From whole neighborhoods turned into foreclosure ghost towns to tent cities that have revived memories of the Great Depression, the recession is biting hard in California.
But for the canine clientele of an exclusive boutique hotel in Los Angeles, the financial crisis affecting the human world is just a shaggy dog story.
Whether it’s gourmet meals cooked to order or flat-screen TVs playing DVDs of 101 Dalmatians and The Lady and the Tramp, all needs of the four-legged guests of Hollywood’s D Pet Hotel are catered for.
PHOTO: AFP
At US$110 a night for the top room, some rates at the sleek establishment outstrip those found at popular tourist destinations. Las Vegas’s MGM Grand recently offered rooms at US$52 a night.
Alissa Cruz, 32, a former real estate agent who opened the hotel with her husband Allan in December, said the business targeted “people with an unlimited budget.”
“We have very eccentric people, people who have money. We’ve had a client who just for the fun of it requested to have his dog picked up in a Lamborghini,” Cruz said. “He just wanted the dog to be picked up from home and when the day was over take him back.”
The “Uber Suite” is the most expensive room at D Pet Hotel, with a queen size bed, a 106cm flat screen TV and chic decor.
Other rooms include the “Sensational Suite” at US$90 a night and the “BowWow suite” for US$65.
But while no expense is spared for those pet owners seeking to board their dogs, the hotel also offers luxurious spa and daycare services.
For pooches who have had one dog treat too many, customized “doggie treadmills” and personal training is available.
Other guests, meanwhile, can indulge in an array of spa treatments, including massages, body wraps and vitamin baths.
More active residents are able to socialize in the hotel’s 557m² indoor dog park, which is subdivided into three separate areas depending on a dog’s size.
“A French bulldog will not play the same as a 70-pound [31kg] lab,” Cruz said.
Cruz said she started the business out of her own experiences as a dog owner.
“It started out of the needs of my own dogs, because we traveled so much for work in our past careers and I always had to board them,” Cruz said.
“I’ve been to a lot of good, bad and ugly places and it always reminded me of a tunnel, a cage — and my girls are princesses,” Cruz said. “So many times I’ve walked into places and cried when I left my girls, because the place smelled horrible, you don’t trust the people behind the scenes and and they didn’t let me see a lot of things.”
D Pet Hotel publicist Bryan Cole said the hotel has so far escaped the ravages of recession.
“It’s Hollywood you know,” Cole said. “For the majority of people out here, their pets and their animals are their children and they would love to sacrifice lots of things in their lives before sacrificing their children.
“If that means not eating out once or twice a week they’d rather bring their dogs here and leave them in day care for US$65,” he said.
Authorities have detained three former Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TMSC, 台積電) employees on suspicion of compromising classified technology used in making 2-nanometer chips, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. Prosecutors are holding a former TSMC engineer surnamed Chen (陳) and two recently sacked TSMC engineers, including one person surnamed Wu (吳) in detention with restricted communication, following an investigation launched on July 25, a statement said. The announcement came a day after Nikkei Asia reported on the technology theft in an exclusive story, saying TSMC had fired two workers for contravening data rules on advanced chipmaking technology. Two-nanometer wafers are the most
Tsunami waves were possible in three areas of Kamchatka in Russia’s Far East, the Russian Ministry for Emergency Services said yesterday after a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hit the nearby Kuril Islands. “The expected wave heights are low, but you must still move away from the shore,” the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app, after the latest seismic activity in the area. However, the Pacific Tsunami Warning System in Hawaii said there was no tsunami warning after the quake. The Russian tsunami alert was later canceled. Overnight, the Krasheninnikov volcano in Kamchatka erupted for the first time in 600 years, Russia’s RIA
CHINA’s BULLYING: The former British prime minister said that he believes ‘Taiwan can and will’ protect its freedom and democracy, as its people are lovers of liberty Former British prime minister Boris Johnson yesterday said Western nations should have the courage to stand with and deepen their economic partnerships with Taiwan in the face of China’s intensified pressure. He made the remarks at the ninth Ketagalan Forum: 2025 Indo-Pacific Security Dialogue hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Prospect Foundation in Taipei. Johnson, who is visiting Taiwan for the first time, said he had seen Taiwan’s coastline on a screen on his indoor bicycle, but wanted to learn more about the nation, including its artificial intelligence (AI) development, the key technology of the 21st century. Calling himself an
South Korea yesterday said that it was removing loudspeakers used to blare K-pop and news reports to North Korea, as the new administration in Seoul tries to ease tensions with its bellicose neighbor. The nations, still technically at war, had already halted propaganda broadcasts along the demilitarized zone, Seoul’s military said in June after the election of South Korean President Lee Jae-myung. It said in June that Pyongyang stopped transmitting bizarre, unsettling noises along the border that had become a major nuisance for South Korean residents, a day after South Korea’s loudspeakers fell silent. “Starting today, the military has begun removing the loudspeakers,”
RSS