Hotel Restaurant la Boule d'Or

Unfortunately, I’ve had to update the review I wrote in 2016. Between then and now we continued to come here practically every year and were impressed with the new management - until this year when the ferocious hotel guard dog attacked us when we arrived at the hotel. It should have been tied up/restrained/muzzled but wasn’t and when we arrived with our small terrier (on a lead) and opened the entrance door of the hotel, a huge snarling Rottweiler/mastiff type cross charged out without warning and attacked our dog (hotel is deemed pet-friendly and we had booked a room with our dog). The dog belongs to the hotel owners and lives on the premises. My teenage son is strong and managed to pull the dog off our dog, which continued to scream in terror for a further ten minutes. All our belongings were strewn across the pavement in the chaos and in the course of restraining the guard dog, my son was bitten by it. I’m writing this because it was a horrendous experience and we were very shaken, but I’m not convinced the hotel owners fully accept the responsibility that comes with owning a dangerous dog. The owner of the hotel and dog told us that it’s normal for dogs to be aggressive and that just the other week there had been a dogfight in the restaurant!! Then when I said I wanted a doctor to look at my son’s bite (which had gone through his sock, pierced the skin and was bleeding), I felt belittled by the owner who said it was a national holiday so surgeries were closed and surely I wouldn’t want to bother a hospital for that. The owner also said he didn’t understand why I hadn’t shut the hotel door when I saw the dog coming (but he later admitted that the dog had run through the hotel from the garden) as that should surely be my instinct. It was most unpleasant to feel I was being blamed for his dog being out of control. There was no time to shut any doors! The dog charged through so fast and my immediate reaction was to try and stop his dog from biting mine (which is a small/medium sized terrier on a lead and had done nothing to provoke the attack). I am in no doubt that had my son not intervened - which was extremely brave because the dog was enormous and ferocious - our own dog would have died. I write this review with sadness, because the hotel is otherwise a good hotel. We have been coming here for around 10 years and the restaurant and its staff are always fantastic. However, whilst the owners excused the incident as an unfortunate incident, had my son not been quick-witted and strong, the outcome could have been much more serious and therefore I can no longer recommend this hotel. The next day I asked if the owners had logged the incident in an incident/injury report book and they hadn’t. I therefore reported the actions of the dog to the police; I declined to make a formal charge as I am not interested in ‘punishing’ or seeking recompense - but I do want to make sure that future guests are aware of what happened and that

The hotel rooms are somewhat basic, but perfectly serviceable and spacious. Staff are courteous and helpful, with efforts made to comply with Covid restrictions, though we were not asked for our Pass Sanitaire. But the food in the restaurant is superb!