Finding Hotels That Are Pet Friendly

Admittedly, very few hotels are pet friendly - at least in my area near SFO. The reason is mainly economic - for every request I get for a pet friendly room, I get five room requests that say “Due to Allergies No Chemicals or Odors Please, Cleaning or Pet”. Is a hotel going to then allow pets infrequently and risk losing five times the traffic to those who can tell a dog has been in a room? Or charge you the same rate and then have to do a deep cleaning of everything in the room?

Yet there are a few hotels that ARE pet friendly in any given area. One way to find them after you decided to stop for the night is to call a few hotels or motels and ask the agent for referrals. If you are researching a specific area before you leave, there are several websites that exhibit pet friendly lodgings. Because I am not affiliated with any in particular, I won’t divulge any URL’s here but simply do a search for ‘pet friendly lodging’ and you’ll see a list of sites that recommend pet friendly properties for almost every city in the country. Another idea if you are already on the road is to look for ‘cheap’ motels - these are far more likely to accept pets than 5 star hotels.

I do not recommend trying the old game if renting a room and sneaking a dog in the back way. If you paid with a credit card, most hotels will tack on an extra cleaning fee when they discover a pet was in the room. Claiming you didn’t know it was not ok is a defenseless argument - anyone that has had pets for any length of time KNOWS most hotels do not allow pets. Even worse, someone may spot you hours later coming and going with a dog and report you to the desk and the hotel will ask you to leave and you do not get your money back. Then you have to start your search all over again and pay for the night a second time.

If you have any sense of responsibility for your pets, you will want to stay where they are welcome. There may even be a play area for them and assuming they aren’t barking all night and disturbing nearby guests, you will feel welcome and comfortable knowing they are in a pet friendly property.