Hotel / rental apt. that accept pet (after arriving in UK)

Hi all,

I have a quick question about bringing my dog to UK. I have read through the PETS requirement and one main major item is the 6 months waiting period BEFORE bringing my dog to UK (assuming I've done all the microchip, vaccine, and blood sample).

The problem is, when I arrive in UK, I don't have a place to stay yet. Thus, I have to first stay in hotel (or some cheap but good short-term apt.), and then find an apartment. Thus, my questions are:

1) Can anyone provide recommendation on which good hotel/beds & breakfast that accept dog? I am looking for something that is not expensive, maybe around £40-80.

2) I have searched a number of website advertising apartment for rents, such as http://www.gumtree.com/, but couldn't find much. Any good website or rental agency that advertise place to rent that accept dog?

3) If you brought your dog to UK before under the PETS program, please share your experiences on how you dealt with the above.

Thanks!

Hi there! I am assuming you are going to be staying in London.  In London, I imagine the price range you gave is going to be a bit difficult especially with a pet.  I would definately reccomend you have a place sorted whether a hotel or flat before coming over.  I would hate to see you stranded!  There are a couple websites that might help.  http://www.k9directory.co.uk/

I have just read that some Best Western hotels might accept pets.  You might even check out http://www.londontown.com/London/Family_Hotels

I did the Pet Scheme nearly 3 years ago with cats and some of it has changed since then.  All it all it was not a bad experience and things went smoothly for me.  I will let some of the people who have done it more recently give you their experiences!

Good luck with your move!

Hi Whisper,

Thanks so much for the information and especially the links! I'll definitely check it out!

If you don't mind me asking, where did you stay when you first came with your pets and whether the hotel was nice? Also, if you're renting, where is the best place to search for apartment/flats that take dogs? i.e. newspaper, gumtree.com, etc.

FYI, I've search gumtree.com in the last week or so and very little ads about places to rent that accept pets.

We found a flat that allowed pets by looking in a local classified ads paper (online of course).  In the ads from private lettors you'll notice that some say "NO PETS" and some don't say anything.  So we just called about the ads that didn't specifically exclude pets and asked about them before we asked about the flat.  But, a lot of people here seem to have found flats that allowed their pets through estate agents - so that route must be doable too. 

Good luck.

Sorry I probably should have clarified but I had to a place to stay when I arrived as when I was over here on a prior visit my DH and I found a private landlord that allowed us to have our cats.  Sorry I am not helpful in the area particular to what you need.  Carrie is right though, private landlords are probably a little bit more lenient.  Also, if  you want to go the private route you can look at www.loot.com and click on property. Thats how we got our private rental.   There are a few other websites that have been mentioned for looking at renting properties. I thought someone would have come along and posted them by now as I know there are others who are more familiar than I am about those kind of websites. You could try and do a search on this site as well by typing in key words like "renting" "renting privately" etc.   Those lovely, helpful ones should be along soon! 

We found the local classified paper by looking at the housing section of the Bristol University website.  You could check the website from whatever university is closest to where you'll be living. 

Also, our landlord wanted to see a written rental reference before we could move in.  We expected it, so my husband had it with him when he went to see the house.  If you are going the private landlord route, you might want to get your current landlord/mortgage holder to write you a letter stating the dates you've lived there/held the mortgage and you payment history (amount per month, plus deposit).