The lap of luxury

by Jing Zhou

Dogs of Chicago, rejoice. If your owner flies out of O'Hare International Airport, you can wait out the trip at a posh spot nearby-catching Animal Planet on a flat-screen TV and splashing in a dogbone-shaped pool. Paradise 4 Paws, a 24/7 “pet hotel,” will open a few miles from O'Hare on Mar. 1. The facility, which will also board cats, grew out of a 2005 entrepreneurship class at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. (Students modeled P4P after a popular pet hotel near Japan's Kansai International Airport.) Customers will pay up to $75 a night for dogs and $35 for cats. Backers, who include Kellogg professors, plan to open a second P4P near Chicago's Midway Airport by September, and 10 more across the country after that.