Terms and conditions

1. Who you are booking with

Phoebe's Place is a one-person pet care business run by Gabriella Reels from her home in Rijswijk, the Netherlands. It is registered with the Dutch chamber of commerce under KVK number 92725422. In these terms, "I" and "me" mean Phoebe's Place, and "you" means the person who books the care and owns or is legally responsible for the pet.

I offer overnight boarding, daycare, dog walking and drop-in visits in Rijswijk, The Hague, Voorburg and the surrounding area. Boarding and daycare take place in my own home, where my own dogs and cat live.

These terms apply to every booking. By booking, you accept them on behalf of yourself and anyone else who drops off or collects the pet. They apply together with my cancellation policy, my veterinary release and my privacy policy, and those four documents are the whole agreement between us.

I am a pet carer, not a veterinarian or a behaviourist. I can only give you insight based on my personal experience, not an official diagnosis.

2. How a booking is made

1. You send a request with the dates, the service and your pet.
2. For a pet I have not met, we arrange a free meet and greet first. That is where I decide whether I can care for your pet safely, and where you decide whether you are happy with my home.
3. You give me your pet details, your vet, your emergency contact and anything else I need to know.
4. I confirm the booking in writing, by e-mail or WhatsApp. A booking exists only once I have confirmed it. A request, a calendar hold or a conversation is not a booking.

Requests open 3 days ahead. Space in my home is limited and busy periods fill early, so asking early is the only way to be sure of a place.

You must give me complete and truthful information about your pet: its health, its medication, its behaviour with people and with other animals, and anything that has happened in the past. If information turns out to be wrong or missing, I may end the booking immediately, and section 12 applies to everything that follows from it.

I may decline or end any booking. Reasons include a pet that is not safe around my animals or around me, a risk of illness to the other animals in my care, information that turns out to be wrong, or an unpaid invoice.

3. What your pet needs before it stays

Other people’s pets and my own animals share the house, so these are conditions of care and not preferences.

• Vaccinations up to date, and shown to me on request. For dogs that means the standard combination vaccination and kennel cough. For cats it means the standard combination vaccination. Rabies has to be current for every pet, whether or not it has ever travelled.
• Flea, tick and worm treatment current before your pet arrives. I do not treat for fleas or worms and I do not buy the treatment: a pet that arrives with fleas is a risk to every other animal in the house, so it cannot stay. If you send a monthly chew or a spot-on along, I am happy to give it during the stay. Ticks are different: I check for them and I am happy to remove one.
• Healthy on arrival. A pet with sickness, diarrhoea, a cough or anything that might be contagious cannot be admitted, and I may ask for a vet certificate before it comes back.
• Not in season. A bitch in season, or a male dog reacting to one, cannot board while other dogs are in the house.
• Identifiable. A collar with a tag, and a chip registration that carries your current phone number.
• Food, medication and familiar bedding for the whole stay, with written instructions for anything that has to be given.

If I have to buy food or equipment during a stay because it was not supplied or ran out, I will buy it and add what it cost to your invoice. Flea, tick and worm treatment is the exception: that has to be done before your pet arrives, and I do not buy it or apply it myself.

4. Behaviour, safety, and a home with other animals in it

You confirm that your pet has never bitten a person or seriously injured another animal, and that it has no history of aggression. If it has, tell me before you book. Sometimes I can still help, and sometimes I can only help in a way that keeps everyone apart.

Dogs and cats in my care mix with my own animals and with other guests. I supervise, I separate animals where I judge it necessary, and I use my own judgement about what is safe on the day. Even so, animals living together can injure one another, and supervision does not remove that risk entirely. By booking you accept it.

Dogs are walked on a lead as standard. I let a dog off the lead only where you have given me written permission, and then only where I judge it safe. Permission to let a dog off the lead is given at your own risk.

If your pet becomes a danger to itself, to another animal, to me or to anyone else, or if it is so distressed that staying is unfair to it, I will contact you and then your emergency contact. Collection must then happen within 24 hours. If nobody collects the pet, I may place it with a boarding kennel or a veterinary practice at your cost, and I may still charge for the nights it would otherwise have stayed.

A pet in my home is never left alone for long stretches, and it is also not watched every minute of the day and night, and there is no video surveillance. If your pet cannot cope with any unsupervised time at all, please say so before you book. Sometimes I am able to accommodate this, but generally I am not.

5. Drop-off, collection, and being late

Drop-off for a boarding stay is between 07:15 to 20:00 and collection is between 08:00 to 15:00, both by appointment. Daycare runs from 07:00 to 19:00. Those hours are my working day, and they exist so that the animals in my home have a predictable one.

There is 30 minutes of leeway on an agreed time, and after that 7.50 euro for every half hour started. It is not a punishment, it is the evening I had planned. If you are stuck in traffic, or a plane or a train is delayed, let me know. I understand that those things are not in your control.

An early drop-off or a later collection agreed in advance has no separate lateness fee. For boarding, however, collection after the late-pick-up cut-off shown in the booking means the departure day also uses a full daycare place, so the normal daycare rate for that dog is added. What I need is to know in advance, ideally at least a day before, so that I can plan the day around it. The fee above is for an agreed time that was then passed without word.

For a walk or a drop-in visit, the same 10 euro applies the other way round: if I am at your door at the agreed time and cannot get in, or cannot find your pet, the visit is charged. A quick message avoids it entirely.

If you need a different time, ask. I will say yes whenever I can. A stay that runs past the booked dates is charged at the normal rate for the extra days.

If your pet is not collected, and I cannot reach you or your emergency contact for 14 days after the agreed collection, I will treat the pet as abandoned and hand it over to an animal shelter or to the appropriate authority. You remain liable for every cost up to that point and for the cost of the handover itself.

6. Prices, extra charges and payment

Every price on this website includes 21% Dutch VAT. The price that applies is the one shown when I confirm your booking.

A drop-in visit has one visit price for all pets cared for at the same address during that visit. Dog walking is booked separately. For walks, daycare and boarding with two or more pets, the multi-pet discount shown in the price list applies to the total pet care charge. Extras are charged in full; pick-up and drop-off are charged for each pet on each journey.

On top of the price of the service itself, these may be charged:

Boarding is charged per night, and the nightly rate is higher at the weekend. If collection is after the late-pick-up cut-off shown in the booking, the applicable daycare rate is added for the departure day. Payment is due within 7 days of the invoice unless we agree something else in writing. If payment is late I may charge statutory interest and the statutory collection costs under Dutch law, and I may decline further bookings until the account is settled.

Cancelling, moving or shortening a booking is covered by the cancellation policy.

7. Walks, drop-in visits and access to your home

For a walk or a drop-in visit I need a reliable way into your home: a key, a key safe code or a door code, given to me by you and tested together before the first visit. A key that does not work means a visit that cannot happen, and that visit is still charged.

• Keys are kept in a locked place, without your name or address on them, and are handed back whenever you ask.
• You must tell me about an alarm, its code, and how it behaves. I am not responsible for a call-out charge caused by information I was never given.
• I enter your home only for the agreed service, and I bring nobody with me.
• Tell me if anyone else has access during the booking: a cleaner, a neighbour, a family member, a tradesperson. Where somebody else has been in the home, I cannot be responsible for what happens there.
• Check that your home insurance covers a keyholder from outside your household. That is your arrangement to make, not mine.

I lock up as I found it, and I tell you about anything that looks wrong. I am not responsible for a fault that was already there, such as a door that does not close properly, a leak, or an appliance that fails while nobody is in the house.

8. Illness and emergencies

If your pet becomes ill or is injured, I contact you first, and your emergency contact if I cannot reach you. If waiting would put your pet at risk, I get veterinary help straight away and tell you as soon as I can.

By booking you authorise that care and you agree to pay for it. The detail, the spending limit and what happens in the worst case are in the veterinary release, which forms part of these terms.

9. Photos of your pet

During a stay, a walk or a visit I may take photos and short videos of your pet. I use them in your reports, and I may use them on the Phoebe's Place website and on social media.

If you would rather your pet stayed off social media, tell me in writing and it will not appear there. Your reports are not affected: photos of your own pet keep arriving in them either way.

I never publish your name, your address, or anything that shows where a pet lives.

10. Things neither of us can control

Illness, an accident, a family emergency, extreme weather, a power or water failure, a fire, an evacuation, a government restriction or a similar event can make it impossible for me to deliver a booking. If that happens I tell you as soon as I can and help you find another option.

In that situation I refund what you paid for the part of the service that did not happen. My responsibility ends with that refund, and it does not extend to the cost of alternative care, a cancelled trip, or any other loss.

If I cannot be reached during a booking because of such an event, my own emergency contact is authorised to enter my home, care for the animals there, and release them to their owners.

11. Damage caused by your pet

You are responsible for what your pet does. Under Dutch law the keeper of an animal is liable for the damage it causes (article 6:179 of the Dutch Civil Code), and that liability does not pass to me while the animal is in my care.

That covers, while your pet is with me or on the way to or from me:

• Damage to my home, my garden, my furniture, my car and anything else of mine.
• Injury to me, to a member of my household, or to anyone else.
• Injury to my own animals or to another pet in my care, including their veterinary costs.
• Damage to the property of a neighbour or of any other third party.
• Soiling or fouling beyond the occasional accident, where a professional clean is needed.

I tell you about any damage and show you what it cost. You reimburse the repair, the replacement, the cleaning or the treatment at cost, within 7 days. If a claim is made against me because of something your pet did, you cover it, including reasonable legal costs.

I strongly recommend that you hold Dutch private liability insurance (aansprakelijkheidsverzekering particulieren, the cover most people call "WA") and that it includes your pet. Most Dutch households have it already. It is the cover that pays for exactly this.

12. The limits of my responsibility

I look after your pet with the care and attention you would expect from an experienced pet carer, and the safety of every animal in my home is the thing I think about most. What follows sets out where my responsibility ends. It is written plainly, because it matters.

I am not liable for:

• Illness, injury, escape, loss or death of a pet, unless it was caused by my intent or my gross negligence.
• Anything that follows from a condition, an allergy, a behaviour or a medication need you did not tell me about, or described incorrectly.
• The natural consequences of age, of an existing illness, or of a condition that only becomes visible during the stay.
• A pet escaping through a gate, a door, a fence or a lead that failed, where the escape was not caused by my gross negligence.
• A decision taken by a veterinarian, or the outcome of veterinary treatment.
• Indirect loss of any kind: a cancelled or shortened trip, lost income, travel costs, distress.
• Damage one pet in my care does to another, which is a matter between their keepers under section 11.

Where I am liable despite all of the above, my liability is limited to the amount you paid for the booking in question, or to whatever my insurer actually pays out for that event if that is more. Nothing in these terms limits my liability for death or personal injury caused by my own negligence, or for anything else the law does not allow me to limit.

If you think something has gone wrong, tell me within 14 days of the end of the booking, while it can still be looked into properly.

13. Changes to these terms

I may change these terms. The version that applies to your booking is the one published when I confirmed it, and the date and version number at the top of this page tell you which that is.

14. Complaints, law and jurisdiction

Talk to me first. Most things are a misunderstanding and are settled in one conversation: info@phoebes-place.nl or WhatsApp.

Dutch law applies to this agreement. A dispute we cannot settle between us is heard by the district court of The Hague (Rechtbank Den Haag).

If any part of these terms turns out not to be enforceable, the rest still stands, and the part that failed is read as the nearest thing to it that does work.