Take Your Pet - To a Luxury Hotel!

The Freshpet bounty

There are hotels that take dogs, but charge you an extra fee. Of they accept dogs, but warn yo that they can't go on the furniture. Or that body shame your dog, allowing you to only bring dogs under a certain weight.

The Soho Grand Hotel takes dog friendly to a whole new level. This luxury boutique hotel has a bespoke dog park right next to the hotel. No exhaust fumes or cobblestone-sore paws for your pooch. The park has water stations, shade and benches.

The Soho Grand also provides dog beds, organic treats, bowls and waste bags.

Dr. Katy, 2nd from right, and pets up for adoption

I had always wanted to treat my dog, Karat, to an afternoon here and got an opportunity thanks to Freshpet, which had a "Take Your Pet to Work" day.  My dog, a labrador retriever, has a sensitive stomach, though she hoovers up trash from the streets. Freshpet uses real chicken and vegetables to create its food, and the table of people food and pet food was hard to distinguish.

As a vegetarian, what I liked about the food was the roll of chicken, turkey or beef could be sliced and served with minimal handling by me, the meat-averse. We hosted a dog who ate a raw food diet and just the smell was enough to send me searching for kale.

The Freshpet food is cooked at low temperatures, to preserve nutrients, and it has to stay refrigerated. No worries about it spoiling with Karat; she scarfs her food so quickly that we have a special insert in her bowl to slow her down.

The kitten missed her friend

Dr. Katy Nelson, host of The Pet Show with Dr. Katy and a veterinarian in Virginia, said the food meets an animal's nutritional needs and said that anecdotally, some overweight dogs actually lost excess weight by transitioning to this diet.

The Soho Grand bikes

The "Take Your Pet to Work" day included adoptions from Animal Haven and the ASPCA, but we just adopted a kitten and are maxed out on pets. If you adopt a pet from one of these organizations by July 31, you get free Freshpet food.

Dr. Katy said that pet-friendly workplaces are good for both pets and employees and it seemed true at the Soho Grand, where everyone was happy.

I know Karat wants to spend more time at the Soho Grand and I definitely want to check it out. The hotel provides free bicycles and my cocktail-loving cousin says the martinis are unparalleled. What a great base for exploring NYC.

Note: I was a guest at this event and did not receive any compensation, though Karat did eat a lot of treats.

Have Dog, Will Travel

Karat and my daughter in the back seat

My family used to take a lot of train trips. But then we got a dog. And while you can bring a dog up to 20 pounds on Amtrak, we got a labrador. Who, though petite for a lab, still weights 61 pounds.

So if we want to take her, we have to drive.

Karat on the floor of the car

Not that we always want to take her. Winter travel, eve to a pet friendly hotel like the Kimpton chain, is problematic because you can't bring the dog to restaurants, you can't eat outside in freezing weather and you really didn't go away to sit in your hotel room.

We have found that our dog, Karat, loves to hike, so we try to take her with us when we plan to hike. And it turns out that a lot of friends who don't have dogs enjoy hiking with a dog, so this has become a group activity.

Hiking with the dog, and friends

We've learned little things along the way, like always have at least two extra water bottles for the dog on those hikes, and bring towels to wipe her down before getting back in the car, We can take off our hiking boots, but her muddy paws can make everyone unhappy.

Dog friendly has different meanings

We took Karat with us on a week-long trip looking for colleges for our youngest daughter. One bed and breakfast we stayed at in Vermont claimed to be dog-friendly, but you couldn't leave the dog in the room without being there. Once Karat has run around for an hour or two, she is content to sleep by herself, but we couldn't eat breakfast at this quaint B & B, where the summer air temperature hovered around freezing, since Karat couldn't stay in the room and we were too cold to eat on the porch.

Worried she'll be left behind

On the other hand we stayed at an inexpensive Best Western in Albany where we took Karat for a run, then left her in the room while we went out to dinner.  No one batted an eye.

Kimpton Hotels: the ultimate in dog friendly

Kimpton offers dog treats in the lobby, a dog bed and dog bowls if you've forgotten your own, and an extremely canine friendly environment.  We stayed at a Kimpton in Portland, OR, that had a 'house dog' for those who didn't bring their own pets; since we didn't fly Karat across the country, we made friends with the resident lab.