You're reading: Going away? Pet hotels will put up your dogs and cats

The West is crazy about inventing all sorts of comfortable accommodations for pets when their owners are away.

There are pet boarding schools, day camps and even pet Au Pairs. Kyiv pet services are not as sophisticated yet, but there are a couple of options on the market to choose from when you must leave on business or a holiday.

To check into a hotel or a vet clinic cage, every pet needs to have a veterinarian passport and all vaccinations done.

If you adopted a stray animal and never worried about medications, almost any pet caregiver will require that your pet passes a blood test.

If the results are positive, vets will give the animal temporary vaccinations for the time you are gone to avoid surprises.

A pet owner should also bring favorite toys, plates and rugs to a temporary home to minimize the stress.

Squatting in a vet clinic

The city has many veterinary clinics, and they are the first obvious choice of pet accommodation. Some offer cages, while others have a few small rooms for VIP clients.

Different vets allow different pets to stay. Some welcome only dogs, while others take everything that flies, walks and crawls.

Alden Vet, for example, one of the better known vet clinics in the city, doesn’t allow exotic pets in. “Polecats, for example, can escape almost from any cage,” says head doctor Yuliya Baburova.

The head of Drug, or Friend, clinic Vitaliy Romanyshyn is glad to have any pet: from a noisy parrot to a feisty polecat, which are, by the way, “extremely popular in Kyiv,” he says.

Apart from professional vet care, like measuring temperature and inspecting ears, Drug clinic offers manicures, trimming and even piercing.

“The most unusual client we had asked for a tattoo for his dog,” remembers Romanyshyn.

Feeding is included in the price of a cage. The owner can bring any food his pet fancies and instruct the vets on its special eating habits.

Dogs will be walked several times a day and cages will be kept clean and disinfected, assure the vets.

With fish, it’s a different story. You can buy a special feeder that will dispense food regularly according to the way you program it. Otherwise, if you have pond fish and are afraid they will die over the winter, you can turn it into Serhiy Komarov’s pool.

He runs the business of cleaning fish tanks and looking after the pond fish.

Center of Modern Veterinary Medicine,” 12 Heroyiv Stalingrada Pr-kt., 464-7799. Rodents – from Hr 40 per day, cats – from Hr 59 per day, dogs – from Hr 70 per day.

Drug, 23 Raduzhnaya St., 540-0303; 11 Larysy Rudenko St., 565-8498, from Hr 39 per day.

Alden Vet (6 clinics), www.aldenvet.kiev.ua. Cats – from Hr 90 per day, dogs – from Hr 110 per day.

Serhiy Komarov, 097-471-1774, 10 pond fishes – Hr 300 per month.

Living a suburban dream

Pet hotels are usually located in private houses with large backyards. They are usually run by pet breeders or animal lovers who have a trusted vet always on call in case something happens.

Large dogs can stay in heated kennels, p

uppies can sleep on couches and cats can have anything they want in the house – such is life if you check in your pet into Tamara Nikolayeva’s house.

One of the most famous dog carers on the market with a 10-year pet record, she promises a special menu, a tailored entertainment program and lots of love in her big house.

“There was one pet owner called Vasya,” remembers Nikolaeva.

“His cat, also Vasya by the way, needed to be fed with borscht so I cooked borsch for him.

And one dog was used to having pumpkin pancakes as a snack, which I can’t stand anymore, because I cooked them so many times.”

Their food preferences aside, many guests require special treatment to feel less stressful while the owner is away.

Some pets are used to hearing people talk to them, while others like watching TV, says Nataliya Poltorak-Shlapaskaya, the owner of the hotel for pets in Tarasivka village.

“I scratch some pets behind their ears and kiss others on the nose,” she adds. “All their whims and habits are natural. They learnt them from their owners.”

Zoohobby, Tamara Nikolaeva, 2 Levadny Provulok, 067-441-6552, from Hr 50 per day.

Hotel for pets, Viktoria Kishchenko, 31 Otradnyy Pr-kt, 067-917-9585, from Hr 150 per day.

Zoohotel, Tarasovka village, 23 naberezhnaya St., 067-982-8238, 067-724-9494, from Hr 100 per day.

KitPets, Belogorodka village, 21 Shchorsa St., Ihor Pleshivcev, 222-5344, from Hr 60 per day.

Alfadog training school and hotel, www.alfadog.com.ua, 067-502-9240

Stress-free days with in-house pet care

Hiring a temporary nanny who will walk and feed your pet sounds like the easiest option of all, if you can trust your house keys to a stranger.

There are obvious benefits to this type of pet care, among which are little or no stress for a pet and even your plants being watered.

“When a nanny visits your pet at its own home, nearly nothing changes in its world. Everything still smells the same,” says Tamara Devidenko, a pet nanny who’s been in the business for more than five years.

“I walk the pet along its usual route and feed it from the same bowl.”

Pet walkers are very flexible, assures Devidenko, but they also take on pets only with passports.

If the client doesn’t trust the keys to a dog walker, he can ask neighbors to open the doors for the nanny at pre-agreed times.

DogWalker, 066-511-1173, tamara Devidenko, from Hr 50 per visit.

Zoonyanya, 097-953-7451, Iryna kaplenko, from Hr 25 per visit.

Kyiv Post staff writer Alyona Zhuk can be reached at [email protected]