Raw and Prescription Diets During a Boarding Stay
Lillian Ruff Pet Spa
If your dog eats raw, or eats a prescription diet your vet put them on, you have probably assumed boarding is off the table. Usually it is not. It is a conversation that needs to happen before you book, rather than at the counter on the way to the airport.
Boarding runs out of the Ronkonkoma location at 835 Portion Rd. The East Northport salon on Laurel Road is grooming only, so if you are coming from East Northport, Commack, Elwood or Northport, boarding means a short drive — worth knowing before you plan around the wrong address.
Bring your dog's own food. Portion every meal into its own labeled bag. Tell us about a raw or prescription diet when you book, not at drop-off.
Why we ask you to bring your own food
We can provide food at $5 a day per dog if you would rather not haul it. That option is there for dogs on an ordinary maintenance diet whose owners would rather travel light. If your dog eats raw or eats a veterinary prescription formula, it is not really an option, and we would rather say so plainly than have you find out on day two.
A boarding stay is already a change of bed, a change of noise and a change of routine. Food is the one variable you can hold completely constant — and the one most likely to cause a mess in the kennel if you don't. A dog on a therapeutic renal or hydrolyzed-protein diet cannot eat something else for four nights "just this once" without the point of the diet being lost. Your vet chose that food for a reason and we are not going to second-guess it.
Those three feeding times are the default, and custom schedules are available for puppies, seniors and medical diets. Tell us the schedule you keep at home and we will match it rather than making your dog adapt to ours.
Portioning and labeling that removes all guesswork
This is the part that decides whether the stay goes smoothly. A bag of food with a scoop and a verbal "about a cup and a half, maybe more if she seems hungry" is how mistakes happen. A bin of pre-portioned meals is how they don't.
Count the meals, not the days
Four nights with two meals a day plus the morning of check-out is nine meals. Pack ten. The spare covers a delayed flight or a meal that gets knocked over.
One meal, one bag
Zip bags or small deli containers, weighed at home where your scale and your usual scoop are. No portioning happens here, so nothing gets estimated here.
Write on every single one
Your dog's name, the date, and which meal it is — "Dog's name — Fri AM" is the whole format. Put it on each bag, not just the outer bag, because bags get separated.
Bag the extras separately
Toppers, supplements, fish oil, joint chews. Same labeling. If something must be given with food rather than after, write that on the bag too.
| Write this on the bag | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Your dog's name | More than one dog is boarding, and some of them look alike. |
| Day and meal (Sat PM) | Makes a skipped or doubled meal visible instantly. |
| RAW — KEEP FROZEN | Removes any chance of it being treated like ambient kibble. |
| Rx + what it's for | Tells anyone handling it that substitution is not allowed. |
Cold storage and handling: questions worth asking anywhere
If you feed raw, do not book anywhere — here included — without settling the cold chain first. Any facility that waves the question off is telling you something.
Ask directly
- Is there freezer or refrigerator space, and how much?
- Who thaws it, and when — the night before or the morning of?
- What happens to a portion my dog does not finish?
- If the answer is no, will you tell me now rather than at drop-off?
Make it easy on your side
- Bring it frozen solid, in a cooler, not thawed in the car.
- Flat-pack the bags so they stack — freezer space is finite everywhere.
- Bring the exact same brand and formula they eat at home.
- Keep the total volume honest. A week of raw for a 70-pound dog is bulky.
Space, not policy, is the thing to settle first. Cold storage is finite in any facility, and a week of raw for a large dog takes up more of it than people expect. Tell us the dog's weight, the daily amount and the number of nights when you call, and we can answer properly instead of guessing. A yes that turns into a no at check-in helps nobody.
Prescription diets and the note from your vet
Prescription food is simpler to store and harder to improvise around. Where you can, bring the original bag or cans alongside the portioned meals so the label with the formula name is physically present.
A short written note from your vet does more work than you would think, and it does not need to be formal: name of the diet, what it is treating, whether treats are permitted, and what to do if your dog refuses a meal. We are groomers and boarding staff, not clinicians — we follow the instruction, we do not make the call. Having it in writing means nobody has to interpret anything while you are somewhere with no signal.
Medications that must be given at times outside 7am to 10pm are a known limitation here. If your dog needs a dose at 2am, say so before you book so we can be honest about whether we are the right fit. Pretending otherwise would be worse than turning the booking down.
Anything that reads as a medical question goes to your vet, not to us. We will call you and tell you what we are seeing. We will not diagnose it.
Suffolk County Code § 302-13 requires boarding kennels to have a current health certificate from a licensed veterinarian showing vaccination against rabies, distemper, hepatitis, parainfluenza, parvovirus and coronavirus within the past year — unless it is an approved three-year vaccine certified by the vet — plus bordetella within the past six months. Bordetella runs on a six-month clock while everything else runs annually, which is the one people most often have quietly lapsed. That is county law, not house policy — confirm current requirements with your vet and with us before you travel.
Setting it all up at the time you book
Boarding starts with a 30-minute meet and greet. That first visit is the right place to hand over the feeding plan, walk through the labeling and show what a portion looks like. Bring one sample meal if you can — it makes the conversation concrete in about ninety seconds.
The rest of the practicalities: check-in 2pm to 7pm, check-out 7am to 11am, and every stay includes full-day daycare at no extra charge. Rates are $60 a night for the regular 4x4 private kennel and $75 for the premium 4x6. Eligibility, in the salon's own words: a pet "must be non-aggressive, comfortable in a kennel, able to socialize, and free from bite history."
A bag marked with the dog's name, the day, the meal and "RAW — keep frozen" is worth more than any conversation at the counter.
Questions people actually ask
Do I have to switch my dog to kibble for the stay?
No. Bringing your dog's normal food is the standing arrangement, and abruptly switching a diet for a few nights is exactly the kind of change we would rather avoid. On a prescription formula it also defeats the purpose of the diet.
What if you cannot store my raw food?
Then we will tell you before you book rather than after. Storage is finite everywhere, and an honest limit beats a stay that goes wrong. Call with the weight, the daily amount and the number of nights.
My dog is a picky eater and stress makes it worse. What then?
Worth flagging in advance either way. Tell us how long is normal for your dog to skip before you would want a call, and how you want a refused meal handled. If skipped meals are a pattern with an underlying cause, that is a vet conversation before you travel.
Can you give medication with meals?
Within the 7am to 10pm window, yes — label the dose, say whether it goes with or without food, and include it in the written plan. Doses that need to happen outside that window are a limitation here, so raise it before booking.
Should I label the bags even for a two-night stay?
Yes. A short stay is where people assume it is obvious and skip it, and it is also where a single doubled or skipped meal is a bigger share of the whole visit. Two nights is four or five bags. It takes a few minutes at the kitchen counter.
I'm in East Northport — can I board there?
No. The Laurel Road salon in East Northport is grooming only, Tuesday through Saturday. Daycare and overnight boarding both run out of Ronkonkoma at 835 Portion Rd, which is open seven days a week.
Tell us about the diet before you book.
Send the details — raw or prescription, daily amount, number of nights — and we will confirm what we can store and set the feeding schedule at your meet and greet.
See boarding rates & book ›835 Portion Rd, Ronkonkoma, NY 11779 · Boarding check-in 2–7pm, check-out 7–11am
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