Our Story
The Tendercare story starts back in 1997. Having worked at Lloyds bank for nearly 20 years, Tracey Hobbs decided enough was enough and left to setup Tendercare Boarding Cattery. Always having a great love of animals, Tracey had long wished to work with animals full time, and given the opportunity of taking her redundancy from the bank, jumped at the chance.
Tendercare started with one cattery unit housing 11 cat pens, but with the great care and love shown to the cats while on holiday, the business out grew this unit soon and two additional 3 pen blocks had to be built.
The cattery has continued to grow and now hosts 32 cat pens, each being spacious enough to house up to 3 cats from same household.
New license requirements came into effect in 2019 where catteries and kennels were graded on a ‘star’ system, with 1 star being the lowest and 5 star the highest. We are please to confirm that Tendercare Cattery received the 5-Star award following inspection earlier this year.
As well as boarding, Tendercare work within the community to rescue and re-home unwanted and feral cats brought to them. Over the 22 years trading, Tendercare have rescued several hundred cats, who all now have loving, caring homes.
During 2015 a volunteer of Tendercare decided to go to Romania to do some voluntary work with the animal shelters over there. The sights she saw and the cruelty seen made Tracey decide she had to do something, and so started the animal rescue side of Tendercare. Dogs in Romania suffer huge cruelty and neglect and the public shelters are often barbaric, leading to many dogs losing their lives. Since 2015, over 300 dogs have found new, loving homes in the UK. For more information about this side of the business please have a look at our
2019 saw the next major change for Tendercare with the acquisition of boarding kennels. Lots of work planned in bringing the kennels up to the Tendercare standard, but you can be assured your pets, whether dogs, cats or other small animals will all have an enjoyable stay, looked after by a great team, all of which have animal welfare and comfort at the core of the business.
January 2020 saw our license inspection are we are please to announce that Tendercare Boarding Kennels received a 3-STAR award for the kennels.
The next major change in the Tendercare story came in 2021 when the new cattery was completed at new address, and the 'old' cattery closed down. Although now a lot smaller (only 11 pens) it is a purpose built cattery offering a real home from home holiday for you cat. All pens are fully insulated, have own radiator and numerous climbing frames and bedding areas on several levels. All pens have a large window so can see us go about our daily work.
We are located at:-
Tendercare Boarding Kennels & Cattery
2 Coronation House
Hanging Stone Lane
Annfield Plain
Stanley
Co Durham
DH9 8PQ
Tel 07982 005429 / 01207 782417
Please call by and pay us a visit and have a look round....