Kennel staff at shift change are doing arithmetic: many dogs, many routines, a few minutes to absorb each one. A boarding sheet succeeds or fails in that handover. The question is not whether your sheet contains everything — most do — but whether a tired person, reading it once, in order, walks away knowing the things that would matter if they went wrong.
Order by What Must Not Be Missed
Sequence the page by consequence, not by the order of your day at home. The opening lines carry whatever incoming staff must not miss: a medicine due at a set time, an allergy that rules out the standard treats, a dog who must not be exercised with others, a door behaviour that risks an escape. Feeding follows, then exercise and toilet routine, then settling and comfort notes, then background. This order feels unusual to write, because owners naturally start with the morning routine, but a shift-change reader reads the top of the page carefully and the bottom at a skim — so the top is where danger lives. Within each part, one instruction per line. A line that tries to cover feeding amount, food location and slow-feeder use in a single sentence will be misread at speed; three short lines will not.
Timings Unmissable, Fixed Positions
Put every timing in the same format and the same kind of place: at the start of its line, in the same style, so “07:00” and “19:30” form a visible rhythm down the page. Feeding, medicines and contacts each get a fixed position that you keep identical on every version of the sheet you ever send — feeding in the upper half, medicines directly beneath it, contacts boxed at the foot. A returning kennel, or a staff member who boarded your dog last season, then reads by position rather than by hunting. Medicines are written exactly as recorded on their labels, with the dose timing tied to the kennel's routine where the clinic has agreed it, and contacts means two numbers that will be answered plus the vet's name and number, not a single mobile that might be on a plane. Dates of the stay and the dog's name and description belong in a header, large enough to match the sheet to the right kennel at arm's length.
One Page Discipline, and the Sixty-Second Test
One page is a discipline, not a formatting preference. When the sheet threatens to overflow, cut in a set order: first the explanations — staff need the instruction, not the story behind it; then the preferences that would be nice rather than necessary; then any duplicate of information the kennel already holds on its own intake form. Never cut a timing, a medicine, an allergy, or a contact to save space; shrink the type last and only slightly, because a cramped sheet fails the scan as surely as a long one. Then test the result honestly: hand the sheet to someone who does not know your dog, give them sixty seconds, take it back, and ask them to tell you what happens at the next mealtime, what must never happen, and who gets called if something goes wrong. Whatever they miss or muddle is a sheet problem, not a reader problem — rewrite that line, move it higher, and test again. A sheet that survives this test twice is ready. Before each stay, KinsLe puts the proven page within easy reach of kennel staff, with Pet Passport holding the final version ready to print again.