July 19, 2024
Enhancing Holiday Homes for Pet Guests
Are you a homeowner and want tips on enhancing holiday homes for pet guests? Are you looking to make your holiday home more pet-friendly?
In Australia, there’s a growing demand for pet-friendly accommodation, with many short-stay Airbnb hosts finding that some pet-friendly properties in certain areas possess fewer vacancy periods than those with no-pet policies.
However, creating a ‘pet-friendly’ property isn’t as simple as checking a box on your Airbnb profile; it entails outfitting your holiday rental with special amenities tailored for pet guests.
So, how can you make sure your holiday homes provide just as much luxury for pets as they do for human guests? That’s precisely the question we’re setting out to answer today by sharing our top home improvement tips for holiday homes that specifically cater to pets travelling with their families.
Learn how you can make your holiday home a fun environment for not only your own pets but the pets of other guests who you may rent your home out to throughout the year.
Create an Outdoor Catio
Installing an outdoor catio will make your holiday home allow pets to enjoy the great outdoors safely by installing an outdoor “catio”. An outdoor catio is essentially an enclosed outdoor playground for cats. Simply put, this holiday home upgrade is a perfect way to allow cats to roam free without getting lost or endangering wildlife in rural or remote holiday home locations.
Ensure to outfit this cat-friendly space with plenty of fixtures to enhance the cat’s play, like tunnels, platforms, things to scratch upon, and places to climb, perch, and feel lordly, or just lounge lazily in peace. And if you don’t have an existing patio to install your catio on, then we recommend hiring a carpenter to construct this structure safely and securely so you can install your catio in an elevated position and with a solid floor or foundation. Having your catio installed in an elevated position is ideal for accommodating cats who are prone to digging or are generally great escape artists.
Install a Pet Door
Of course, the natural first place to start when you think of ‘pet-friendly home improvements’ is by installing a pet door. This will let your own pooch or cat, or your guest’s furry friends, come and go from the yard to the home as they please.
An upgrade like this will reduce the amount of accidents occurring in the home, so you or your guests don’t have to clean up a mess. Cat urine, in particular, can damage flooring, leave a strong smell residue and is a pain to clean up.
Keep in mind that if pets haven’t used a pet door before, then you may need to train them following the installation of this pet-friendly feature. Thankfully, this is easily done by incentivising them to walk through the door with treats. We recommend using calming treats for cats as they may already be anxious in their new environment on top of learning how to use your new pet door as well.
Add Food & Water Stations
Usually, holiday homeowners will leave pet bowls for food and water in the laundry or kitchen. This can quickly get messy, as is also unseemly for some rooms. Consider installing a food and water station by creating an alcove or tucked away nook where pets can eat and drink with minimal foot traffic.
You can have a tap plumbed in, and install a sink as well, so you can easily dispense water and also wash the bowls out without having to take them to the laundry or kitchen sink. This relatively straightforward renovation idea is perfect for any holiday homeowner. Once again, consider whether it may be best to consult a professional (in this case a plumber) to do these works for you rather than DIY-ing. Working with an expert can help ensure your new water facilities are set up correctly.
Add some Pet Ramps
As part of their daily activities (and even on holiday), pets will have to go up and down stairs. Be mindful of this if your holiday home has two storeys, or even an elevated porch or other architectural features that could demand animals to do a little bit of climbing. This infrastructure can be particularly challenging for young cats and puppies or senior aged pets with arthritis, so consider modifying your holiday home to help these pets save energy moving between storeys or elevated areas.
The natural solution here is to install pet accessibility ramps anywhere you have a staircase. Working with a carpenter could be ideal here too, just to make sure your new pet ramp is installed securely and doesn’t prove to be any risk to your younger or elderly pets.
Another alternative to this option is to purchase a temporary ramp. You can buy a portable folding staircase or small ramp, which can be placed next to the porch, couch bed, or other favourite elevated areas around the holiday home.
Install Heated Floors
This upgrade is great for senior dogs and can help young pets feel better in colder climates, like if you have a holiday house on the coast or in the mountains where the temperatures drop to freezing. You could install a heated section of the floor, but heated flooring, in general, is another excellent pet-friendly upgrade that also has benefits beyond our furry friends. Heated floors are an excellent upgrade that will increase the rental yield and resale value of your beloved holiday home.
Install a Dog Pool
Finally, another pet-friendly holiday home upgrade is to install a small dog pool in the backyard. This can be a great way for dogs to cool off during the peak of summer or just enjoy a splash all year round. It doesn’t have to be big, so it is safe for the dogs, but it is easily installed outside, with only a small amount of preparation and labour required to do well.
Safety is key here, however! You want to make sure that dogs are always swimming with supervision – especially if you know they’re not a strong swimmer or if they have historically had difficulty lifting themselves out of swimming pools. Keeping dogs safe near water is an evergreen responsibility for all dog owners from season to season.
A pro tip for holiday homeowners when it comes to pet-friendly pool safety, is to install signage that directs your guests on how to supervise their pets as they swim. That way, you can make sure you’ve done your due diligence as the property owner if an incident were to occur.
Build a Holiday Home for the Whole Family
By enhancing holiday homes for pet guests, you’ll stand out from other properties and see a return on investment – either by having a nicer holiday place to visit or upgrades that allow you to market your holiday home to like-minded pet owners that are looking for their next pet-friendly adventure.