It’s a good time to be a pampered dog. Recent data about the hospitality industry showed positive news for spaces designed with luxury travelers in mind — and evidently, there’s also encouraging news afoot for their canine counterparts. In 2024, we took notice of Los Angeles’s Dog PPL opening a Brooklyn outpost — but it’s far from the only establishment of its kind making a name for itself.
As Gothamist’s Stephanie Keith reports, Dog PPL is just one of a number of high-end canine establishments growing in popularity (or, perhaps, pupularity?) in New York City. And while there are some substantial differences between a trip to one of these locations and an average day at Soho House, there are plenty of ways in which the establishments described at Gothamist echo members-only clubs for people — including deluxe amenities, cafes and places to stretch one’s legs. And, of course, waiting lists — including one club where prospective canine members might wait for a year before getting in.
One dog owner who spoke to Gothamist said that they preferred the lower-key elements of bringing your dog to a private club as opposed to a dog run located in one of the city’s parks. But the appeal of high-end spaces for dogs isn’t confined to New York City; a 2011 NBC News article called Paris’s Actuel Dogs “France’s first luxury hotel for dogs.”
This is a relatively recent phenomenon. Last spring, Sam Apple wrote for the New York Times Magazine about the growing number of dog hotels across the U.S. — places that, Apple observed, “didn’t exist when I was growing up in the 1980s.”
New York’s Next Hot Membership Club Is…For Dogs?
LA’s Dog PPL is heading eastApple’s article, which chronicles the nights he spent in various dog hotels around the country, canine companion in tow, offers plenty of rumination on why these businesses (and overall spending on pets) have grown significantly in recent years.
“It’s hard not to wonder whether our growing obsession with dogs is somehow related to our declining interest in one another,” Apple wrote — and yet, it’s notable that some of the establishments discussed in Gothamist’s reporting offer social events for dogs and humans alike. Maybe, for some people, a high-end dog experience is also an elaborate way to make a human connection.
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