Confidence Stay at Royvon – Dog Boarding for Anxious Dogs
Open up new possibilities for you and your dog with our dog boarding for anxious dogs. We create a calm and supportive environment where nervous dogs can feel safe and understood. Since 1959, we’ve helped thousands of dogs and their owners feel more confident about time apart. Our Confidence Stay is designed as a gentle first step.It’s a short, overnight visit that introduces your dog to our team and space slowly, without pressure. It’s the perfect way to explore anxious dog boarding without committing to a whole stay.
Whether your dog is fearful of new places, struggles with separation, or simply needs extra reassurance, our approach is focused on understanding how to help an anxious dog build confidence at their own pace. We offer bespoke options for dog boarding for nervous dogs, including enrichment walks, one-on-one play, and around-the-clock care from experienced staff trained to work with reactive behaviours.
What is a Confidence Stay?
We know that having an anxious dog can make for an anxious owner too. The unpredictable nature of your dog’s fear adds stress to everyday life and makes normal activities seem impossible. We meet many owners who don’t feel they can go on holiday because their dog can’t be left anywhere else other than with them, with a whole range of guilty feelings that comes with that.
The Confidence Stay has been designed to help nervous dogs to settle. Whether their challenge is the new environment, new people, a new routine or simply being away from you, this two-day, one-night overnight stay gives your dog the chance to experience Royvon for a short while before committing to anything longer.
Our dog boarding for anxious dogs is a perfect step towards freedom from those feelings and the chance to go on holiday without worrying about leaving your dog unhappy. Our aim is to help you and your dog to move forward at whatever pace they need to feel comfortable, ensuring that no dog ever suffers distress and you can feel good about leaving your dog in our care.
What does a Confidence Stay include?
When you bring your anxious dog for a Confidence Stay, you will be met by a team member at drop-off. They will greet you and your dog, talk to you and listen to everything you have to share about your dog and what they need to have to feel at home. You can ask all the questions you need and your dog can have a good sniff around.
Over the two days that your dog is with us, they will take part in a group or solo play session, determined by their carer as to which is most beneficial to your dog’s needs, as well as a nature enrichment walk with lots of opportunity to sniff and explore, a brilliant way for dogs to relax and let off some energy in a low intensity way. In addition, before going to bed, there will be a late night comfort walk for the chance to toilet.
At the end of that first day, you will receive a report about how your dog has settled in, what they have been up to and any possible areas of concern and appropriate actions taken.
When you come to collect your dog the next day, you will be met by one of the team to make sure you have chance to ask any further questions and you will receive your day two report, including recommendations for next steps, depending on what your ultimate goals are for your dog.
Before arrival, you will be able to share all of the information needed about any medical or feeding needs, as well as ensuring vaccination records are up to date and any comfort toys or blankets are registered. We provide quality options for these and you may prefer to leave treasured belongings at home but we know that these can be important to anxious dogs.
Mimi was absolutely wonderful. She took the time to really understand both us and our new family member (Lilo), who joined us when she was 16 months old. She helped educate us on how to best support and care for our dog, and all her advice and training techniques were practical and relevant to our situation.
Her approach was always positive, encouraging, and thoughtful, which made the learning experience enjoyable for all of us. As a result of her help and guidance, Lilo is now confident, well adjusted and happy doggy.
Highly recommend Royvon and Mimi to anyone looking for professional, compassionate dog training.
The team is incredibly kind, helpful, and accommodating. When I recently broke my foot, they arranged a last-minute stay for him so he could be properly looked after while my husband was away. They even let us pick Vincent up after hours when our flight home was severely delayed — something we were so grateful for.
We love the daily updates and photos they send, and they’re always quick to respond to WhatsApp messages or suggest services that might benefit Vincent during his stay. We always feel he’s in the safest, most caring hands.
Thank you so much, Royvon — we’re so glad we found you!
We have taken our puppy to Royvon since he was 12 weeks old and now 6 months. Starting with the master class at home then puppy school and 1:1’s! We have felt completely supported by everyone at Royvon, nothing ever too much trouble.
We couldn’t have asked for better care, all staff are kind, friendly and so welcoming. Our Puppy is excited as soon as he enters the Royvon premises, he knows exactly where to go and always greeted with open arms and cuddles. So great to have a safe environment to leave our puppy without having to worry about him! Thank you Royvon for all your help and ongoing support! Rocky is one happy and beautifully behaved boy!
We have Romeo and Kelsey’s on going support and together I’m hoping we’ll help our boy become the calm gentle giant we know he can be. Ps his recall is also now excellent
Thanks
Sha
Our Border Collie, Coby, often would chase cars, wildlife, etc. With her guidance, Coby is a lot better.
Thank you Charlie for all your support and encouragement.
From point of enquiry about boarding for our two dogs Mabel and Albie, the communication from the team has been amazing and so helpful. It was an easy booking process and I loved that we could make the stay as bespoke as we wanted to suit our dogs best, enabling them to follow a similar routine to when they are at home.
This is the first time we have left our dogs but would not hesitate to use Royvon again. Every member of staff we met showed their passion for working with dogs and were true experts. We collected our dogs yesterday after a 10 day stay and it was evident they had been so well cared for. We loved the updates whilst we were away, ranging from photos to written reports which were so reassuring. It was also clear that they really got to know Mabel and Albie as their observations and comments were spot on, also showing that both dogs were relaxed and settled in the boarding environment and with the staff that cared for them. A special thank you to Millie and Sofia who were both amazing and spent a lot of time with them. Mabel and Albie send kisses!
We would not hesitate to recommend and are already looking forward to booking them in again.
The Hooper family.
The staff were brilliant ( Millie especially)
My shepherd ( Easy ) was looked after so well on his “ confidence “ stay .
I was updated regularly.
We will be booking another stay soon .
A very professional, efficient ,
knowledgeable & friendly set up .
I highly recommend a visit .
Thanks very much everyone at Royvon
Nick & Easy 🐾
It has been very difficult for us to leave Riley in anybody else’s care because he requires experience and a controlled environment and we were blown away by how intuitively and confidently the team at Royvon took care of him and put our minds at ease. Millie who checked Riley out was fantastic too and had spent extra time with him that morning, and everybody we met on site was so responsive, kind and professional. It is life changing to know there is a place we can trust with a tricky but beloved dog, and we are looking forward to Riley building strong relationships with the team there. Thank you Tilly, Millie and all at Royvon!
Sisu absolutely loves it at Royvon and gets excited every time we pull into the car park!
From the moment we drop her off, we know she’s in great hands. The staff are professional, caring and clearly passionate about what they do.
Sisu always comes home happy, healthy and tired after enjoying days packed with play, training and love from the team :).
It gives us total peace of mind knowing she’s getting great care and we never hesitate to book her into Royvon when we’re going away.
We highly recommend Royvon!
I can now go on holiday knowing that my dog will be having a great time too.
Alfie and familyxx
Both Leo and Pippin had a great time at Royvon, staff all very pleasant and clearly love working with the dogs. The videos of the dogs out and about shows how happy they are whilst on their holidays. Wouldn’t hesitate to use Royvon again.
What is Royvon?
For over 65 years, we have been helping anxious dogs and their owners to find the confidence to live happily together. Our training methods are based on the latest scientifically-backed studies and are always force-free and play-focused. We help dogs to feel good about making the right choices and look to their owners for reassurance and guidance when they aren’t sure.
Our boarding options are award-winning, including PIF Best Kennel 2023, with three sites to choose from so that you can find the right fit for your dog. Choose from our Surrey base amongst woodland, the wide green spaces of our country retreat by the Brecon Beacons, or our innovative Royvon Playhouse in South Wales where there is fun to be had whatever the weather.
All three of our secure sites have training and play paddocks, premium boarding spaces, a devoted care team who look after the dogs 24/7, and a specialist training team who work with dogs and their families to achieve life-changing results.
The most customised service, for the dogs that need it most
The aim of a successful Confidence Stay is to make progress. For some anxious dogs this may be the boost they need to feel comfortable coming to us for boarding or training in the future, for others it may take longer, with more stages before they reach that point. We don’t limit how many confidence stays a dog can experience before signing up to another service so that you can decide exactly what you would like to happen next.
We can also recommend nearby accommodation if you are coming from further away – our Esher site even has an AirBnb property next door – so that you know you can be on-hand immediately if your dog needs your reassurance. We can work with you to extend the hours that they are without you in a step-by-step approach over a weekend, a week or a number of visits.
Our Confidence Stay gives us the chance to get to know your dog, as well as them getting to know us. Every dog is different, anxious dogs even more so. The recommended next steps will be based on your dog and your own requirements. Some dogs are happy to come and stay for boarding straight off, some may need a further Confidence Stay, some may benefit from some training first. We will chat this through with you and help to build a plan that works with your goals. There is never any pressure to move ahead with the plan straight away, it’s all about what feels right for you and your dog.
At all three of our sites, we have expert trainers who work with anxious and reactive dogs to help them to overcome their fears and feel comfortable in a variety of situations and environments. All breeds, all personalities and all ages are welcome at Royvon. Our signature residential Behaviour Modification Training Programme has helped countless dogs to handle everything from traffic to food guarding, dog-to-dog aggression to territorial issues at home. Royvon also offers non-residential training blocks so if staying away from home is an issue, you can still get the help you need.
Open up a new world of adventures for your anxious dog with a Confidence Stay at Royvon.




