation arises, and keep it minimal. You need to know that the emergency is real, not its medical details.
• Travel is disrupted. Treat it as an ordinary cancellation by notice band, with credit offered as the softer option if you can re-let.
• You cancel. Full refund, and if you can, a suggestion of another kennel. A guest left without cover in peak week will remember the refund less than the scramble.
• The dog fails the check on arrival. Clause 11 applies. Vaccinations are the usual cause, and the fix is to check proof when the booking is made, not at the door.

Keep a one-line log of every exception: date, booking, reason, what you decided. It keeps you consistent when two guests compare notes in a group chat, and it is your record if a charge is disputed. The assistant can draft the reply once you have decided, but the decision is yours. This prompt keeps it in its lane:

Here is our peak-season policy: [paste]. Here is a guest's message with
names removed: [paste]. Reply as the business owner in under 90 words,
applying only the policy. If the policy does not clearly cover the
situation, write OWNER DECISION NEEDED and list the two or three options
and what each would cost us.

Six replies for the messages you will get

Each of these applies the policy above, uses placeholders for names, and stays under a hundred words. Edit the tone to match how you write.

Cancelling inside the keep-the-deposit window (7 to 13 days)

Hi [first name], I'm sorry you can't make [dates]. Because this is [number] days before arrival, our peak policy keeps the deposit unless we re-let the kennel. I've put the dates back on the waitlist today. If we fill them, I'll refund the deposit less the $20 admin fee, and either way I'll email you by [date] to say what happened. If other dates would work, I can hold a kennel for you now.

Asking to move dates inside 30 days

Hi [first name], thanks for asking. Peak bookings can only be moved free of charge up to 30 days before arrival, and you are [number] days away, so a move would count as a cancellation plus a new booking. If you'd like to go ahead, the cancellation rules apply to the original deposit and I'd take a new one for [new dates]. Shall I check space for those dates before you decide?

The dog is unwell

Hi [first name], I'm sorry to hear [dog name] is poorly. Please send me a note from your vet saying [dog name] isn't fit to board. Once I have it there is no cancellation charge, and I can either move the booking to [dates] or hold the deposit as credit for six months. I hope [dog name] is better soon.

'I didn't know it was non-refundable'

Hi [first name], I can see why this is frustrating. The peak policy was on the booking page and in your confirmation email of [date], and your booking record shows you ticked to accept it. I've attached a copy. The same rule applies to every guest, so I can't change how it applies here. What I can do is put the dates on the waitlist today and refund the deposit less $20 if we fill them. If something unusual is behind the cancellation, tell me and I'll look again.

A waitlisted guest when a kennel frees up

Hi [first name], a kennel has opened for [dates]. I'm holding it for you until [time] on [day]. Reply YES and pay the deposit of $[amount] at [payment link] to confirm it. If I haven't heard by then I'll offer it to the next guest. The peak-season policy is at [link] and applies to this booking.

Collecting early during peak

Hi [first name], of course. [dog name] can go home on [day] and we'll have them ready from [time]. Peak stays are charged in full because the kennel can't be re-let at short notice, so the total stays at $[amount]. For next time you can book just the nights you need, and I'm happy to help you choose them.

The fourth reply is the one to rehearse. It is the guest most likely to argue, and the reply works only because the policy was visible at booking and the booking record proves it. The next section covers that proof.

Proof that the guest saw the policy

A guest who booked by phone, never opened the policy page, and later finds the deposit kept will dispute the charge with their card provider, which asks you to show what the guest agreed to. A business with a policy buried on a separate page has nothing to send.

Stripe's documentation shows what that evidence looks like. Its dispute record has fields for your refund policy as it was shown to the customer, documentation that the customer was shown it before purchase, a justification for why the customer isn't entitled to a refund, and a document or contract showing the customer's signature. Other payment providers ask similar questions, so check what yours wants. The practical rules follow from them:

• Show the policy at the moment of booking and put a tick box beside it, with a sentence such as: 'I have read the cancellation policy for peak dates (version [date]) and I agree to it.'
• Store the tick with a timestamp against the booking, and email the policy text, not only a link, in the confirmation.
• Keep a dated copy of every version you publish. When you change the policy for next year, the old text must still be on file for this year's bookings.
• For phone bookings, read the key terms aloud, then send the booking link or confirmation and ask for a reply of 'agreed'. The reply is your record.

Software that can mark date ranges as peak, enforce a minimum stay, take a percentage deposit and store the tick makes this routine. The dog boarding booking software comparison looks at which tools do that, and taking deposits online with Stripe or Square covers the payment side if you are starting from a form and a payment link.

Replay last year's cancellations through the draft

Before you publish, run last year's 40 cancellations through the new tiers. Add one column to your sheet: what the policy would have charged. Using the illustrative figures from earlier:

The old rule in this example kept one night ($70) from anyone cancelling inside 14 days: 21 × $70 = $1,470, about 21% of the $7,000 lost. The tiers collect about $4,880, roughly 70%, and the 20 guests whose kennels you refilled paid only the $20 fee. The remaining gap is the generosity built in: early cancellers lose little, and you accept that you will sometimes absorb a loss.

Two checks on the result. No tier should keep more than the average loss in its band, and here none does ($20 against $39, $87.50 against $105, $175 against $210, $315 against $318). A tier that charges more than you lose is the one that starts to look like a penalty. And if the total recovery is lower than you can live with, change one tier at a time and replay, so you know which change did what. The assistant can write the IF formulas for the replay, but run them yourself and compare against a few rows worked by hand.

Next year's peak dates deserve the same treatment before you publish them. The pet boarding demand and staffing forecast tutorial looks at using AI to anticipate which nights will fill.

Questions for a solicitor, and three checks before you publish

Take the tier table, the re-let figures and the policy text with you. A solicitor can review three pages of evidence faster than a blank page, and the questions below are the ones that decide whether the policy stands up where you trade.

1. May I take a deposit that is non-refundable, or only partly refundable, from consumers, and what must the wording say?
2. Is a charge of up to 90% of the stay defensible if I can show my re-let rates, or should the ceiling be lower?
3. Do online or phone bookings give guests a statutory right to cancel, and does it apply to dated boarding?
4. Can I charge the further 40% to a card on file, and what must the guest have agreed to first?
5. Is credit an acceptable alternative to a refund, and how long can it last?
6. How should I word and store the tick box and the phone-booking confirmation?

Then test the live system with a dummy booking. First, make a peak booking on the booking page and check that the dates, minimum stay, deposit amount and tick box all behave as the policy says. Second, read the confirmation email on a phone and check that the policy text is in it. Third, cancel the dummy booking at each of the four notice bands (change the arrival date to simulate them) and check that staff, software and the policy all produce the same number. A mismatch at this stage is cheap to fix. At New Year it is a refund dispute.

Questions boarders ask about peak-season cancellations

Is a non-refundable deposit allowed for dog boarding?

It depends on where you trade and how the deposit is framed. In many places a pre-agreed charge that tracks your likely loss is easier to defend than a punitive one, and consumer rules can add limits of their own. Have a solicitor read the final wording, and keep a record that each guest accepted it.

How much deposit should I take for holiday dates?

Half the stay is a common starting point, but your own data is a better guide. Look at what share of cancelled peak bookings you re-let, and at how much notice. Set the charges so a late cancellation roughly covers the nights you could not refill, and refund more when you do refill them.

Should I give credit instead of refunds?

Credit keeps the guest and softens the policy, and it suits cancellations that come with some notice. Give it an expiry (six months is workable), say whether it can be used on peak dates, and check with your adviser that credit-only terms are acceptable where you trade.

When should I publish my peak dates?

Publish them the day you open holiday bookings, on the booking page, in the confirmation email and in the tick-box sentence. Guests who learn the dates after paying a deposit are the ones who dispute the charge, so the earlier and more visible they are, the fewer arguments you will have.

Further reads

• Cattery Booking Software: Pen Calendars, Vaccine Checks and AI Replies — The same peak-date and deposit questions for a cattery.
• Riding Lesson Cancellation Policy: Weather, Welfare and Late Notice — Cancellation wording when welfare and weather decide the outcome.
• Swim School Cancellation Policy: Make-Up Lesson Wording With AI — Make-up and credit wording for another booking-heavy business.
• Restaurant No-Shows: Deposit Rules by Party Size, AI Confirmations — Deposit rules by group size and how confirmations cut no-shows.
• How to Price a Wedding Venue: Peak Dates, Midweek and Minimum Spend — Pricing peak dates against midweek dates.
• Gingr or MoeGo for a Pet Business? Plans, Costs and AI Compared — MoeGo lists $49 to $159 a month and Gingr $100 to $179. How to choose by business type, and what to ask about AI.
• Dog Daycare Temperament Test: Score Sheet and Owner Feedback With AI — A three-stage dog daycare temperament test, a ten-line score sheet, stop signs and an AI step that turns staff notes into owner feedback.
• How Much to Charge for Dog Walking: Solo, Group and Holiday Rates — A worked rate card for solo walks, group walks and holiday cover, built from your cost per diary hour, travel time and cancellation losses.
• Can ChatGPT Write a Dog Walking Contract? Terms to Verify — A fact-sheet prompt, a gap-finding second pass and a table of who verifies each term: keys, emergencies, off-lead walks, insurance and cancellation.
• AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.

Sources: Stripe API reference (dispute evidence fields: refund policy, refund policy disclosure, refund refusal explanation, customer signature); Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute (Wex) entry on liquidated damages. Peak dates, deposits, re-let rates and prices in this tutorial are illustrations, not market data.