I can’t imagine not bringing him on trips.”— Sarah Evans, owner of Bear (on a plane) (
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On Christmas Day, before the blizzard made travel a holiday nightmare, New Yorkers Jeanne-Louise Camus and Weenie flew out of JFK, bound for San Francisco. They treated themselves to a first-class ticket, guaranteeing them friendly service — and netting Weenie a bowl of water and plate of chopped tomatoes, his favorite.
Travel may be a dirty word after a week of flight cancellations and snowed-in roads, but with months of winter still to come, getting away is still on many New Yorkers’ minds. Even the four-legged ones.
Weenie, Camus’ 5½-year-old pug, is soon to visit Lake Tahoe. It will be the latest addition to a long list of places he’s been, including Arizona, New Hampshire, Maine, Connecticut and Key West, where he visits the dog-friendly aquarium. He’s even traveled through France via train and been driven through Italy in a hybrid.
“I plan most of my travels to include Weenie,” says Camus, a grad student who lives in Chelsea. “He’s a big part of my life. I’d feel guilty leaving him at a boarding kennel.”
Luckily, Weenie is small enough for Camus to take on planes as a carry-on item. Most airlines charge an average of $100 each way for the service; to help offset the costs, Camus likes to fly JetBlue, which has a frequent-flier program for pets called JetPaws. “You still pay a fee, but it means Weenie can accumulate miles.”
Sarah Evans also likes JetBlue, partly for its helpful information about traveling with your pet. Evans, who lives in Greenwich Village, says it’s more expensive to fly with Bear, her Maltipoo, than to leave him with a sitter, “but it’s totally worth it. I can’t imagine not bringing him on trips.”
Bear is just 7 months old, but he’s already been to California, Florida, Virginia, the Jersey Shore and the Hamptons. “His favorite place is Montauk,” says Evans. “He loves the beach.”
But getting there is only part of the journey. Evans and Camus rely on pet-friendly hotels found on such Web sites as Petfriendly.com and Dogfriendly.com.
Some boast amenities, not all of them useful. “Many hotels offer pet massages,” says Evans, “but Bear hasn’t had one. It would be more helpful if hotels had food and water bowls, so we don’t have to bring Bear’s travel bowls on every trip.”
Hotels often charge pet fees, averaging $100 per stay. And while Evans, who works in travel publicity, has noticed more places flying the pet-friendly flag, some do it begrudgingly. “We’re now confined to the ‘pet floor’ at one of our favorite hotels,” she says. That means the second floor, with no views.
As pet travel becomes more common — and more fraught with delays — Evans hopes that more airports will add pet-relief areas on the gate side of security. “We were once delayed for several hours and would have had to leave the terminal to take Bear outside,” she says. “But that wasn’t possible since we weren’t given an exact time for when the flight was taking off.”
Camus recommends Washington Dulles, where, during a recent layover, Weenie used the airport’s indoor dog-relief area, complete with self-cleaning astroturf.
Once onboard, Weenie is a model passenger. “He sleeps,” she says, “and snores!” Luckily, she says her fellow fliers don’t seem to mind having a pug in their midst.
His biggest admirers, she says, are in Europe: “Weenie has international friends, including a Maltese who lives in Provence. The local baker didn’t know my name but she knew Weenie’s. She always gave him a nibble of bread.”
pets@nypost.com