Of course, dogs accustomed to fine living surely must lead jet set lives – and other hotels worldwide are more than happy to make sure they travel in comfort and style. Las Ventanas al Paraiso in Los Cabos, Mexico, where Pamela Anderson has supposedly taken her pooches, has won awards for its pet friendliness – which includes dog massages, braised beef for dinner, air conditioned miniature dog cabanas for owners baking in the Mexican sun and dog walkers ready to take visiting pups on either garden or seaside walks. Cliveden House in Berkshire, 40 minutes outside London, has 376 acres of land for puppies to play, along with a staff of four people per room and an impressive lineage — it’s been home to three dukes, an earl, the Astor family and a Prince of Wales. And when designers Dolce and Gabbana stayed at London’s Metropolitan Hotel, they missed their two black Labradors but didn’t realize that pets would have been welcome – for a supplement of $65. The Ritz-Carlton in New York upgrades the jet set pooch concept by offering a VIP (Very Important Pooch) program. Included in this are 22-karat gold plated identification tags, cashmere doggie sweaters and painted portraits. If dogs aren’t interested in a shopping excursion or museum date, a dog-walker or dog sitter is on call to keep them company.
Silver Spoon owner Melissa Lemer, a firm believer in dog indulgence if ever there was one, swears by pet psychic Sonya Fitzpatrick (of the television show The Pet Psychic on Animal Planet), who performed readings on the dogs of Tori Spelling and Robert Wagner at the Dog and Baby Buffet. “Sonya told me that my dog Kayla said I talk too fast to her at night and that she doesn’t like it when people call her fat – which my dad teases her about all the time,” Lemer reveals with a laugh before adding seriously, “I believe all of it.” Lemer perhaps comes by her doggie indulgence tendencies honestly. “My mom takes her dog, a Bijon who’s 17, to the park in a stroller,” she confesses. “It’s embarrassing.” Across the Atlantic in Neuilly, Paris, Patrick Payonce, dog psychologist and nutritionist, teaches stressed owners and overweight pets to deal with each other.
While pet parties, like Bark Mitvahs for Jewish owners and Doggie Dos for pet “weddings,” could simply be a fun excuse to throw a shindig, some so-called beauty treatments – like the popular Korean trend of dying poodles various colors of the rainbow – perhaps suggest owners have tipped the pet-obsessed scale a bit too far. “I think dying them different colors is cruel,” offers Hannah of the Quintessential Pet. Lemer, for one, has found a friendlier solution: “The groomer dyes Kayla different colors with chalk that washes out and so far she’s been pink and green,” Lemer reveals.
So, as the number of pets living in our homes and backyards outnumbers the cars in our driveways, it is comforting to know that they need never go without the luxuries of life.
