What the pet fee actually comes to
The pet fee is CAD 125 per pet, charged once per stay. Not per night, and not per week. The 6% service fee applies to it, which takes one animal to CAD 132.50. On a stay shorter than 30 nights HST applies on top and it lands a little under CAD 150; on a stay of 30 continuous nights or more there is no HST at all, so CAD 132.50 is the whole of it.
The important consequence is that the fee does not grow with the booking. A dog on a 90-night relocation stay carries exactly the same pet fee as a dog on a three-night weekend. Set against a 30-night stay, CAD 132.50 is a little over four dollars a night; set against 90 nights it is under a dollar and a half.
It is charged per animal rather than per booking, so two pets is two fees. It appears as its own line in the price breakdown before you pay rather than being added at the end, and it is itemised the same way whether you book a weekend or a quarter.
The yard, and judging it for yourself
The backyard is private and fully fenced, with mature trees and open grass, and it belongs to this house alone — it is not shared with neighbours or with another rental. The house has its own private entrance, so the dog goes from the living room to the grass without passing anyone.
That is as far as a description should go. A fence is something to look at rather than take on trust: whether it will hold a dog that digs, or a dog that jumps, is a judgement only you can make about your own animal. The backyard photo page has the pictures, and looking at them for a minute before booking is worth more than any adjective on this page.
One thing to weigh honestly. The property has exterior security cameras and a noise decibel monitor, both of which are there for the neighbours' sake on a residential street. It means a dog that barks steadily when it is left alone is a real problem here rather than a theoretical one. Better to think that through now than on the second morning.
A whole house is a different proposition
Ebstad Luxe is a detached house rented as an entire place. There is no lobby, no corridor, no lift and no neighbour through the wall — your own front door, your own driveway, your own fenced yard. For a dog that reacts to other dogs, or to strangers appearing in a hallway, removing the shared space removes the part of a stay that usually goes wrong.
Check-in is self check-in with a lockbox from 4 PM, so there is no front desk, no conversation about the animal on arrival and no standing in a lobby with a dog that has been in a car for five hours. Check-out is by 11 AM. Parking is free and on the premises, which means the car is at the door rather than in a garage two streets away.
The house is on a quiet residential street rather than an arterial road, which is mostly a matter of what a last walk at eleven at night is like.
Relocating with an animal
The hardest part of moving with a pet is the gap in the middle — the weeks between one place ending and the next one starting, when everything else can be put in storage and the animal cannot. That gap is the case this house answers best.
Stays of 1 to 90 nights can be booked online, and a continuous stay of 30 nights or more is exempt from HST. Because the cleaning fee and the pet fee are both charged once per stay, a month here is one booking, one CAD 65 clean and one CAD 125 pet fee rather than a running surcharge. If your plan is somewhere in the high twenties, read the guide to the 30-night rule first — 27, 28 and 29 nights all cost more in total than 30.
The practical things a long stay with an animal needs are in the house: a washer and free dryer in the unit with a drying rack, which matters more in a Waterloo March than anything else on the amenity list; a fridge and freezer for food; a full kitchen; heating and air conditioning. There is a bathtub as well as a glass shower, though whether it is the right place to deal with a muddy dog is a question to put to us rather than to assume.
Three bedrooms with a queen bed in each sleep up to 6, and the nightly rate covers all six, so a family relocating together does not pay per head on top of the pet fee.
Visiting a student, with the dog
The other common version is a family visit where leaving the dog behind is the reason the trip keeps getting postponed. The University of Waterloo is about 4.7 km away and Wilfrid Laurier about 3.9 km, each roughly 10 minutes by car outside rush hour, and Uptown Waterloo is about the same. Conestoga station at the north end of the ION light rail is about 5 minutes' drive.
So one person can be on campus for a ceremony or a tour while the dog stays in a fenced yard rather than a hotel room. Our guide to staying near the universities covers the campus routes and the weekends that fill up first, and the convocation guide covers the morning-of logistics for a full house.
What to settle before you book
Two questions are worth putting in a message rather than inferring from a tick box. How many animals, and how big: the fee is charged per pet and the amenity list does not set out a size or number limit, so if you are bringing more than one, or something other than a dog or a cat, ask. And whether the animal may be left in the house unattended, which is the question the noise monitor makes worth asking.
Worth knowing in case plans change: a cancellation 30 or more days before check-in is refunded in full. Between 14 and 29 days, half the accommodation total comes back and the cleaning and service fees are returned in full. Inside 14 days the accommodation total is not refunded, though the cleaning fee always is. A change of dates is handled as a cancellation and a new booking rather than an amendment.
Housekeeping during a longer stay is available at extra cost, which is sometimes the sensible answer to a shedding season.