Making Holidays Effortless

Are you visiting the Forest of Dean, Ross-on-Wye / Wye Valley area on holiday? Don’t hesitate to bring your pets! In cases where you want to go out on the evening and are not permitted to leave your animal alone in your accommodation, we’ll happily visit to care for your animals while you enjoy a night on the town. When you’re out for a late night, we’ll collect your beloved animal and bring them to stay at our house for the evening. Then, we’ll return them in the morning so you’re free to carry on with your holiday.

Avoid Disappointment

The license we hold from the council limits us to caring for just six dogs at any one time. That means it’s important that you call ahead to discuss our availability. Working with you, we’ll try to get you booked in at a convenient and suitable time.

Going the Distance

Naturally, SWAT Pets is well-equipped to recommend excellent dog-walking routes in and around our area. Whatever your needs are, simply drop us an email and we will work to accommodate you.

Passionate about Pets

At SWAT Pets, all of the services we offer are informed by a sincere love of animals. That’s why we work so hard to take excellent care of your pets. We are a husband & wife team, bringing over 80 years' worth of combined years of owning our own pets.
Prior to your pet staying with us, you and your pet(s) will have to undertake a "Meet & Greet", where Riker & Willow -  Our Tri-colour Cavalier & our Corgi - will undertake a temperament assessment of your pet, just to ensure that he thinks they will get along with everdoggy else. They will also get to meet our other dogs, and have a play under both your & our watchful eyes in the front garden.
Whilst they get on and sniff each other from nose to tail, etc, we will ask you lots of questions to ensure that we have all the information we require to look after them properly. Naturally, this is the perfect time for you to get to know us and to ask any questions that you want to also.

Customers are free to phone us directly, at any time (within reason), to check on their pets; we will try to keep you up to date on how they're doing by either sending you pictures / WhatsApp messages throughout their stay.
We will do anything that we can, to make sure that you're completely happy throughout their stay with us.

We had a dog stay with us over Christmas once, whilst his Mum went to Australia. We waited up until midnight on Christmas Eve (UK time) to give Mum an unexpected Christmas present - Face Time for Mum & Dog! Both loved it, but the one thing I hadn't taken into account was that although he could hear his Mum, he kept looking behind the screen to find her! When he couldn't, he went back to sleep as, to be fair, I'd had to wake him and it was a long time past his bedtime.

The Company We Keep

Please note that, unfortunately, there are some pets that we are unable to accommodate. We board only calm small dog breeds, or larger ones that're elderly and want to live a relaxed lifestyle. The largest breed we house is a hand-span below knee height. As we specialise in the smaller dogs, we don't want animals that're too 'bouncy' all the time - we'll leave any bouncing Tigger!
So dogs that're on the go all the time might not be suitable - you know your dog, and if you think that it's got too much 'bounce' in it, then it's up to you as to whether you think your dog should come to us or not.

Don’t hesitate to contact us when you are unsure whether your dog is suitable. 

We would never leave it to chance that your dog was going to get along and fit in with all the other guests and our dogs too. Prior to staying with us, we insist on a "Meet & Greet" where you bring your dog(s) along to ensure that they get along with our dogs - and that they fall within our requirements too. We are happy to arrange further meetings to ensure that your pet will feel comfortable alongside our own animals, including trial days, etc.

The decision as to whether your dogs would be suitable would be discovered at the meet and greet. We could all think that they would be at each other, and then they meet and just lay down together!

Once we've had the "Meet & Greet" we will then all be in an informed position to say whether they will be welcome or not.

Unacceptable Dogs - Too Large

Certain dogs would appear on the face of it to be acceptable generically, but which are precluded by our under the knee rule, but just to make sure it is clear - and this is not a slur against your dog in any way - we reluctantly have to say "No" to the following breeds. This is in no way a slur against your pet, we just have to think of the small & tiny dogs that are under our care:

• Any Bull Terrier
• Any "fighting dog" eg  Akita & Akita Inu
• Any "snow dog" ie Huskies etc
• Any on the dangerous dog list
• Any Mastiff
• Any Sight-hounds (Greyhound, Lurcher, Whippet, etc)
• Australian Cattle Dogs
• Australian Shepherd
• Border Collie (unless short or elderly)
• Brittany Spaniel
• Bully Kutta
• Cane Corso
• English Setter
• German Shepherd (Ian's favourite breed - but a rule's a rule!)
• Golden Retriever
• Irish Setter
• Korean Jindo
• Labrador Retriever
• Staffordshire Terrier
• Vizsla

You may come across some dogs from the above list when you come to see us. That may well be because they've been coming since before the ban was in place, and have shown themselves to be suitable to stay here anyway.

It's also possible that they're getting on a bit, and just want to potter around the garden swapping 'tall tails' with their friends.

All dogs are on a one-strike system, so if they break rules (eg Act aggressively towards dogs or humans, cause a fight, etc.) then they will be ejected from our care and back to the owner to find another place for them.

With most of our guests being smaller, we look after ALL our guests like worried parents. The phrase that springs to mind for us is "In loco parentis", and we take that responsibility very seriously.

If in doubt, call and ask!