Thanks to reader Darlene for her comments in support of NOT bringing your dog to Independence Day celebrations, as I recommend in When you should leave the dog home. She mentioned the website www.the-best-dog-for-you.com/pet-vacations.html as a good resource for ideas about and cautions regarding vacationing with your dog. The site has excellent reminders about planning trips with dogs, one of which is worth expanding on here.
National parks and monuments—great places for the family, full of natural beauty and/or historic significance. By all means, put them on your must-see list. Plan on taking the kids—or grandkids—but you may do better to leave the dog at home.
National Parks and Public Lands generally permit dogs only if kept on a leash no longer than 6 feet in length at all times, unless they are caged or crated. Park management at each park may restrict pet (and possibly service dog) access to open areas such as trails, buildings or campgrounds in the interest of keeping visitors and the park environment protected.
Why would dogs be excluded? Let me suggest just a few reasons:
- For no pets in buildings:Dogs track in more dirt, might become excited and damage a display, could frighten other guests. Your pet dog isn’t welcome in most non-park public buildings, either. National parks “belong” to all citizens—but they’re not your home.
- Some locations may be closed to dogs (and people admonished to stay on the path or raided walkway) to protect fragile plant habitat (and rare plants), nesting birds … or (as in Yellowstone) to keep visitors from sinking into boiling-hot mudholes.
- Off-limits regulations protect dogs from dangerous predators as well as protecting wildlife from dogs. We hadn’t stopped to consider this before bringing our dog with us to the Rockies, but bears and dogs show a fierce antipathy towards each other—they’d rather fight each other than run away, often as not. Do you want to have to rescue Fido from a fight with a grizzly? I thought not…
Mind you, plenty of trails in Rocky Mountain National Park, and even Yellowstone and the Tetons, allowed dogs on leash. But hiking in the back country, where people should talk loudly or otherwise make noise to warn off bears, you should leave the dog behind—though not in a closed car (see below). Those of us from around Chicago, an area notably impoverished in the bear/cougar/wolf categories of predators, don’t automatically consider this aspect of hiking in wilder areas.
If you decide to take your dog on the family vacation (as our family often does), you don’t need to avoid parks and monuments completely, but you should plan your park visits, not just show up and be surprised by a park’s pet policy. You can search National Park pet policies and other park information at www.nps.gov.
Pet policies vary from park to park as park administrators have the power to make decisions appropriate to their parks. Some kenneling exists near popular parks where dogs have restricted access—though you’ll want to check prices and make reservations to be sure your pet can stay when you plan to visit the park.
Surfen auf Mallorca macht Spass, aber nur wenn man geduldig ist, das hat man im Blut oder nicht!