French luxury hotels go to dogs

Poached Queen's Hambone with spring vegetables and low-fat yoghurt sounds like a dish fit for the room service menu of any luxury hotel. Along with fish or vegetarian alternatives and a pure beef hamburger, it will soon be on offer at the celebrated Trianon Palace in Versailles - as a dog's dinner.

"We realised a lot of our guests like to travel with their pets, so we decided to do something in keeping with our name and reputation, without getting altogether too absurd," said a spokesman for the hotel.

Absurd or not, as part of the deal - available from next month, daily rate not yet known - canines will soon be following their well-heeled owners to rooms graced by a designer basket, complete with haute couture blanket and two matching bowls.

On the basket-side table will be a range of dog toiletries including a packet of cleansing wipes, a bottle of Shampooing pour Chien, and a miniature flask of Oh My Dog!, a fruity dog fragrance which has sold more than 300,000 bottles since its launch three years ago in Paris's department stores.

As part of the package, which the hotel admits is aimed principally at wealthy overseas visitors, more active owners will be able to take their pets around an agility course in the hotel's grounds.

Presumably equally worried by the dramatic fall-off in US tourists to France, another top Paris hotel - the Crillon, on the Place de la Concorde near the US embassy - has come up with similar canine enticements.

There Rover is treated to a medal engraved with his name, a buffalo-hide bone, a changing daily menu, and - in case he gets depressed by it all - the services of a bilingual vet specially recommended by the embassy.