Arbor Vitae Motel

hile my family was getting food at the restaurant next door, my one year old and I were leisurely walking over to your motel, stopping to look at leaves and smell the flowers on the way.

As I approached the parking lot, and extremely friendly German Shepard approached me and dropped a small log at my feet. I taught dog training classes in collage, so I was well aware that this dog was not going to be aggressive at the moment.

Still holding my one year old on my hip and keeping him aimed away from the strange dog, I picked up the log that he dropped and threw it a few feet into the grass. The dog happily chased it away. As we were watching the dog chase the log, I pointed the dog out to my one year old, who just learned the word "puppy."

Right as I was turning around to head towards the entrance to the motel, a man approached me and said "this is private property, you need to leave." I was so startled by this aggressive confrontation that I just mumbled "okay..." and turned around and left.

When my husband saw how upset I was, he went over to the motel to talk to this man and before he was even 10 feet away, he yelled "don't come any further!"

According to him, I approached his dog without his permission and that is why he told me to leave.

I just wanted to say what terrible business practice this is. My family has a yearly family gathering this time of the year every year with around 50 people staying in the area. I wanted to check out your motel to see if I could recommend it to my family this year or to see if my husband, son, and I wanted to stay there next year.

Instead of gaining potentially several yearly customers, you now have bad online reviews and terrible word of mouth advertising.

If you don't want people to play with your friendly dog, which is wandering around the property, tie it up or get a fence.

As a business owner myself, I would partner with the restaurant next door and trade coupons and deals to trade customers instead of being the crotchety old man that sits on the property line just so he call yell at people who cross it.