How Dog Owners Rate Hotels

Speaking of traveling with dogs…

Neither my bank balance nor my driving skills make an RV an option for me.  I must find a hotel for the overnight dog shows.  Many of my dog show friends simply reserve the hotel with the cheapest room rate.  “I’m only there to sleep for a few hours,” they tell me, “All I need is a bed.”  How I envy such adaptability.

I confess, I like my dog show experience to include a pleasant place to retreat in the evening.  Most of my annual leave these days is expended on dog shows. They have become my de facto vacations.  I’m not sure whether to consider that pathetic or an admirable sign of dedication.

There are some normal hotel amenities I always look for.  I must have internet access.  I mean, what if I got a Q and couldn’t tell everyone on my email lists that night?  I need a refrigerator for the special dog show treats. Oh, and my dinner, too.  I need a microwave, because I can’t leave the dogs in the hotel and eat out.  Counter space is nice for preparing dog dinners.  Generally, however, when traveling with a dog, the usual hotel rating guides are worthless.  If I were rating hotels, at least three of the five stars would be based on:

·        The size and quality of the pet potty area

·        The ease of getting to and from the pet potty area at 2 am.  Nothing can get a dog-owning traveler out of bed and outside in a strange city wearing slippers and coat over pajamas like a dog with a case of dog show diarrhea.

·        The suitability of the neighborhood around the hotel for walking a dog long enough for said dog’s bowels to be stimulated to want to use the potty area before settling in for the night.

Yes, that’s right: I evaluate hotels based primarily on my dogs’ needs for bathroom facilities.

The ideal hotel has a large, fenced grassy patch for a potty area and patrons who are conscientious about picking up after their dogs.  Access to the potty area in this dream hotel is straight through a sliding patio door.  The hotel is in a residential area near a park along a river where the water-crazy golden retriever can take a quick swim.  I’ve yet to stay in a hotel that had all three of these features, but I have stayed in a couple that had two out of three. 

I’ve also stayed in hotels that where the dog potty accommodations were dismal. The potty area at one of the hotels was a closet-sized patch of gravel in the corner of the parking lot.  To get to this charming doggy-loo, I had to bring the dogs down a long hallway and through a heavy door that was hard to open when the key card would work, which it often didn’t.  I went out on the first night to find that a dog handler with a giant RV had parked next to the potty area and covered half the gravel with an X-pen.  Thanks, buddy!  The icing on the cake was that the hotel was in an area of town with no grass anywhere within a 15-minute walk.  Maybe further, I don’t know, because it wasn’t a part of town where I wanted to spend a whole lot of time walking around at night.

I realized a couple of years ago that Google Map is a great resource for choosing a hotel with an easy route to the show site.  I only realized towards the end of last year that Google Earth is a fabulous tool for checking out the neighborhood around a hotel.  Concrete jungle or near a residential area?  Any nearby open areas that might be suitable for pleasant walks?  Ah, technology. Thou hast helped my dog have a happier bowel movement.