Do You Travel With Your Pet?
It was a miniature dachshund named Carl that further convinced me that taking your dog away with you is a fantastic idea. We were at a California hotel and quickly noticed that Carl’s tiny brown wiener body and black button eyes were everywhere. He was lounging at the pool next to his owner, hanging out on a banquette for drinks, and perched in the chair next to his mistress at breakfast. Whenever you saw him, Carl gave you a wag. And why not? He was on vacation![SIGNUP]
Becky Fawcett, co-founder of the charity HelpUsAdopt.org (a fantastic organization that helps families adopt human children, not pups, BTW), has always taken her tiny dog Bitsy to Florida every winter. “I used to take her to Ocean Reef Club and pets were allowed. We’d do day trips to Palm Beach and Miss Bitz would walk up and down Worth Avenue — it’s very dog friendly down there,” Fawcett says. Another friend drives to Toronto from Philly with her two dogs several times a year. The dogs seem to enjoy it, she says. (A change of scene’s always good.)
Lately, it seems everyone is taking their dog along on vacation. If you’re a lucky hound with jet-setting owners, you’ve probably been to more five-star resorts than most of us will get to in a lifetime — another woman I know always takes her teacup poodle to the Breakers for Christmas. There’s even the new Petairways.com, which can arrange for your doggie (they call them “pawsengers”) to fly in the cabin, rather than in the cold, scary cargo hold.
Several hotels we’ve been to in the past few years, including the Cooper Square in New York and the Hyatt at the Chesapeake, will let you bring dogs up to 70 pounds. Since our dog weighs in at right about 70 pounds and loves going anywhere in the car, this sounded like an amazing idea to me, but not to anyone else in the family. Even the kids voted against bringing Murphy the dog to the Chesapeake, which I thought was a little unfair.
However, Bitsy Fawcett does provide a cautionary tale about dog travel. Bitsy didn’t care for being left alone even for a moment in Florida, and finding a restaurant for dinner that had outdoor dining for Bitsy, and could accommodate Fawcett’s young children, became a challenge. Now Bitsy stays home from Florida, and the kids go on vacation. I’m still hoping to take Murphy somewhere for his birthday next spring, but I have a feeling it won’t be much farther than the Rittenhouse Hotel, which is renowned for its dog-friendliness. I’m also pretty sure that it’ll just be me and Murphy, since the rest of the family refuses to vacation with the dog. But I know we’d have a howling good time.
