This Dog For Rent

Man's best friend becoming travelers' favorite perk
More hotels, shelters offer 'loaner' dogs

John Flinn, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, October 17, 2004


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Aspen , Colo. -- Everybody in Aspen seemed to have a dog except me, and it made me wish I'd brought my golden retriever to Colorado. So I did the next best thing: I dropped by the Aspen Animal Shelter and checked out a "loaner."

In resort areas around the United States, borrowing a German shepherd or husky is getting to be as easy as checking out a book from the library. A small but growing number of shelters and high-end hotels -- and one grocery store -- now lend dogs to visitors for an afternoon or a weekend:

-- In Aspen, the borrow-a-dog program is so popular that there's often a waiting list in summer. Some of the town's most upmarket hotels participate, helping arrange loaners for their guests and permitting the dogs to spend the night in the hotel.

-- In Vancouver, British Columbia, the two Fairmont hotels each have a resident Labrador retriever registered guests can take for a stroll around the city. Among their fans: Queen Elizabeth II, who was photographed with one during a visit a few years ago.

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