As a dog lover, I find it bittersweet to pack up and travel with the family, because it always means that I have to leave our cocker spaniel behind. If we'll be out for only a night or two, family and friends come through for us, but longer outings usually leave us dropping her off at a neighborhood pet-grooming salon that charges $10 a night for boarding.

It's a reputable joint, but I'm not exactly comfortable with her being caged up for most of her stay. Thankfully, PetSmart (NASDAQ:PETM) is beginning to expand its PetsHotel concept. For $31 a night, pets get their own suites with raised beds, lambskin blankets, and pet-oriented television programming to watch. The upscale boarding concept has been tested at a few locations for years, but it is now becoming an expansion priority for the retailer.

According to PetSmart's site, 60 of its more than 885 locations provide overnight boarding under the PetsHotel banner. A few more locations offer a Doggie Day Camp program for pets but cannot keep your pets overnight. The aim is to incorporate the PetsHotel concept into roughly half of PetSmart's locations.

It would be a good move. In and of itself, PetsHotel is a small part of the revenue mix at the company. Boarding revenue nearly doubled to $16.7 million last year, but that's just a sliver of the $3.8 billion in overall sales that the retailer rang up. The key, though, is that stores that have PetsHotel concepts are generating 29% more in sales with the extra in-store traffic. It can't hurt that by embedding itself deeper into the fabric of the pet owner's life, the Stock Advisor recommendation is building a competitive advantage. That is something that rivals such as Petco and Pet Supermarket may want to emulate before PetSmart wins this game of mutt Monopoly by placing hotels all over the playing board.

For more on the company that helps parents spoil their pets, check out:

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Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is a dog lover and is glad that his wife is allergic to only cats. He does not own shares in any of the companies in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy.