Pets in hotel beds: fine, or faux paws?

Imagine that a friend invites you to their home for dinner. When the time comes to eat, everyone else gathers around the table and enjoys their food… but there’s no place for you to sit. Your friend sees your puzzled look, and explains with a smile, “You can have dinner on the floor. Did you think dinner meant eating at the table?” 

On the one hand, yes, this analogy is imperfect in the sense that you are not a dog. But at a deeper level, the logic holds: “Pets welcome” implies that they are welcome to do what one does at a hotel, and that is to sleep in beds. Banishing them to the floor is like booting you (a human) from the dinner table. 

Reasonable people might counter, “But that’s gross! Dogs are messy!” There are two counters to this counter. Firstly, as a friend of mine put it, “I’m way more worried about any mess from the humans than I am from the dog.” And secondly: The hotel washes and cleans the sheets, and if they’re not cleaning the linens, then you really do have bigger problems than the odd potential paw print to deal with.

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The hotel knows what they’re getting into when they make their rooms hound-friendly. A study from Veterinarians.org found that 76% of dog owners welcome their furry ones into the bed, so this hardly counts as fringe behavior. And if a dog is used to cuddling next to their human, relegation to the floor could cause stress, anxiety, and even whimpering or barking that could wake the neighboring rooms.

That said, every pet owner knows that their little creatures come with extra responsibilities. If they make a mess—in the bed or anywhere—it’s your job to clean it up or pay for it. Tip the housekeeping extra. And if you’re still on the fence about the hotel’s policy of pets in the bed? Do something simple that your little companion cannot: Just ask the hotel. 

Jeff Wilser

Writer

Jeff Wilser is the author of seven books, a frequent traveler (living in 24 countries in the three years to 2020), and a contributor to The New York Times, GQ, and Fast Company.