You Can Take Them with You

Audrey Hepburn hardly makes a move without Famous, her tiny Yorkshire. Liz Taylor takes her Pekingese and three Yorkshires almost everywhere. Tenor Franco Corelli travels with a poodle. Actor Rex Harrison brings a basset hound, and Gypsy Rose Lee has even smuggled her Chinese hairless puppy onto an airplane in her bra. With all that precedent, it was hardly a surprise that Mr. and Mrs. Everyman got the idea too. The result is that now Rover is roving all over the world nearly as much as his owner.

Dogs go everywhere. They take cars, boats, trains and planes. They find special accommodations in some hotels and special menus in some restaurants. TWA reports that it carried several hundred more pounds of pets this year than last. U.S. Lines has found a sharp increase in dog passengers. Airport animal shelters in San Francisco and New York have doubled their business in five years.

Red-Lining Dogs. On most airlines, small dogs can get passes to travel in the cabin with their owners as long as there are not more than one or two passes per class and as long as the dog does not measure more than 18 in. (high) by 18 in. (wide) by 27 in. (long). On liners of the Italian Line, dogs travel first class in small cabins of their own, even if their owners go tourist. On the France, there are not only private dog deck, luxurious kennels and special menus, but to put the international travelers completely at ease, there is a choice of French milestone or American hydrant.

In fact, so many dogs are getting out and around these days that in Germany a book has just been published listing 2,500 hotels throughout the world which are especially hundefreundlich (friendly to dogs), and the author is already planning a revised edition. In the U.S., the Gaines dog-food people put out a similar national guide (for 250) listing 7,200 hotels that a dog will find acceptable, and vice versa. Even the famed Guide Michelin notes (by a dog's head with a red line through it) which places will not entertain canines.

No Children. It is not easy for just any dog to get into most countries. In Ireland, Great Britain and Hawaii, a dog must spend four to six months in quarantine before admittance. The U.S.S.R. gives dogs a flat nyet. And in Australia, if the dog has not resided in Ireland or Mother England for at least six months, it is destroyed on arrival. But in places like Italy, France, West Germany and Spain, all that is required for admission is such simple things as a veterinarian's certificate, plus a record of antirabies shots.

There are still many hostelries with a stated "no pet" policy. But on the whole, admits one Copenhagen hotel manager, "dogs are good guests and easy to please. They don't polish their shoes on the bedclothes or steal our expensive ashtrays." A Paris hotelier agrees: "I gladly accept pets," he says, "but not American children. They are too destructive."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.