The Pet Hotel

Okay, it is Friday, the day of our departure and I took the morning to pack, cleaned up a bit and got the animal carriers out of the garage and placed them, quietly on the floor. The cats freak when they hear the cat cages. Then they hide and it is quite difficult to extract them from those hiding places. I went about my business not to alert them and everything was going as planned.

It is now about 11:30 AM and I knew that it was time to begin the cat packing process so I could go sign the kids out of school, drop the kitties off and begin our "break". There is an order in which I need to collect the cats, based on hiding ability and ability to extract when necessary. First, Macy, because she is the fastest and knows ALL of the really good hiding places. Then, Patches, because she will follow Macy, just not as fast, but she is slippery. Joey, The King, is always last. He sits back and watches the other two squirm and wiggle, meowing in protest. He knows that I will come him, but his eyes quint and his ear draw back a bit as I gently pick him up. Talk about vocal protest! As I begin to get close to the cage, he knows what is next, he, without hesitation, puts his right paw up to push the cage away. You know, "Talk to the hand (paw)." Well, as the cats have learned over the years, mommy always wins. Okay, so they are loaded up, I pick up the kids and we head out to the Luxury Pet Hotel. I've been out to check it out and it is really nice and the ladies who run it truly love their pets and everyone elses.

Since this was our first time there, they needed to check their medical records to ensure that the proper vaccinations have been admistered. Yup....this was beginning of our "break". They couldn't find one shot that was usually given for boarding, like a kennel cough shot for dogs. We just left Korea and had to go through two health examines to leave the freakin' country, surely that shot was given. Well, if it was, it wasn't annotated. No shot. No stay. They were very nice I need to add and were really trying to help me. First we called our vet to see if they could give them this shot, but everyone was at lunch, of course. We could drop them off and pick them up later, so we called the vet that the hotel used and they were booked. Okay...back to my vet...at this point the owner of the hotel came over and said if we drop them off, pay, then she would go pick them up. HHmmmmmmm. I was a little nervous about that, but I did have a good relationship with my vet and I knew that they would not let anything happen to my babies. So we went with that route. Note that the cats have already been set up in their little rooms, so we had to go get them out, put them back in their cages, and transport to the vet clinic.

At this point we are an hour behind my personal schedule. We drop the kitties off, they get checked in and the vet lady gave me my total. Are you sitting down? $202.00!! Yeah, that is what I said. Holy crap! I didn't have time to mess around, I paid, verified that they were supposed to call the hotel when they were ready for pick up and left. The kids and I had lunch, went home and packed the van. We left about 2 hours behind schedule (you know how I am about my schedule!) I fumed the whole way. So, when we got back, I asked the hotel if the vet gave them a receipt. She showed it to me and then it all made sense. They charged me for the visit, the rabies and the freaking missing shot! If I would have known, I would have taken them to the base, where I would have paid just a fraction of that amount!

Anyway, the pet hotel was very nice and I will use them again.