Dog Friendly Hotel

We found a dog-friendly hotel in Grants Pass. We had all been through a six-hour car trip to southern Oregon. Kafka, by now a seasoned car traveler, slept through it all and woke only for three or four rest stops to drink, pee and poop on cue.

Here allow me to complain of the horrid "pet areas" in California's state highway rest stops. You have a choice: a few square feet of foxtails, or hot-coal-like gravel. The very green grass on which so much precious water is wasted is cordoned with yellow tape. No one enjoys it, as people like to sit on benches if they sit at all.

Kafka had not been introduced to the concept of a hotel... This one was part of a chain and had a bark "pet area" towards the end of one of its wings. You could take your dog out and return by opening the back door with your room key. The dog-friendly rooms had seen better days but the staff was very friendly. As soon as we came inside the room he felt the need to sniff every corner. I imagine the smells of other people and dogs must have seemed really strange to him. We brought him his bed but he did not lay in it, instead choosing a dark area directly under a small table. Then our hotel ordeal began.

Every noise was a reason to run to the door and bark to let the stranger know that inside was a guard dog ready to defend its pack. Most bewildering of all were the noises coming from the room directly above us. He just couldn't relax knowing there were people walking on the "roof," just like giant squirrels. Even the TV was a source of suspicion (unfortunately we were watching old episodes of the Twilight Zone). He would stare at the screen and jump with any noises other than human voices. Eventually we had to tie him to our bed so he would not run to the door every two minutes. It was like this that we all fell asleep at around 1 am.

The next day he awoke us bright and early for a potty run. Only that every other pet (and this hotel was the oly one in town that took pets) was out there already, competing for an area about four by twenty feet, and full of ornamental bushes. We took off, found a better spot right in front of another hotel, and returned after finding the poop bag a proper disposal. We ran into an old woman with a shaved cocker spaniel who told us he did not take well to larger dogs because he was a rescue dog, but by the time she had finished telling us this little story, he and Kafka had gone through all of their greeting rituals.

The next night Kafka fell asleep by ten, on his bed, and oblivious to all the noise generated by the town's fourth of July celebrations. Go figure.