Sunday, 16 January 2011

A little help?

I would like to publicly apologize to my mom (aka doggie babysitter) for taking her doggy baby sitting services for granted.  It wasn't until I moved away from her that I realized how difficult (and expensive!!) it can be to find someone you trust to watch your dog, even just for a night.  It took me over a year to find a good pet-sitter, but she will come if we are going to be gone for at least three nights.  Very useful (and did I mention expensive!) for trips back to America, but not at all useful for little weekend or overnight trips.  Oh and before you say it, no, I will not put my dog in a kennel...if you knew me or my dog, this wouldn't need any further explanation. 

My dog is spoiled and I'm over-protective, so without a go-to baby sitter, she now tags along for the overnight trips.  However, I quickly learned the first time we tried to plan a little trip to the coast that finding dog friendly accommodation is easier said than done.  You'd think with Google at your fingertips you could easily find a dog friendly hotel or B&B in just about any area, but the lack of information really disappointed me. A cursory search will give you hundreds of caravan parks (not really my thing) and self-catering places which must be rented for a week at a time starting only a Wednesday or something, but a one-night stay in an actual hotel, B&B or pub takes a bit more research. 

Then there is the matter of the just how friendly is friendly...  I naively assumed when I booked our first "dog friendly" B&B in Chichester for a bit of sea air and relaxation that the B&B owner would be just as friendly to my dog as she was to the humans, and was surprised when she said the dog couldn't come in the house (only the room which had been built as an extension with its own entrance) and couldn't sleep on the bed.  Couldn't sleep on the bed or eat breakfast and a bed and breakfast?  Hmph.  This was no way to treat my best friend! 

Sadly, she wasn't alone in her dog friendly guidelines.  I have since spent ages looking for other places to go with dog in tow and have heard the same rules many times over.  Truly dog friendly hotels and B&Bs are difficult to find, even in country which I think is more accommodating to those on four legs than most others. 

I have decided to put together a directory of sorts of the friendliest dog friendly places in the UK and need your help.  Have you travelled in the UK with your dog? Have you managed to find any places that allow doggie to sleep on the bed AND eat breakfast with you?  Those are my criteria and here is my very infantile website.  Share your reviews please! 

3 comments:

  1. Have you seen this site? http://www.dogpeople.co.uk/

    I'm sure you Googled, but there are lots of directories just like the one you're creating.

    http://www.dogsinvited.co.uk/

    http://www.dogfriendlybritain.co.uk/directory.asp?Category=1

    http://www.petholidayfinder.co.uk/

    http://www.pawsforawalk.co.uk/

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  2. Thanks Helen! I actually hadn't found dogpeople.co.uk and it looks incredibly helpful, but you can see that they still list places that don't allow dogs in the main house. To me, that isnt dog friendly enough. (although is often as good as it gets).
    All the other sites have always let me down as they are mostly self catering and cottage rentals and you never know just how friendly they really are. You'd be amazed how often people say they are dog friendly so they can be included on these sites and then look at your dog like they are some kind of dirty creature out to destroy their B&B.

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  3. I can help you! I absolutely love animals and they usually love me back. Email me if you need help.

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