We are regular campers, and this year, will be no different, we plan on taking our woody with us, 4 mth old lab. He will be just short of 1, when we go for our main holiday,

We know most sites we go to accept dogs. But what do all you campers do, when you go to the swimming pool, If its an outside pool, would you leave them tethered to a rail, where you could see them, and vice versa. What about theme parks, zoo's, places of interest. Boats, does anyone know if they allow dogs, If we needed to day boarder him somewhere. Would he need a kennel cough vaccine.

How friendly is this country, with dogs. We are planning to go to either mevagissey, or tenby.

Alix

Freindly with dogs...in short its not.Most places you are looking at visiting will not allow dogs...even theme parks.
Archer

last I knew our local theme park allowed dogs.  However it means your restiricted on rides, one has to stay on the ground! :(

Yea, but does it have to be the dog :D

Hiya

My feet, will stay firmly on the ground, I hate rides. So oh and son can go on them

Alix

Hi, You might need a vacine for kennel cough but they can have it up to 2 weeks before they go in kennels and lasts for 6 months before needing it again. If you do decide to put him in for the day i would book at least 6 weeks before you go. We went to bude last july and needed a day kennel and everywhere was booked solid.

Personally, I think that taking a dog on holiday is very restricting. Firstly, if you are going during hot weather, taking a dog in the car is difficult (alright while you are driving around, if you have air-conditioning) - you can't leave the dog in the car. Secondly, few things that we often do on holiday are suitable to take a dog to or dogs are not allowed. The only sort of holiday that I would take mine on are where I was staying in self-catering accomodation and most of the holiday was walking, or, when we have been on a narrowboat. The narrowboat was an ideal holiday for a dog :)

Am I being pessimistic ?? :) :)

Daisy

As a kid my family used to have a touring caravan, and yes, even in those days it was very restricting having a dog - one adult had to be with the dogs at all times. so we'd tour places of interest in turns.  They would sleep in the car at night, and occasionally be left in the caravan if we went swimming or similar (very rarely).  If you have a large tent, could he be crate trained and you leave him in his crate for short periods if it's not too hot.........

Hiya,

Yeah, he is crate trained, but he only goes in that at night, if he is left for shorft periods, he's normally in kitchen, with loads of toys, kong etc.

We already have a 2 bedroomed tent, but are getting a bigger one, so woody can have his own room. We do intend taking his crate with us, but only as somewhere to sleep, at night, Just so as he does'nt try and eat the tent.

We want to try and take him everywhere with us, he will have his own half tent thing, to shelter from the sun, for when we are dossing, on beach, site etc. (but at least he can have a nice dip in sea to cool of from the sun (thats if we get any sun this year)

Just really wondered how many campers where on here, and how many take there dogs, and what they do

Alix.

We have always enjoyed camping trips with our dogs but we do just walk or call into pubs that allow dogs or sit outside, that sort of thing, we rarely stay at sites with showers let alone swimming pools :) 
It did get more difficult when our oldie got too old to want to walk far, although she was happy to stay dozing in the tent, when the sun comes out the tent can get too warm and of course the car would be the same, so we bought her a cottage :D

We went camping with my sister and her dogs last summer.  We mainly went walking, but we did have a problem when we wanted to eat at a pub.  We had to eat outside and it was only just warm enough.  If it was too cold or wet you wouldn't be able to do that.  Also if it was very hot you wouldn't be able to leave a dog long in a tent - I would have thought it would get quite hot (same for a car).

Fiona

We went camping quite a bit last year but we centred the holiday around the dogs. We generally just go walking, stopping off at pubs for lunch (obviously the amount we walk depends on the age and health of the dog).

at shows when i camp i have fans going in the tent all the time

We have a touring caravan and we normally take our dog with us when we were going somewhere that we knew we were going to do a lot of walking or if it was earlier in the year when it was cold our dog stayed in our large caravan, but only for very short periods.  If we wanted to go to zoo's or theme parks during our holiday then we left her at my mother-in-laws.  I have got a curly stake thing that we drive into the ground outside our caravan, then if we are sitting outside then she can be attached to that with her lead to be with us but still wander about a bit, and we take all the congs and toys with us so she sits and plays with those.  She sleeps in the crate at night so that was ok. I would also get yourself an extendable lead as there might be very few places that you can let your dog off lead if you dont know the area well.  Also a lot of Caravan Club Sites allow non members to camp and some have specific dog walks onsite. 

"We want to try and take him everywhere with us, he will have his own half tent thing, to shelter from the sun, for when we are dossing, on beach, site etc. (but at least he can have a nice dip in sea to cool of from the sun (thats if we get any sun this year)"

I dont think you can take your dogs on the beach between April - September?  You cant near us.

hi janice

Where abouts are u based, I know that some of the beaches near where we stay in cornwall, allow dogs, or at least I think they do, unless folk have sneaked them on.

Which we dont want to do, as do not want to be turfed off by anyone.

Alix

I live in Essex, and we have holidayed all over the East of England, so Cromer and other Norfolk and Suffolk beaches, and all the way down to Southend and Clacton and Walton do not let dogs on the beach during that time.  Ive checked the dates its the 1st May - 30th September.  There may be some out of the way very small shingle beaches on that coast that allow dogs during that time but I have lived in Essex all my life so know these beaches quite well and havent found any open to dogs in our area during may-sept.

Tourist information can usually point you in the direction of a dog friendly beach.  There are certainly some in Cornwall, if not there are usually coastal paths that you can use and get a better view :)

We live 2 miles from the Norfolk Coast and the only one I know of near us that allow dogs May- September, is Waxham, so thats where my lot go in the Summer.  Pretty sure that some beaches up on the North Coats of Norfolk allow them too.

We always take dogs with us when we go camping. Only problems are when the weather is really hot. I suppose it depends what you want to do when you're away, but you'll be surprised at the places which will allow dogs. I'll never forget the look of embarrassment on our Akita's face when we took him to an sort of bird zoo & all the penguins stood in a line and stared at him!!

I definately wouldn't leave a dog in a tent, if the weather was hot or became hot the dog would suffer the same as in a car - one hot summer saw us all awake and out of the tent by 5.30am (in West Wales) and we couldn't go back into it until after sundown :(     Another reason is that the dog could be stolen - easy enough from a tent ;)

Hi, I wouldn't go on holiday if I couldn't take my dogs!!  We go camping 4/5 times a year, with a staffy and a bulldog, so it can be done!!  We usually go to the Lake District or the Yorkshire Moors/Dales and the dogs absolutely LOVE it!!  They get so excited when the tent comes out the loft.  It CAN be restricting but I am sure you will adapt, we have no kids though and the holiday usually ends up being centred around what the dogs want to do i.e. swimming (yes my bulldog can swim!) and walking endlessly.  At the end we usually have two very very tired happy dogs.  Our staff sleeps in our compartment with us, he has popped the airbed only once.  Poppy has her own compartment and we always get funny looks in the morning because of her extrememly loud snoring. 

Good luck! Sue

We have a touring caravan & a tent & take lots of short breaks / long weekends away & all bank holidays etc.
We have quite a few friends who also have caravans/tents so are often with some friends.
Sometimes we do doggy breaks & sometimes not.
I think it depends what you plan to do whilst your there, if we plan to stay around the site & do lots of walking then the dogs would come -
Last year we had a holiday at Isle of Wight - we knew we had a funpacked holiday planned - going out each day to different places - so we decided not to take the dog. Although I must say- IOW was extremely dog friendly & all the themeparks we visited accepted dogs no problem. We met some people there who had their 2 rotties & everywhere they went was dog friendly.

Hi JaniceH,

Just for future ref in case you go back to Norfolk, there is a beach in Weybourne, along the road from Cromer (about 5 miles from Sherringham) that let dogs on the beach all year round.  It isnt a sandy beach but it is quite vast and brilliant for the dogs, there is also a car park right next to the beach (Free!)

in cornwall if you go to the tourist info,they produce a leaflet re dog friendly beaches which is really helpfull!

this year we will be leaving out Staff girl for a week in Feb as we are going to the Canaries but we wont leave her again after that so we have decided for our Summer break to go to France and hire a cottage in a forest. We will use the Eurotunnel and take lots of bones to keep her occupied during the 6 hour trip the the other side but any other tips for the journey, we're going to Pays de Loire on the Atlantic coast. Has anyone used a sedative on a long drive if so what are they like and what are the after effects? My Sister used to take her cats back and for from Germany where she lived and always gave them a cat sleeping tablet and they were fine. But I'm not sure if this is the thing to do for our Staff

Never used sedatives on long drives what we do is take the dogs out for a long walk before were ready to go then pile them in the car and they sleep for at least 3-4 hours. They let us know when they want a wee as they get up and stare at us :D  Weve come all the way back from cornwall which is a 7 hr drive and only stopped once and that was for us but they stretched their legs and went back to sleep.

Flamingo land allowed dogs when we were there two years ago, as long as they were on lead and well behaved. Its near scarborough and there are plenty of rides for mad kids that are into that sort of thing.

thank you , we're travelling on Eurotunnel so we'll walk her nearby and then hopefully she'll sleep for ages

We take our dogs to norfolk,there are 2 beaches at wells next the sea,1 that has no restrictions,a lovely walk through the pine woods to holkam beach,and yes north yorkshire moors robin hoods bay is great.We take our 2 everywere,dont have many problems atall,and we stay in hotels.
Sheila.

at the eden project in cornwall ,you cant take dogs in but they have special undercover dog only car parking! :)
& you are allowed in & out to check them
you can take them around the gardens of heilgan though

YOU CAN take them in the seal sanctuary,which is really good & the dogs are amazed by the seals (cant rember where that is in cornmwall but its dead good!)

Gweek :D great name, love saying it.

thats it ,knew it began with a G!!!!!
have you ever taken your dogs in?

at one point we were watching this huge sea lion dive, & flynn & him were nose to nose on the glass looking at each other!
flyynn was wagging his tail like crazy

No never been in but have a relative lucky enough to live there.  Would love to go sometime though, must be great to see them interacting like that.

the other really strange thing,is that in a sealy kinda way all the seals will remind you of a different dog that you know!-expression wise!

Oh yes I have always thought them rather dog like, not just in expression but their playfullness, intelligence, temperament, some of their mannerisms and their willingness to interact with other species...........mmmmm I wonder if I could keep one in my bathroom :D

Hi

We went to the seal santuary last year, I know we have been to some places in cornwall. Where I vaguely remember seeing, very occasionally,  kennels outside. But we cant remember where, I mean we go to cornwall most years, and there are loads of people, who take there dogs. I just cant understand, why most places arnt more dog friendly. And provide facilities, (after all, its all business at the end of the day,)  I mean, its not as though you are gonna let them charge about off lead or anything.

Alix

theres a good owl sanctuary near newquay. (cant take dogs in but there is a good car park) that is well worth a visit

when we camped at flamingo land the dogs were allowed in the park, i dont like rides so i didnt mind staying off them whilst oh took kids on, but they do have a set of kennels where you can leave them for a couple of hours, its in the shade and made of stone so its nice and cool, and has a warden also, you do have to show that your dog has had its jabs tho