Can’t bring dogs with you on vacation? Give ‘em a play-cation!

New York residents are lucky: if they can’t bring their pets along on vacation, they can book a stay at one of the country’s most impressive boarding facilities, Unleash Brooklyn. I confess that I didn’t travel long-distance for several years because there was no place I’d trust with my pack of dogs; thanks to this incredible place, I’m now free to hit the road. 

Banish thoughts of an ordinary kennel. In fact, the co-owners of this unique establishment are hardcore dog lovers who won’t even use what they call  “the K-word” — and to back this up, there isn’t a single cage in the place. Constructed entirely of eco-friendly materials, this is a “holistic loft for cats and dogs.”

A stay here is a play-cation: Dogs are walked outside and enjoy carefully-supervised play sessions in three spacious exercise runs floored with shock-absorbing rubber,which is very kind to dogs with sore joints. There’s even a treadmill for super-high-energy dogs to burn off steam – or paunchy pooches, to help them battle the bulge.

When it’s sleepytime, the canine guests repair to individual rooms and “dog suites,” separated by wooden Dutch doors as in a posh horse stable, with homey touches including framed dog portraits, rugs, and chandeliers. And what do the guests lay their heads on? What else? Crypton dog beds! Now, that’s what we call deluxe accommodations.

And how’s this for reassuring: The morning after my dogs’ first night at their new home-away-from-home, I received the following text message: “They are awesome and slept great!”  

Posted by Julia Szabo.

What fun to have my new book, Pretty Pet-Friendly: Easy Ways to Keep Spot’s Digs Stylish and Spotless, featured in Katie Knorovsky’s great Washington Post Express article about high-style pet accessories, including the Crypton Throver! The book was also featured in Jill Sell’s terrific story on pet-friendly decor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer!

I had one goal when authoring Pretty Pet-Friendly: to encourage shelter-animal adoption by helping animal lovers with simple, easy-to-follow tips to keep a neat, orderly, and above all, chic “animal house.”

Of course, Crypton figures prominently in the book. And to drive my point home, when styling the cover shoot, I arranged to have an icon of chair design custom-upholstered in Crypton Suede “Icing”:  Milo Baughman’s 989 Lounge Chair, originally designed in the 1960s, is still manufactured by Thayer Coggin, renowned furniture makers in North Carolina, USA.

Besides sporting a stylish, sumptuous fabric cover that’s pretty impervious to stains, moisture, odors, and bacteria (thank you, Crypton), this pretty, pet-friendly chair sits on a metal frame – which makes it claw- and jaw-proof to boot. As for Icing’s pale purplish-periwinkle-blue hue, it’s so chic that my publisher’s graphic-design team chose it as the accent color of the inside pages!

How do you keep your “animal house” chic and clean? Tell us in the comments.