Running a boarding kennel means holding a dozen things in your head at once: which runs are occupied tonight, which dogs have medications due at 6 PM, which owner still owes a balance, and whether you have room for that last-minute Friday call. Most kennels manage this with a combination of tools that don’t talk to each other — a booking app here, a spreadsheet there, paper medication logs, and a mental model of capacity that only one person fully understands.

Wagnur’s pet boarding software puts all of it in one place. Not as a promise — as a working system that your front desk, kennel techs, and groomers can actually use without a training week.

A Calendar Built for Kennel Operations

The booking calendar is the heart of any kennel management system. Wagnur’s is designed around how boarding actually works: multi-day stays, overlapping arrivals and departures, variable run types, and the constant need to know — right now — what capacity looks like tonight versus the weekend.

What it does:

Drag-and-drop reservations — move a guest to a different run or room without navigating menus. Reassignments take three seconds.
Real-time occupancy view — see total capacity, occupied runs, and available slots at a glance. Color-coded by status so a floor scan takes one look, not a count.
Multi-service calendar — if you also offer daycare or grooming, those appointments appear in the same view. No switching between systems.
Automated reminders — pre-arrival reminders go out via email or SMS at configurable intervals without anyone on your staff having to remember to send them. Vaccination upload requests, deposit prompts, and sign-off forms are included.
Waitlist management — when you’re full, take the booking as a waitlist entry and let the system notify the owner if a spot opens.

Health Records at the Point of Care

The single most common failure point in boarding operations isn’t the booking system — it’s the information gap between when a guest is booked and when they arrive, and between what the front desk knows and what the night-shift kennel tech sees.

Wagnur’s health tracking connects directly to the booking calendar. Every pet profile carries:

Vaccination records with expiration tracking — staff see an alert at check-in if anything is expired or missing. Owners can upload records through the customer portal before arrival.
Medication logs — scheduled medications with dosing instructions, times, and staff confirmation tracking. Nothing gets missed because a note was stuck to the wrong clipboard.
Feeding instructions — diet, portion size, feeding schedule, and any food restrictions visible to every staff member on every shift.
Behavioral flags — dog-reactive, anxious around strangers, needs a slow introduction to the play yard. These stay on the profile, not on a sticky note that falls off the kennel door.
Vet authorization forms — stored and accessible so you’re not hunting for paper if a guest needs urgent care at 10 PM.

For a deeper look at health tracking capabilities, see Wagnur’s pet health tracking module.

Payments That Don’t Create a Second Job

Taking deposits, collecting balances at checkout, handling refunds, and reconciling all of it at month-end is one of the most time-consuming back-office tasks for kennel operators. Wagnur handles it natively through Stripe — the same payment infrastructure used by Airbnb, Shopify, and millions of other businesses.

Deposit collection at booking — require a deposit automatically when a reservation is created. No chasing.
Balance collection at checkout — outstanding balances are visible and collectible without leaving the check-out screen.
Credit packs — sell prepaid stays in bulk. The system tracks the balance and deducts automatically.
Multi-pet discounts — configure percentage or flat discounts for households with multiple pets.
Payment history and receipts — every transaction is logged, searchable, and attached to the reservation.

No third-party billing system. No manual reconciliation. Payments and reservations live in the same database, so your end-of-month reporting doesn’t require exporting from three different places.

The Customer Portal: Self-Service That Actually Helps

Every question a pet owner asks your front desk is time your front desk isn’t spending on check-ins. Wagnur’s customer portal lets owners handle routine tasks themselves:

Book and modify reservations online
Upload vaccination records directly to their pet’s profile
Pay deposits or outstanding balances
View upcoming stays and booking history
Receive report card updates from their pet’s stay

The portal is mobile-optimized and doesn’t require owners to create an account with a separate app download — it works from any browser.

See the full pet boarding customer portal for details on the owner-facing experience.

Who Wagnur’s Boarding Module Is For

Wagnur is designed for pet boarding facilities with 5 to 50 staff and 20 to 200 animals daily. That’s the range where a single-tool workaround stops working but enterprise software is overkill and overpriced.

It works equally well for:

Boutique boarding kennels that want a clean, professional system for reservations, records, and payments without complexity they don’t need.
Multi-service facilities that run boarding alongside daycare, grooming, or training — everything shares one calendar and one customer record.
Facilities growing toward multi-location — the platform’s multi-tenant architecture means adding a second location doesn’t require starting over.

Modular Adoption: Start with Boarding, Add as You Grow

One reason kennel operators resist switching software is the fear of a big-bang migration — everyone learning a new system simultaneously, workflows disrupted for weeks. Wagnur is built to avoid that.

The boarding module is a complete starting point. You can be fully operational with reservations, check-in/out, payments, and health records without touching grooming, retail, or staff scheduling. When you’re ready for those, you add the module. Each module has a 14-day free trial — you test it in your actual operation before committing.

If you’re evaluating alternatives, read how Wagnur compares to Gingr for an honest breakdown by feature and pricing model.

Ready to see the calendar in action? Start a free trial at wagnur.com/pricing or reach out to [email protected] — no sales deck required, just a 20-minute walkthrough of your actual workflow.

Pet Boarding Software Built for How Kennels Actually Work