But what does that mean?

When you board your pet at an ABKA Accredited boarding kennel, you know that you are dealing with a pet care facility that complies with all of the "Standards of Excellence" required by the ABKA Voluntary Facilities Accreditation Program (VFA Program), the only pet industry program which enables participating boarding kennels to demonstrate their commitment to exceptional pet care.

The VFA Program is administered by the American Boarding Kennels Association (ABKA), the international trade association for the owners and operators of commercial boarding kennels, and offers you, the pet owner, the comfort of knowing that the accredited facility you are using has earned the ABKA "stamp of approval" by successfully competing this comprehensive program.

Boarding kennels, which participate in the VFA Program, must submit detailed information on their animal care procedures and business policies to ABKA. They must also open their facility to an on-site inspection by trained VFA evaluators, to verify compliance with the Standards of Excellence that the program specifies.

The program standards include over 200 detailed requirements for boarding kennels and were developed by the American Boarding Kennels Association over a five-year period. These standards reflect the views of kennel operators, veterinarians, pet owners, and humane organizations and thus represent the current "state of the art" in animal care management.