Travel and boarding create welfare challenges for companion animals through disruption of routine, unfamiliar environments, and separation from bonded humans, with preparation and good facility choice substantially reducing welfare costs.
Travel and boarding welfare reflects the importance of environmental familiarity for companion animal wellbeing. Animals whose welfare is stable in familiar home environments may experience significant welfare disruption from boarding in novel environments with unfamiliar people and animals. The welfare solution is multi-layered: preparation through graduated exposure to boarding environments, selection of facilities with animal-appropriate housing and management, and where possible preference for in-home care that maintains environmental familiarity. For animals with high boarding stress, veterinary behavioral consultation about anti-anxiety management for boarding periods provides a welfare tool that reduces acute suffering during unavoidable absences.