The problem
The dog boarding licensing guidance requires written procedures for feeding, cleaning, transport, disease control, health and welfare checks, and the death or escape of a dog, plus a written emergency plan. If an owner reviews and rewrites those 7 documents each year at 2 hours each, that's 14 hours a year, usually in the weeks before an inspection.
What the AI does
Write bullet notes on how you actually do each job: feeding times and food storage, the cleaning routine and products, how dogs are moved, how you isolate a dog that's unwell, daily health checks, what happens if a dog escapes or dies, and your fire and heating breakdown plan. Paste the notes into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini, without names or addresses, and ask for a short numbered procedure for each heading using only your notes. Then check each one line by line against the statutory guidance and your premises. You decide what each procedure says, and the council decides whether the emergency plan is acceptable.
A worked example
A family-run kennel in Cumbria keeps its procedures in old notebooks and updates them every year before the summer, with a renewal inspection due.
Before
7 documents rewritten at 2 hours each: 14 hours a year
After
Notes, drafting and a careful check at about 50 minutes each: about 6 hours a year
What it's worth
About $17£13€15A$25C$24 a month saved, averaged over a year, at an assumed $27£20€24A$38C$38 an hour for 8 hours a year (14 minus 6), $213£160€190A$307C$301 a year. The free plans of ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini can do this; a paid plan at up to about $27£20€24A$38C$38 a month wouldn't pay back for this job alone.
How to set it up
- Download the statutory guidance for your activities, such as dog boarding and day care, from GOV.UK and list the written procedures and emergency plan it asks for.
- For each one, write bullet notes on what your team really does, step by step.
- Paste each set of notes into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini and ask for a short, numbered procedure using only your notes.
- Check every line against the guidance and your premises, correct anything that isn't what happens, and date the document.
- Go through each procedure with the team and keep a signed record that each person has read it.
What goes wrong
- An assistant can write a procedure that sounds right but isn't what you do. An inspector may ask staff, so the document must match practice.
- Don't let it invent legal requirements; check anything that sounds like a rule against the guidance itself.
- Disease control and medication procedures should follow your vet's advice, not the assistant's.
- Free plans have usage limits; do one or two procedures at a sitting.