Toula on holiday near Bridgeport, California

I have a very large dog.

How large?

Well, when I walk down the streets of San Francisco I hear people say things like, “wow, that’s a big dog.”

I also hear a lot of “does she come with a saddle?” and “que caballo!” and “Scooby Doooooo!”.

Some people are afraid of dogs. And these people, when they see me and my dog coming, they literally cross the street to avoid us. Sometimes they actually run away down the street! (I wish I were kidding.)

This makes me laugh, because if you knew my dog, you would know that she is the world’s largest lap dog. Unless you’re a pigeon or a squirrel, you have nothing to worry about from my 115-pound Great Dane, named Toula. This is short for ‘Tchoupitoulas’, which is a street in New Orleans. No I am not from there. Neither is my wife. We just liked the name. And we were married in New Orleans, so it seemed fitting. Why am I telling you this? Because it always comes up when strangers — complete strangers — encounter me and my dog on the street.

(Other topics that always come up… She eats 6 cups of food a day. Cleaning up her, um, #2s, isn’t as bad as you think. No, she cannot be ridden like a horse. No, she does not have a saddle. Yes, she sleeps all day. Yes, this makes her a great city dog. Yes, she is great with kids. Yes, Scooby Doo was a Great Dane. And Marmaduke, too.)

Toula is not that impressed by Yosemite

Strangely enough, the same thing happens when I’m trying to book a weekend getaway. I’ll ask, “do you accept dogs” and the person at the other end of the phone will say, “um, what kind of dog?”

I say, “Great Dane.”

They say, “wow, that’s a big dog…”

This has not prevented us from taking Toula on holidays within California: Yosemite, Lake Tahoe, Los Angeles, San Diego, that sort of thing. Yet it’s not always easy. I am continually surprised at how many hotels and resorts have ‘no dogs allowed’ policies. I can understand saying ‘no’ to incessant barkers and chewers and aggressive breeds. Yet to exclude all dogs, even the gentle giants like Toula who never bark or chew, well, that seems unfair. Not Rosa Parks-style unfair. But unfair nonetheless.

Searching online is not much help, either. There are some awful — and I mean truly and terrifically terrible — pet websites out there. Unusable navigation, awful graphics, ridiculous background music, spam advertising, you name it. Why do 99.99% of all dog websites look like they were last updated in 1999? By my reckoning that’s 56 dog years and 150 Internet years ago. Somebody, please go launch a good pet-travel website. I will visit, I promise!

In the meantime, I am trying to build a comprehensive list of pet-friendly hotels, campgrounds and other resources. I’ve started with a handful of links below, and this list is not complete, not by a long shot. Leave a comment with additional links or resources for traveling with pets. I’ll make sure it gets posted.

Resources for Traveling with Dogs

• Dogfriendly.com is clunky to navigate, but there are good tips on dog-friendly hotels across the USA, plus ‘beach guides’ and other pet-friendly recommendations. Get similar listings and services at petsonthego.com and resortpets.com.
• A list of dog-friendly B&Bs in the USA that accepts dogs.
• A list and map of dog parks across the USA
• A PDF listing dog parks in Edmonton and Alberta, Canada
• Doglinks.co.nz has a small list of dog-friendly hotels (and kennels) in New Zealand
• Overview of regulations for taking your dog or cat on an airplane, both in the USA and internationally
• A blog dedicated to dog parks and dog park news around the USA - love the focus!

On a totally separate note: check out this article about a luxury dog resort in Mexico. I wonder if they would accept me and my caballo?

–Scott McNeely

Update: I can also highly recommend a rental property in the Russian River area (Duncans Mills, to be precise) of northern California; we just spent a great weekend there. The property is totally fenced in and there’s a huge yard — perfect for dogs.  The property is pet-friendly, the rates are affordable, the location is simply stunning. It’s called River Gardens, tell them you read about it on the Viator blog.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 12th, 2007 at 1:55 pm and is filed under Destinations, Family & Kids, Travel Inspiration, USA, Canada, Mexico, Weird & Wonderful. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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