Dog Daycare Report Cards: Free Template + a Better Way

What a dog daycare report card is for

Short answer: a dog daycare report card is a short summary of a dog’s day — eating, play, rest, potty, behaviour, and anything unusual — handed to the owner at pick-up. It exists to answer “how was his day?” before it gets asked, and to give you a record if something comes up later.

I run a boarding hotel with a daycare floor, and I have written a lot of report cards. The good ones did three jobs at once: they made parents smile, they caught small health signals early (“didn’t finish lunch two days in a row”), and they protected us when someone later asked whether their dog had been in the big group. The bad ones said “Great day! 🐾” and nothing else.

Report cards also do quiet marketing. Parents screenshot them, post them, send them to the other half of the household. A good boarding or daycare report card is one of the cheapest retention tools you have — if it is honest and specific.

What to include on a doggy daycare report card

Short answer: eating, play, rest, potty, behaviour, a wellness note, and one or two photos. Everything else is optional. If a line does not change what the owner does tonight, cut it.

• •Meals and water: how much of lunch was eaten (all / most / half / none), any treats given, drinking normally.
• •Play: which group or yard, energy level, best friends of the day — parents love the friend line.
• •Rest: nap length and whether they settled easily.
• •Potty: normal or not. If not, say what and when. This is the line vets ask about.
• •Behaviour: one honest sentence — “a bit mouthy at noon, calmed down after rest” is more useful than “good boy”.
• •Wellness: bright / normal / quiet / concern, with a note for anything that is not “normal”.
• •Meds or special care: given at what time, by whom.
• •Photos: one action shot and one calm shot. More than three and nobody looks.
• •For boarding: one line per day plus a short stay summary at pick-up.

Free dog daycare report card template

Short answer: copy the template below into whatever you use today — a printed card, your PMS report card field, or a note on your phone. It is designed to be filled in under two minutes per dog.

Dog: ______ Date: ______ Group / yard: ______

Arrival mood: excited / calm / nervous / unsettled

Lunch: all / most / half / none — Water: normal / low

Play: energy high / medium / low — Friends today: ______

Nap: ___ min — settled easily / restless

Potty: normal / soft / none — notes: ______

Behaviour note (one sentence): ______

Wellness: bright / normal / quiet / concern — notes: ______

Meds / special care: ______ at ___:___ by ______

Ready for pick-up at: ___:___ Filled by: ______

For overnight boarding, repeat the meal, potty, and wellness lines per day and add one line about the night (“settled by 9pm, quiet night”).

Why report cards written at 5pm let everyone down

Short answer: end-of-day report cards are written from memory by tired staff in a rush. They come out vague, they miss the details that matter, and they arrive too late to calm an anxious owner during the day.

Picture your floor at 4:45pm. Twenty-two dogs, pick-ups starting, one attendant at the desk, two on the floor. Someone has to produce twenty-two report cards. What you get is a lot of “had a great day!” and a lot of guessing about who ate lunch. The one dog who skipped lunch because his stomach was off gets the same card as everyone else.

There is also a timing problem. The owner who is worried at 11am does not want a report at 5pm. They text the front desk instead. Now you are answering texts all day and still writing cards at the end of it. We wrote about that loop in how to stop “is my dog ok?” calls.

• •Memory gaps: “did Bella eat?” becomes a guess by late afternoon.
• •Copy-paste cards: owners notice when every dog had “a great day”.
• •No proof: a card without a timestamp or photo does not help if something is disputed later.
• •Double work: staff answer texts all day and still write the card.

Paper, PMS, or live page: three ways to run report cards

Short answer: paper is cheap and personal but slow and easy to lose. A PMS report card module keeps records but is usually filled in at a desktop after the fact. A live page built from one-tap logs during the day gives owners updates as they happen and a summary at pick-up with no extra writing.

• •Paper or printed cards: charming, zero setup, but no record, no photos, and the worst at 5pm.
• •PMS report card modules (Gingr, PetExec and similar): stored with the client record, can include photos, but often filled in at the desk from memory. Ask in the demo how a floor attendant fills it in from a phone, one-handed.
• •Pet parent apps: rich, but owners need to download and log in. For daycare regulars that can work; for occasional boarders, adoption is low — see dog boarding app vs browser link.
• •Live owner page: staff tap walk, lunch, nap, potty, photo as it happens; the owner follows on a link; the report card at pick-up is the summary of what was already logged.

How Wuuf turns daily logs into the report card

Short answer: in Wuuf, staff log each activity in one tap from a shared phone, the owner watches the live page during the day, and Complete stay publishes the pick-up report — activity summary, photos, and a Ready badge — on the same link. Nobody writes the card at 5pm; it is already there.

Here is a normal daycare day in Wuuf for daycare. At drop-off the desk starts the stay and the parent scans the QR or gets the link by text. During the day, attendants tap play, lunch (with how much was eaten), nap, potty, and drop in photos. If the whole group went on the same walk, a bulk update covers them in one pass. At pick-up, the desk completes the stay and the parent already has the full report on their phone.

For boarding the rhythm is the same over several days: one live timeline per stay, wellness notes for shift handovers, and the pick-up report when the dog goes home. Parents do not download an app or create an account. Wuuf is not a booking or billing system — keep your PMS or diary for that.

Writing report cards parents actually read

Short answer: be specific, be honest, and keep the tone warm but plain. One real detail beats three adjectives.

• •Name the friend: “played with Luna and Max most of the morning” gets screenshotted.
• •Say what happened, not just how it felt: “ate about half of lunch” not “ate well-ish”.
• •Flag small things early: “a bit quiet after lunch, normal by 3pm” builds trust when nothing is wrong and protects you when something is.
• •Use photos that show the dog’s face. Backs of heads in a pack do not count.
• •Do not overpromise. If a dog had a rough day, say so kindly with what you did about it.

Rolling out better report cards this week

Short answer: pick ten regulars, log their day live for two weeks, and ask the parents which they prefer — the card or the link.

1. 1Choose ten regular daycare dogs whose parents are friendly and chatty.
2. 2Agree the five things staff log every day: arrival mood, lunch, nap, potty, one photo.
3. 3Start each stay in Wuuf at drop-off and share the link once.
4. 4Log during the day instead of at 5pm — one tap per moment.
5. 5Complete the stay at pick-up so the report is on the same link.
6. 6After two weeks, ask those parents what they think and count how many daytime texts you got.