KAREN'S COLUMN

Read Karen's blog to discover more about bookings, being a dog owner in the hospitality industry and more about life as a B&B owner:

bandbacademy. co.uk/blog

NOT EVERYONE'S CUP OF TEA...

It’s taken me 17 years in business to be comfortable with the fact that you can’t run a B&B that appeals to everyone. For every guest who loves your B&B, there’ll be another who just doesn’t get it.

I was very much reminded of this by some of my favourite repeat guests, who had an unusual approach to booking.

It’s 12.30pm on a changeover day; both the house and I are a total mess, when the doorbell rings, accompanied by loud barking.

Answering the door, I tried hard to muster a smile and not blurt out the “check in is at 4 and you didn’t tell me you were bringing a dog” welcome. But it wasn’t my guests. “Hello, we want to visit Shropshire, so we’ve driven down to check out some B&Bs."

I showed them round, then they left saying they’d check the other B&Bs and call me.

5 minutes later they were back, making a booking.

They became some of my favourite guests; staying 5 nights, at least 3 times a year. Ex hoteliers, they showered me with praise “this really is the best b&b we’ve ever stayed at”.

One day they turned up, unannounced again, this time with a friend - another day trip - so they could show her the B&B. Afterwards they told me she’d hated the B&B and couldn’t see what the fuss was about.

How lucky they’d bought her for a day trip first!

BED AND BREAKFAST DOGS

The B&B dogs and I are currently enrolled in an online Naughty But Nice Dog Bootcamp.

Saffy and Ralphie are our latest rescue dogs. They are 85% nice, but the 15% naughty part - barking at night and jumping up people they can’t wait to meet - is affecting their ability to be the perfect B&B dogs I envisioned.

Our last generation of B&B dogs, Mitsi and Murphy, weren’t perfect. But as time passes, any memory of naughtiness is fading, and I’m often accused by Mr B&B of polishing their halos.

Whilst it was Murphy who was the one normally getting into scrapes, Mitsi had her moments too….

One day I showed a couple of repeat guests to their room - a pair of dog loving retired vets in their 70s. The wife was by the window, admiring our view, and I stood next to her husband by the door.

Suddenly he jumped, turned to me with a look of horror on his face and said “Well really!”

Unsure what had happened, I turned to see that, unnoticed by any of us, Mitisi had sneaked up stairs and pushed her nose firmly between his legs.

At this point, any semblance of professionalism on my part went out of the window, and I collapsed into uncontrollable giggles, shortly joined by his wife when she learned what had happened. He was not so impressed …

If you have a guest-goosing B&B dog too, or are planning to get one, I’ve written a blog post on the ups and downs of owning a dog and running a B&B.