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The Sunday Read: ‘My Goldendoodle Spent a Week at Some Luxury Dog ‘Hotels.’ I Tagged Along.’

The Sunday Read: ‘My Goldendoodle Spent a Week at Some Luxury Dog ‘Hotels.’ I Tagged Along.’

The Daily vor 1 Jahr

0:00

21:39

By the time Sam Apple pulled up with his goldendoodle, Steve, to
their resting place, he was tired from the long drive and already
second-guessing his plan. He felt a little better when they
stepped inside the Dogwood Acres Pet Retreat. The lobby, with its
elegant tiled entrance, might have passed for the lobby of any
small countryside hotel, at least one that strongly favored
dog-themed decor. But this illusion was broken when the
receptionist reviewed their reservation — which, in addition to
their luxury suite, included cuddle time, group play, a nature
walk and a “belly rub tuck-in.”

Venues like this one, on Kent Island in Maryland’s Chesapeake
Bay, didn’t exist when Apple was growing up in the 1980s. If you
needed a place to board your dog back then, you went to a kennel,
where your dog spent virtually the entire day in a small — and
probably not very clean — cage. There were no tuck-ins, no
bedtime stories, no dog-bone-shaped swimming pools. There was
certainly nothing like today’s most upscale canine resorts, where
the dogs sleep on queen-size beds and the spa offerings include
mud baths and blueberry facials; one pet-hotel franchise on the
West Coast will even pick up your dog in a Lamborghini. Apple
knew Dogwood Acres wouldn’t be quite as luxurious as that, but
the accommodations still sounded pretty nice. So he decided to
check his dog in, and to tag along for the journey.

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