While I generally recommend pet sitters over kennels because of the vaccine issues and many other issues, some dogs (and a very few cats) actually LOVE going to kennels, so the following is great news for the UK and may be precedent setting for other countries.

Pet Welfare Alliance in the UK reports that titer (or titre if you wish to spell it that way) testing for the core diseases (parvo, distemper, hepatitis/adenovirus) has been approved and allowed in place of blindly vaccinating where a valid certificate from a vet is provided, but is acceptable at the discretion of the kennel owner. – the first in the world where a regulatory body for boarding has accepted titer testing.

By approving titer testing in kennels, the British Small Animal Veterinary Association, British Veterinary Association, The Kennel Club, RSPCA, Dogs Trust, Pet Industry Federation, and others, have endorsed this alternative to vaccinating.

If you EVER encounter anything to do with vaccinating in England, you can quote that these bodies all accept that titer testing in place of vaccinating is an alternative, and don’t be bullied into vaccinating when you don’t need (or want) to. Times, they are a changin’ !!

Very surprising to me since the US does not consider it core is that Leptospirosis vaccine is mandatory for boarding.  “Despite our lobbying, and the CIEH’s lack of evidence, and the amount of dogs the new Lepto 4 vaccine has killed, they continued to state this as a mandatory vaccine for boarding. Dogs cannot acquire long lasting immunity, so the only way around it is if your vet will provide a certificate to say it is contraindicated and your dog should not receive it.”