Taking dog on holiday

[hopeishere]

For anyone who does this - do you take the dog with you every day on trips and outings? Or would you risk leaving them in the rental?

Take the dog with us. He'd hate to be left alone in a strange place.

Never leave them alone in the cottage (most places this is explicitly against the rules anyway).

Usually they come with everywhere we go, they’re party of the joy of the holiday. One place I stay the cottage owner lives next door and is happy to dog sit occasionally, we’ve also used a local doggy daycare on holiday once to have some time visit an attraction that wasn’t dog friendly.

Quick bonus tip, I get extra dog tags printed that say I AM ON HOLIDAY on one side and cottage address on the other. Just in case our mobiles don’t have signal in the area (mobile numbers are on their normal tags).

Most holiday rentals won't let you leave dogs alone in the property

@LemonViolet

Never leave them alone in the cottage (most places this is explicitly against the rules anyway).

Usually they come with everywhere we go, they’re party of the joy of the holiday. One place I stay the cottage owner lives next door and is happy to dog sit occasionally, we’ve also used a local doggy daycare on holiday once to have some time visit an attraction that wasn’t dog friendly.

Quick bonus tip, I get extra dog tags printed that say I AM ON HOLIDAY on one side and cottage address on the other. Just in case our mobiles don’t have signal in the area (mobile numbers are on their normal tags).

I love the dog tag idea!

Few dogs will be happy with being left in an unfamiliar environment, and it's normally against holiday cottage rules.

I did it once when we went to Portmeirion - ridiculously they now ban dogs despite being an outdoor attraction, and even in the off season. We didn't realise this until after we'd booked the cottage. We left it until the last day so DDog had as much time as possible to acclimate, made our trip there much quicker than it would otherwise have been, and were lucky the holiday cottage owners didn't notice!

It wouldn't be my choice tbh.

Dog comes everywhere - we're mostly walking and exploring outside so not usually an issue.
We do usually take crate with us on holiday so could leave her in that if we really needed to. Wouldn't leave her free to explore in the self-catering property

Gosh,why would you want to leave your dog in the cottage alone.take him/her with you on lovely new walks and most cafes allkw dogs outside in the garden area.if your dog is not trained,extremely anxious,barks a lot, I would pay for a dog boarding place.He/she will get the care in that place,whilst you can holiday away.

Take him with us

There are some fantastic dog friendly holiday accommodation that offers dog sitting if you do want to visit places without your dogs. They are very popular so you will need to plan well in advance if you want too book usually at least a year in advance. Some amazing ones in Wales for example.

Our holidays are really the dogs holidays so this is not an issue for us as we want to do the same things be out and about in rural locations walking in isolation

I’ve taken a dog on holiday and left him in the cottage, but it was a lot of work and for reasons.

He was hugely reactive to dogs and strangers and had medical issues that meant he was on tablets every 8 hours.

So leaving him to go on holiday was basically impossible and between the medical issues and the behavioural problems taking him on days out wasn’t possible either.

He was crate trained so perfectly happy to be in there even in a strange house... but basically the whole holiday had to be planned round him.

Finding somewhere that would let you leave a dog unattended - even crated took forever... especially adding in that I needed to be able to walk him on the doorstep to leave time to do anything else through the day.

Then obviously you’ve got a time limit for how long you can be gone, so things like going to do something and having a meal out as well take too long.

Though tbh, it was finding somewhere that would accept a dog being left that was really hard.

We take him out with us. If eating out in the evening just leave him in the car.

We take 2 of ours away. Omg they love it! We take their beds and spare blankets for sofas incase they sneak on. We have spare tags with cottage name and our numbers on.
They also have beach towels /waterproof coats and holiday collars and leads!!

We found a holiday cottage that allowed them to be left. Only did this because she has a lot of issues and couldn’t always go where we went. But we only left her for maximum an hour in her crate. And it was hard work. We’ve got a dog boarder now who does it from her home one on one. Much better for everyone.

We take our dog on UK and European holidays with us, and take him out with us nearly everywhere we go. He's very chilled and fine to be left if we go out for dinner etc, and no-one (hotel or cottage) has had a problem with us leaving him there while we get food. In the daytime though we are mostly walking around, eating and drinking, and exploring and he loves doing all of this too

@JayAlfredPrufrock

We take him out with us. If eating out in the evening just leave him in the car.

Please do NOT leave your dog in the car!! It takes 2 seconds to break in and steal him/ her. I know 3 people this happened to and it's utterly heartbreaking.

Dogs are worth a lot of money these days- you're effectively leaving an £1000+ depending on the breed on show and inviting people in.

Likely you will say it's always been fine but it only takes once.

Out with us during the day, lots of long walks. In the evening we go out by ourselves to eat, the dogs are exhausted and are very happy to be left to sleep whilst we go out for 1.5 hours.

Got taken everywhere, left in car occasionally if suitable eg not hot. Many places are dog friendly even took him kayaking

@Doggymama123

Depends on the dog! Any one who tried to break into my car would have ended up in a&e, he doesn't do strangers, a problem in itself (he has a doggy psychiatrist!) due to a specific incident.

Leaving a dog in a car is stupid, leaving a dog in a car who is likely to attack strangers is even more stupid.

I’d look into terms, most places say not to leave them and not to let them on the furniture.

We just make posh meals at our holiday cottage!
Adults take turns cooking!
Some nights post dc bedtime for extra peace!

Ours comes with us. We’ve only just taken one away so far as puppy only arrived with us towards end of last year but we’ve got a UK break planned for March with both of them. We make a point of choosing areas with lots of dog friendly pubs/cafes etc. Easy to research before you go so you have easy options. Older dog is great out and about and puppy getting the swing of things as well so we can eat in peace while they have a rest. It’s mainly a holiday for them as some have said and we don’t leave them alone. Lots of walks and usually lunch out, in the evenings usually we are all knackered so some wine and cheese for the humans and snoozes for the dogs by then. Lovely and relaxing.

Ddog even wore a beach hat!!

We take ours out in the day with us but occasionally leave them if we go out in the evening for a meal if we fancy going somewhere non dog friendly. Having said that we’ve stayed somewhere where the owners were happy for us to leave them in the cottage the last few times.

We used doggy day care, he can be lead reactive in strange places but loves just being able to play with other dogs so we found accommodation near well rated day care

Please don’t tell me how to look after my dog.