Dog Cafe

Last week I went to a dog cafe. Now, I know that you know that I'm in Korea, so before you panic, a dog cafe has nothing to do with eating dogs. I would never go to a dog restaurant! A dog cafe is pretty much the exact opposite. You go to a cafe and pay a flat fee, in this case 6000 won (about 6 USD or 1200 HUF). You get a (really crappy) coffee for that money, but more importantly, you get to play with all the puppies that live at the cafe! Sometimes you pay by the hour and sometimes you can stay longer. I'm not sure what the policy was at the place we went to; we were the only people there until the very end of our visit, and we stayed just under an hour, so we didn't really find out.

So you get there and the dogs get super duper excited, barking and just generally freaking out at the concept of new people. Not in a bad way, but in a pumped up way. This cafe had two pens, a large one in the center with many dogs in it, and a smaller one off to the side. I went into the larger pen first. There were four or five fluffy white dogs, two chihuahuas, two mini schnauzers, a brown poodle, a long-haired chihuahua, and a strange tiny white dog. The brown poodle was definitely in it to win it, and got all up on us right away. He and one of the white dogs were really excited to play and chase the toy. Most of the other ones just wanted to be pet, and a few sort of slept as if bored by our presence.

The smaller pen had a golden, who was young and rather skinny, a few pomeranians, a white poodle that never left its pillow, and a few quarantines. One of them was getting over a cold, and the other was a mom with new puppies.

This chihuahua really wanted love, but didn't seek it out. She just sort of chilled on the chair until I picked her up and put her on my lap so I could sit down. She gave pretty good derp face.

"Yessss, I have the toy."

The poodle really wanted to chase the toy, and one of the white dogs really liked to chase the poodle chasing the toy while they both barked excitedly. It reminded me of Otto and Mia.

"ZZZZzzzzzz"

"Hi! Pet my belly!"

Whenever we went over to the other pen, or anything happened outside of their line of sight, these ones were totally on it to see what was going on.

Chilling on the chair with the poodle and a serious-faced schnauzer.

Overall, it was a really nice place. There were drink glasses on lots of the tables, so I can tell that the place is frequented and the animals do get a lot of love. It was quite clean, and the animals were all sweet and friendly. None of them were shy or scared. That being said, it did make me a bit sad. The doggies in the big pen didn't really have beds or houses, beyond the few chairs. There was also only one toy for all those dogs! It's hard, sometimes, to see how pets (often) aren't held in the same esteem here. They're definitely pets, not family members, though there are exceptions. I also wonder if the dogs are sad to not have a "person" and if they get lonely at night or get walks or whatever.

Still, I was glad to have gone and I'm sure I'll go back the next time I'm really in need of some puppy hugs!