After spending three nights in Long Island for Christmas, we drove up North for 6 hours to Vermont. Black Bear Inn in Bolton Valley allows pets in some rooms. Moreover, they allow well-behaved pets to be left unsupervised and uncrated. The inn is located right next to a ski slope, so you can pop in and out while skiing to check on your furry friends.

This was the first Inn/Lodge experience for Kaiju, so we chose very carefully. The innkeepers had told us that the room was right next to the service door, and we did not have to go through the lobby to go in and out of the room. This sounded perfect for the scaredy pup like Kaiju.

He was quite nervous when we brought him into the room. The bed there was really high. He jumped up on it, sat there, and shivered for half an hour. He looked nervously at all the windows, doors, fixtures, especially the ceiling fan (which was not moving) and kept trembling. We ended up giving him some meds to help him not feel so horrible about being there.
Outside… was a different story. Every time he sensed that we were stepping out for any reason, he jumped down from the bed and started stretching. He loved it. It was so frigid outside. One of the two days that we were supposed to ski, we couldn’t because it was too windy and cold, and all the lifts were stopped. None of that mattered to Kaiju. He wanted to go outside again and again.

There was this path to a ski slope, across the parking lot from the inn, and it was his favorite. Even when we meant to take him out briefly for potty, just in the lot, he somehow manipulated us into going all the way to the path and through it.

Of course, we never minded watching Kaiju jump into a snow drift or chew on random branches, instead of skiing in the freezing cold.

We went away for hours at a time, more than several times, leaving him alone in the room. We made sure to put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door and set up a camera to monitor him. We were happy to learn that he just sat on the bed and slept. He made no noise.

He has definitely proved himself fit enough to join us for road trips. Hooray! We are now totally motivated to go find more accommodations that are suited for this scaredy dog.