No man would be upset to be in this doghouse.
The Hound Dog Hotel is a two-story dog mansion built for $400 by a Texas woman with 16 rescue dogs. The 7-foot-tall “mansion” is located inside her own house in Wharton, Texas.
“When they come to me, it’s like going to Grandma’s house. The language I speak is the language of love because I like to help people and animals,” Susie Elliott told Kennedy News and Media.
The pups deserve the special treatment, especially because some of them have medical conditions, were abused or were scheduled to be euthanized before she rescued them, she said.
“The dogs have been through a lot,” she said, “and deserve somewhere nice.”
The front of the house has a doorway, two tall windows, a stained glass window, two exterior lights, decorative molding and a sign that says “Beware of dog.”
A 7-foot ramp allows the older dogs to climb up to a door on the second floor, which leads to Lucky’s Bar & Grill, an alcove with a bed. The opening also allows her to clean or to “get the dogs out if they don’t want to come down the ramp,” she said.
“The dogs love it. When we showed them how to go up the ramp, they were pretty thrilled,” she said.
Inside are sofas and framed photos hanging on the walls. They spent $100 on stained-glass windows, $50 on wood floors and $50 on wood walls.
The back of the house includes a balcony made from an old table cut in half and flipped upside-down.
“There are windows all around the mansion so they can always see out, and I pull the shades down during the sun and I pull them up when the sun goes down,” she said.
The rest of the budget went to lighting, a tin ceiling and a camera to watch their pets. Some of the dogs sleep there at night, while others prefer their cages.
The empty nester started on the project after her basement flooded in a hurricane, she said.
“Most people are pretty shocked when they see the mansion, because the first thing they worry about is if I ever decided to sell the house,” Elliott explained. “At this point I don’t really care what anyone thinks because I’ve helped over 100 dogs find a new home since I’ve lived here so it doesn’t really matter what they think.”
The 63-year-old mother of two (or 18, if you count the pups) got help from her 61-year-old husband, David, for the project.
“I always brought home stray animals as a child and when I got married, so I got in trouble a lot but I kept doing it,” she said. “David wasn’t too thrilled at first but then he started getting into it and seeing how wonderful the dogs are and how appreciative they are.”
