Should You Take Your Pooch on a Business Trip?

What can be fairly called a quiet trend among business travelers is an increasing number of people who bring their dogs along with them on business trips. If you are wondering about the advisability to taking a business trip with your dog, there exist a number of facts and factors to ponder.

Hotel Accommodations

An increasing number of hotels are becoming more pet friendly all of the time. This includes not only permitting pets to stay in hotel rooms, but offering other services for pets as well. It is these other services that can prove to be particularly important for you if you want to travel with your dog.

An increasing number of hotels provide access to “doggy daycare.” This sometimes is on site. In other situations, doggy daycare is in close proximity to a hotel. 

You really will want to be on the lookout for accessible doggy day care when you travel with your dog on a business trip. This will be a godsend to you and will help ensure that your pooch is properly tended to while you’re dealing with business. 

Other Dog Friendly Accommodations

With increasing regularity, a growing number of businesses in the United States and elsewhere around the world are becoming strongly pet-friendly. For example, an increasing number bistros permit dogs to join their humans in outdoor dining areas. Some stores permit dogs to join their humans inside as well. In other words, a dog owner has a great deal more flexibility in regard to what can and cannot be done with a dog, including while traveling for business.

Dogs that Tagalong

Although this is the exception and not the rule, in some situations, pooches can tagalong with their humans to certain meetings or functions associated with a business trip. More than a few entrepreneurs or business owners with different locations bring their dogs along on business trips. Moreover, they bring their pooches along with them to specific business related events.

Again, this is a narrow situation in which a dog can accompany a human to actual work-related functions. An employee of a company should never presume that this is acceptable. On the other hand, a business traveler should never absolutely rule out the possibility that this type of tagalong situation might be workable in limited circumstances. 

Lowers Stress

Time and again, people who bring their dogs on business trips make the same comment. They proclaim that having their pooches along keeps their own stress in check. 

Business travel can be stressful. For many business travelers, the level of stress is persistent until the jaunt ands and the person gets back home. 

Having a pet along provides a business traveler a much needed companion who can assist in relieving stress. That can come in the form of something as simple as taking walks with your furry friend while on a business trip.

Oftentimes Cheaper Than Boarding

When contemplating whether or not to take your dog on a business trip, boarding may be a consideration. When you travel for business, you may need to board your dog or hire a dog sitter. Even if you have a friend pop in on a daily basis to feed, water, and check on your pooch, there may be an expense associated with that assistance, particularly if you will be gone for more than a short period of time.

Research comparing and contrasting the cost of taking your dog on a business trip with you or boarding your canine companion indicates that it’s cheaper to travel with your pooch. You may pay upwards to $125 one way to bring your dog on a flight with you. However, boarding costs can run between $30 and $60 a night. This, unless your business trip is very short, you’ll end up saving money by bringing your dog along.

Plan Well in Advance for Pooch Travel

If you plan to travel with your dog on a business trip, you must be highly proactive. You need to undertake all associated due diligence and make suitable arrangements for your dog in regard to all elements of a business trip. This includes everything from confirming that a particular airline can accommodate your pooch and that there is room in the proverbial inn for your furry friend. 

Nothing can be left to chance of speculation. You simply cannot have a business trip tossed into turmoil because you failed to properly plan all aspects of the trip with your canine in mind. Transposing the cliché about your dog eating your homework doesn’t work in a business travel setting.

Jessica Kane is a writer for Handicapped Pets, your most trusted source for dog wheelchairs and harnesses.