10 Ways to Pamper Your Dog: Extravagant Activities and Experiences for Fabulous Pooches

We’ve come to the unspectacular conclusion that our recent articles have been a little on the heavy side: ‘Should You Get Your Dog DNA Tested?’, ‘5 Little Known Social Benefits of a Visit to Your Local Shelter’, and ‘Who Cares About Natural Dog Products Anyway?’.

Concerned that we’d lost our sense of fun, we changed gears and dug up the most extravagant, over-the-top, unusual, jaw-droppingly surprising ways to pamper your dog.  If your name is Paris Hilton, or you belong to the Kardashian family, yes, we are aware they'll not so much as raise an eyebrow.

For the rest of us, you’ll find the most comprehensive list of ideas for pamper-ific activities and experiences ever assembled for your pooch pal right here.  Look out for our follow-up post on the most unusual and extravagant items you can buy for your fur babies, too.

Visit the Pooch & Poodle shop for unique and stylish human apparel, homeware, and essentials for your pooch pal.

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Luxury Hotel Stays

For those in the know, this one won’t come as much of a surprise.  For those that are marginally aware, some of the lengths to which these establishments go will surprise you.  For the blissfully ignorant, we can already hear the cries of ‘what the!?’. 

Yes, there are a crazy number of pet-friendly luxury hotels that pamper their four-legged guests in much the same way as they take care of those with two.  Matched only by the crazy number of dog owners with a yearning to take them there. 

Le Bristol in Paris, for example, provides canine customers with a welcome pack, which includes bowls, bone-shaped treats, a bottle of Evian, and a small rug with their name embroidered on it.  At the Pier One Hotel in Sydney (Australia) pets are welcome everywhere in the hotel, and in-room they get a trampoline bed, a dedicated mini bar, spa products, and a doggy dining menu chock-full of gourmet cuisine. 

Still other hotels, such as the Fairmont Hotel in Vancouver, have Canine Ambassadors or Directors of Pet relations on staff who greet pet guests upon arrival.  Then there’s Kimpton’s Hotel Monaco in Portland which offers pet psychic sessions and reiki treatments. 

We could go on, but we’ll finish painting this particular picture as you read on.  Many of these hotels also offer several of the services we mention below, including doggy yoga (Doga), massages, spa treatments, aromatherapy, fitness activities, and more.  Talk about ways to pamper you dog!

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Day Spa Treatments

We K9 kid you not.  Our little four-legged fur balls have access to pampering of the luxurious kind at their very own Day Spaws (see what we did there?). 

At the Barkley Pet Hotel and Day Spa treatments include fur dyeing, a mud mask, and a ‘pawdicure’ (inclusive of nail coloring).  While at the Raithwaite Estate in Yorkshire, England they offer custom aromatherapy treatments. 

At still other spas your fur BFFs can experience an infrared sauna to relax and heal.  Which ostensibly proves our theory: if you can use it to pamper a hooman, you can use it to pamper a hound. 

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Fine Dining Experiences

And then we have pet-friendly restaurants where your canine kids are offered their very own gourmet dog menus.  Here’s a snippet from Bring Fido describing an up market restaurant called The Nose Dive in Greenville, SC:  “While you sample a handcrafted cocktail, he can browse the dog beer menu, which includes IPA Lot in the Yard, Mailman Malt Licker and Crotch Sniffin' Ale from Good Boy Dog Beer. For his main course, your pooch has a choice of salmon, beef patties, chicken, scrambled eggs, rice & veg or bacon. And if he has a sweet fang, there's peanut butter ice cream to round out the gourmet canine meal. “ 

If you happen to find yourself in the UK, you and your fur BFF can dine at ‘2018’s best restaurant in the UK’ winner, M Victoria Street restaurant.  They offer a ‘Six Legs Brunch Menu’ (presumably yours plus your pooches).  For the canines, this includes gourmet selections such as bone marrow risotto and black pudding granola.  Delicious.  Ways to pamper your dog ... and yourself.  At the same time!

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Café Chillouts

Feelin’ easy like Sunday morning?  Treat your fur kid to a puppucinno at Starbucks.  While it’s not on the menu, your favorite barista will happily whip one up for you.  Either request it by name or simply ask for some whipped cream in a cup for your pooch.  Then you can relax and read the Financial Times while he peruses The Dogington Post. 

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Gourmet Nights In

Prefer a quiet night in with your fur BFF?  Lounging away on the couch with Netflix on speed dial?  There are plenty of delivery services offering gourmet, human-grade, organic food options.  Make sure you treat yourself too so you don’t succumb to food envy.  Just because your looking for ways to pamper your dog doesn't mean you can't benefit, too.

Looking for a beverage to wash that down with?  Try some Woof Water or K9-Quencher.  Want something a little stronger?  Treat them to one of several dog-only beers now available.  Including, Snuffle Dog Beer, Dawg Grog, Bowser Beer for Dogs, and plain ‘ol Dog Beer.  

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Doga

It’s yoga, but for dogs.  For us, the name is a little misleading.  As far as we can tell the only one that will be doing any yoga poses is you. 

That said, we’ve been chastised for missing the more subtle aspects of Doga, and we’re told that some of the poses include stretching exercises and doggie massages.  At the very least, you get to bring along your pooch pal while you experience the wonder of a delicately balanced sun salutation. 

(If anyone thought we were going to throw in a downward dog joke in here, you’re mistaken.) 

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Calming Massages

Much like us, our dogs deserve the restorative and calming touch provided by massage.  Board certified animal massage therapists are available to knead away your pooch pal’s aches, pains and worries.  A Shih Tzu massage anyone?

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With a Fitness Club Pass

You’ve got a membership at that exclusive gym in Central Park South.  Why not splash out on a membership for your dog, too?  Fit Dog Sports Club  is one of a number of clubs that provides ‘gym classes’ for dogs as well as day excursions, which includes beach walks and canyon hikes. 

We understand they have some hot instructors too, which will undoubtedly provide the necessary motivation your pooch pal needs to stay committed.

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Milestone Celebrations

We wouldn’t bat an eyelid at an extravagant wedding for one of our friends.  And we certainly wouldn’t miss celebrating a birthday in style.  Why would it be any different for our fur BFFs we hear you ask? 

Fear not, there are various venues catering solely for your K9 Kid’s impending nuptials, or for that yearly getting older celebration (otherwise known as birthdays or ‘adoptaversaries’). 

You can find full-service party planners too, covering guest list, location, theme, and food.   Not to mention help with selecting gorgeous doggy dresses and tuxedos.  For the all-important cake, there are also options aplenty.  Organic, of course. 

Ways to Pamper Your Dog With Some Elite Sports

Don’t know what to get the dog who’s done everything?  Looking for something a little more adventurous to excite and delight your pooch pal?  How about enrolling them for some extreme sports, ranging from canyoning and surfing to paragliding. 

We Shih Tzu not, there are canine kids who happily jump off cliffs with their owners as well as those who adore the thrill of gliding over the ocean.  Why delay?

 

And there you have it.  A wealth of ideas for treating your pet to the life they so richly deserve.  Just make sure your bank account has several zeros in it before going too far.