Pet Resort and Dog Daycare Manager Career Guide

A pet resort manager is the person responsible for the whole operation of a facility that boards dogs overnight, runs dog daycare, or both.

The title changes with the employer: dog daycare manager, kennel manager, boarding manager, or general manager at larger resorts and franchise locations.

The job is people and operations management layered on top of animal care — not a grooming or training role, and not a veterinary one.

One employer shows the scale the title can cover.

Best Friends Pet Care describes a pet care business offering boarding, daycare, grooming and training — a different organization from the Best Friends Animal Society nonprofit.

Its careers page says the company is employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), with 80+ locations nationwide.

How is the role different from a grooming salon manager?

A salon manager runs a team whose output is grooms: the appointment book, the groomers and bathers, the flow of animals through the salon.

A resort manager runs a team whose output is stays: attendance, playgroups, feeding and medication schedules, and overnight coverage.

There is one more thing to know before you read on: the federal statistics agency has no occupation line for pet resort managers.

Its closest published group is first-line supervisors of personal service workers — a stand-in that covers supervisors across personal services, not pet care alone — and that matters when you look at pay below.

The manager's own work sits above the care floor: supervising and training the associates who do the daily care, keeping bookings and pet-parent communication moving, and answering for sales and customer satisfaction.

Around that core sits the scheduling problem BLS describes for animal care work: schedules that include evenings, weekends and holidays, and animals that need care around the clock at facilities open 24 hours.

Employers describe the role in their own words.

PetSmart describes its PetsHotel Leader as providing training, support and supervision to hotel associates, and its PetsHotel Experience Lead as leading hotel operations and daily processes, with responsibility for driving sales and customer satisfaction.

One rung down, PetSmart describes the PetsHotel Specialist role as handling check-ins and check-outs, leading playtime, caring for pets and keeping the hotel clean.

Best Friends Pet Care lists Center Managers among its facility roles, alongside Animal Care Technicians, Customer Service Representatives, Day Camp Counselors, Groomers & Stylists, Dog Trainers and Operational Support Team.

Center Managers is the management title on that roster.

The care floor a manager supervises follows the pattern BLS describes for animal care and service workers.

The list runs from giving food and water and cleaning equipment and living spaces to monitoring and recording diet, condition and behavior, examining animals for illness or injury, exercising them, and bathing, nail trimming, clipping or training.

O*NET's highest-rated tasks for animal caretakers read the same way: feeding and watering animals according to schedules (importance 96), getting care for animals that are sick or injured (92), and observing animals for illness, disease or injury (90).

O*NET also lists facility laundry and cleaning, organizing, maintaining and disinfecting animal quarters among the occupation's core tasks.

A published day shows the rhythm a manager schedules around.

Dogtopia's published daycare day runs 8–10 hours of open play with a midday nap from 12–2 p.m., during which staff serve lunches, give medications and clean playrooms.

Dogtopia separates playrooms by size and temperament and sanitizes them twice daily; Hounds Town USA groups daycare dogs into packs by size, temperament, energy level and play style across 5+ play areas.

Those are those companies' own published descriptions of their operations, not an industry pattern — playgroup structure, schedules and shift patterns vary by operator.

Medication is part of daily operations in the facilities described above: PetSmart says PetsHotel associates give medications at the proper time, that associates are safety-certified, and that every PetsHotel location partners with a local vet.

The manager's job is the system around that — the schedule, the records, the vet relationship — and getting sick or injured animals care, not practicing animal medicine.

Employers range from independent dog daycares and boarding kennels to multi-service resorts that combine daycare, boarding, grooming, training and retail.

The Dog Stop, for example, describes daycare, boarding, grooming, pet retail and training among its services, and says it hires for dog daycare and dog grooming jobs.

Franchise brands run daycare-and-boarding models on a system.

Dogtopia publishes its daycare day and its playroom structure.

Hounds Town USA describes pack-based daycare across 5+ play areas.

The Dog Stop lists daycare and boarding among its services and hires for daycare and grooming jobs.

Camp Bow Wow's national careers page routes applicants to individual Camp locations' own websites to apply.

Franchise structure matters to who signs your paycheck: a Camp Bow Wow location's careers page tells applicants they are applying to work for a franchisee, not Camp Bow Wow Franchising, Inc., and that franchisees set their own wage and benefit programs.

A Pet Supplies Plus franchise job posting says the same about its franchised stores: the local franchise business, not PSP Franchise Operations, is the sole employer and sets hiring, pay and benefits.

Big-box retail runs boarding inside the store.

PetSmart's PetsHotel operates alongside its retail floor, with its own Specialist, Lead and Leader ladder.

One clarifier for job seekers: at PetSmart, the "Pet Care Associate" title means caring for the store's live animals for sale — fish, reptiles, birds and small animals — not boarding dogs; dog care sits with PetsHotel associates.

Employee-owned chains are another employer type: Best Friends Pet Care describes 80+ locations nationwide, employee-owned through an ESOP.

For the wider shape of the industry, BLS's employer breakdown for animal caretakers — the front-line occupation this career supervises — put 40% in other personal services and 25% in self-employment in 2025.

Smaller shares went to professional, scientific and technical services at 10% (includes vet clinics), retail trade at 9%, and arts, entertainment and recreation at 5%.

Hours follow the animals, not an office clock: BLS notes that part-time work is common in animal care, that schedules can include evenings, weekends and holidays, and that 24-hour facilities such as kennels may need round-the-clock care.

The front line has a low formal bar.

BLS describes animal care and service workers as typically holding a high school diploma or equivalent, needing no prior work experience in a related occupation, and learning the occupation on the job.

BLS adds that many employers prefer candidates who have animal experience, and O*NET puts the occupation's on-the-job training at a few days to one year.

The supervisory rungs are judged differently in print: employer materials describe what the roles do rather than a degree they demand.

PetSmart says PetsHotel onboarding covers operations, dog behavior, safe handling and customer service, and BLS lists compassion, customer-service skills, detail orientation, patience, physical stamina, problem-solving and reliability as the occupation's important qualities.

Certifications exist for the pet care side of the industry.

PACCC (Professional Animal Care Certification Council), a credentialing body for animal care professionals, offers three certification levels that need not be taken in order: Provider (CPACP), Manager (CPACM) and Operator (CPACO).

A certification is a credential from a private body, not a government license — states and cities issue licenses, credentialing bodies issue certifications — so keep the two apart on a resume and in a job ad.

BLS has no pet-resort-manager occupation, so there is no pet-resort-manager wage.

The closest published figures are for first-line supervisors of personal service workers (SOC 39-1022) — a labelled stand-in that covers supervisors across all kinds of personal service work, not pet care alone.

In the May 2025 OEWS release, that occupation's national median was $23.36 an hour ($48,590 a year), with a 10th percentile of $16.35 and a 90th percentile of $36.22.

Inside NAICS 812900 Other Personal Services — the industry group containing pet care services such as boarding and daycare, alongside unrelated personal services — the median was $21.98 an hour ($45,720 a year).

For scale in the same industry row and the same release: animal caretakers (39-2021, the occupation that includes groomers and kennel and daycare attendants) had a median of $16.92 an hour ($35,190 a year) in NAICS 812900, across 146,190 wage-and-salary jobs.

Read those numbers with their labels.

They are OEWS medians for wage-and-salary jobs in May 2025; they cover supervisors of all kinds of personal service work rather than pet resort managers alone; and they say nothing about what any one franchisee, independent owner or chain pays.

At some franchise brands, pay is the franchisee's call: a Camp Bow Wow location's careers page tells applicants that franchisees set their own wage and benefit programs, and a Pet Supplies Plus franchise job posting says the local franchise business sets pay and benefits.

Where pet care employers publish ladders, they run from the front line up: attendant (kennel, daycare or resort floor) → lead → manager.

Beyond that sit larger facilities, multiple locations, or a facility of your own.

Ownership is a business question as much as a career one; this guide stays on the employed career.

Published internal ladders show how employers build it.

PetSmart's PetsHotel path runs PetsHotel Specialist → PetsHotel Lead (holds store keys) → PetsHotel Leader, who supervises and trains hotel associates.

One associate story on PetSmart's careers site traces day camper → Overnight Pet Care associate → Senior Lead → Assistant Hotel Leader — a single testimonial, so treat those titles as illustrative.

PetSmart's wider store ladder adds Experience Lead, Process Lead (Operations Supervisor), PetsHotel Experience Lead, Experience Leader (assistant store manager) and Store Leader.

Best Friends Pet Care lists Center Managers as the management title on a roster that also includes Animal Care Technicians, Customer Service Representatives, Day Camp Counselors, Groomers & Stylists and Dog Trainers.

Internal promotion is also what large employers report.

Petco's careers site says over 40% of its General Manager and District General Manager positions were filled by internal promotions — Petco's own company-reported figure, with no period attached.

As for the industry underneath the ladder, the front-line occupation is projected to keep growing.

BLS Employment Projections have animal caretakers (39-2021, the group that includes groomers and kennel staff) growing 12% from 2025 to 2035 — from 365,300 to 409,400 jobs, versus 3% for all occupations — counting self-employed workers alongside payroll jobs.

Pros

• You spend your working life around animals, and the job is people management: the associates you schedule and train are the ones doing the daily care clients pay for.
• Some large employers, such as PetSmart, publish named internal ladders, so the next rung can be a named role rather than a rumor.
• Perks can be concrete: PetSmart lists PetsHotel benefits including discounts, health programs, PTO, 50% off the associate's own pet's hotel or day camp stay, and additional incentives for overnight care. Best Friends Pet Care lists free doggy daycare and discounted boarding for employees' own pets. Each employer's list is its own.

Cons

• The building is physical. BLS describes much of the work as physical — moving and cleaning cages, lifting bags of food, exercising animals — and says workers need stamina to kneel, crawl and lift heavy supplies.
• It is loud and on your feet. In O*NET's work-context survey, 78% of animal caretakers said they are exposed to distracting or uncomfortable noise every day, and 56% said they stand continually or almost continually. Another 56% reported working outdoors, exposed to all weather, every day. Those are front-line figures, not a survey of managers, but they describe the floor a manager supervises.
• The schedule bends to the animals: evenings, weekends and holidays, with round-the-clock coverage at 24-hour facilities.
• The emotional weight is real. BLS warns the work can be emotionally distressing, with its examples drawn from shelters, where workers may see abused, injured or sick animals. In boarding and daycare the hard days look different, but you answer for other people's handling decisions, not just your own.

Start on the board built for this role: browse pet resort manager jobs on GroomerHires.

Then search several titles, not one.

Employers post this work under a family of names — pet resort manager, dog daycare manager, kennel manager, boarding manager and dog daycare general manager.

They add employer-specific titles on top: Center Manager at Best Friends Pet Care, PetsHotel Lead and PetsHotel Leader at PetSmart, and PetsHotel Experience Lead leading daily hotel operations.

Camp Bow Wow's national careers page uses Certified Camp Counselor® for its front line.

Franchise brands split hiring locally.

Camp Bow Wow's national careers page directs applicants to individual Camp locations' own websites to apply.

A Camp location's careers page tells applicants they would be working for a franchisee — not Camp Bow Wow Franchising, Inc. Dogtopia calls its playroom attendants Canine Coaches.

If you are not in the industry yet, the front line is the entry point: BLS describes animal care and service workers as learning the occupation on the job, with no prior experience in a related occupation required.

Build your manager application on a record of solid, safe shifts as a kennel or daycare attendant.