Pond Head Luxury Boarding Kennels

Immensely disappointed... We chose Pond Head because it has 5 star reviews, looks fabulous and and is in an idyllic location. It tags itself as a luxury boarding kennels and 5 dogs cost us £800 to board for a week. Luxury implies a high level of customer service - but this is completely and totally lacking. On dropping off the dogs I explained to Oliver our flight was due in to Leeds at 3pm the following Sunday and that might mean we would struggle to get there before the closing time of 4.30pm. He made no comment about this and I said I would message an update when we landed. I did message him before closing time and I tried repeatedly to call him to make sure it was OK to collect our dogs. No response forthcoming we went out of our way to drive there where we found everything locked up - eventually I got through to Oliver on a terrible line and he kept telling me they were closed and to come back the following day! It was absolutely heart-breaking hearing our lovely dogs and knowing they could smell and hear us outside, my daughter cried all the way home. A family wedding abroad meant this was the first time we had ever left our dogs in kennels. The following morning Oliver was not available and left 2 sweet young ladies to meet us - I waited to speak to him.... Oliver explained that although he lived on site (right next to the damn kennels) the opening and closing times were set in stone as he would simply not have his family life disturbed. I understand that, I have 4 kids and a business and I wish our lives were undisturbed by our business! So make no mistake - this business is set up purely for the convenience of Oliver and his family, they simply don't care about you or your dogs. What really upset us though was not knowing if the dogs were let out again after the closing time of 4.30pm? If that was my business I would have apologised and said it's inconvenient now but please come back later when the dogs are let out for the night - he lives on site yards from the kennels and it would have taken him 5 minutes to give us our dogs back. So were they even let out later? We were desperate to see them and it was horrible knowing the pain and confusion they would be going through as we waited outside - his policy is absolutely heartless. If they really are a "luxury" kennels they need to sort this out - we were happy to still pay for the Sunday night boarding and we would happily have paid a premium fee to not have to be without or dogs for another night. Another concern was when we picked up the dogs we were given no information other than they were happy and behaved well, no anecdotes, no observations and while we were away my son in law had repeatedly asked for more photos of his dogs but nothing more was posted. The girls gave us our dogs but we had ask them to go in search of their beddings and toys - honestly the whole thing just felt a bit careless. As an ex gamekeeper I don't think Oliver really understands the relationship many owners have with their dogs, our dogs are like our family and we feel we let them down badly...