Boarding staff meet her without the context you live with every day. They do not know that she eats slowly in the evening, stiffens after a long sleep, or walks happily for a short loop and then wants home. A compact packet gives them her normal pattern in plain language, so care follows her baseline instead of a generic senior routine.
What Goes Into the Compact Packet
The packet contains a baseline summary written in plain terms, a generic-terms account of her medication routine, contact details for her vet and for out-of-hours help, and an emergency authorisation carrying an agreed limit. Nothing else needs to travel. Old test results, years of invoices and every historical note can stay at home, where you can fetch a copy if a vet asks for it during the stay.
Keep the packet short enough for a busy kennel team to read at check-in and use again at feeding time. A page that names what matters, in the order a day runs, will be read. A thick folder that mixes vital instructions with background paperwork invites staff to skim past the parts she depends on.
How Her Baseline and Medicines Should Read
Write the baseline summary as a picture of a normal day. Note how much she usually eats and when, how she drinks, her toilet habits, the walk length and pace she manages, and how she handles steps or slippery floors. Add how she sleeps, how she greets strangers, what unsettles her, and which calm cue, blanket position or quiet routine helps her settle without fuss.
Describe the routine for her medicines in generic terms only. Say what each medicine is for in plain words, when it is given during the day, whether it goes with food, and how she takes it, such as hidden in food or placed by hand. Leave her medicines in their labelled containers alongside the packet, and add a plain instruction to phone her vet if a dose is refused or missed.
Before Drop-Off: Terms, Contacts and a Final Read
Before the stay, have the boarding provider confirm its agreed terms in writing. Those written terms should cover the stay itself, who may collect her, what happens if your return is delayed, and how emergency care is handled. Read them against the authorisation in the packet, so the limit you have agreed and the limit the provider holds match exactly.
Check every contact on the packet in the week before she goes. Her usual vet may not cover nights, so the out-of-hours contact needs to be the practice or service that will actually answer. Phone the emergency authorisation wording through with the provider as well, so staff know they may act up to the agreed limit without waiting to reach you.
Add one plain line to the baseline about change itself, so staff know when a difference is large enough to act on. For a senior dog, appetite refused across a full day, new difficulty rising or settling, repeated restlessness at night, or drinking far beyond her usual pattern should prompt a call to the contacts on the packet rather than a note left until collection. Wording that change line in advance spares a staff member the judgement call of deciding alone whether a change counts as urgent, and it gives her out-of-hours contact a clear account of what shifted, when it was noticed and how she differs from the baseline staff were handed at check-in.
Finally, hand the packet over before a busy drop-off moment if the provider allows it, or walk through it at check-in without rushing. Point to the baseline first, then the medication routine, then the contacts and authorisation. A Pet Passport held in KinsLe gives you that same compact packet to share without rebuilding it for every stay.