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Hello

we too have a staffie, one year old boy.  I went camping last weekend with my two girls and the dog (hubby couldn't make it).  It was absolutely fine, we took him wherever we went, walks, to the pub (with a garden), when we went to the local shops we just tied him up outside and even managd to get to a beach and he loved it there!!  Round the campsite he was a bit of a pest if we let him off his lead so most of the time we left him on his long lead tied to his stake (which you can buy from pet shop, looks like a corkscrew!)  as for sleeping, he just jumped on top of our bags and made himself comfy, kept us warmer too!!!

Hope this helps, and have a great weekend. 

Hi and welcome  You're right, you can't leave a dog alone in the tent, and dogs have to be on a lead at all times on site too.  We have staffies and leave ours at home, eldest son looks after them .

so you either have to take him everywhere or leave him at home.

We're going on our first trip with our new dog next week.Maybe we won't be able to take him everywhere, and we might just have to alter things a little from what we have done in the past, but we are looking forward to the new things we'll be able to do rather than the things we won't be able to do, which to be honest are quite minimal.  There are a few websites you can visit that will tell you places you can visit with your dog, beaches, pubs, even some restaurants if you wanted to!  Just google 'dog friendly' or something like that.

Bailey has to stay home at kennels for a couple of weekends a year, so this is his holiday as much as ours.

Hi,  We camped for the first time with our three, a GSD and two collies a few weeks ago.  I think the general rule is, if you take your dogs you adjust your holiday to what's appropriate, if you don't want to do that, leave them at home. 

We had the dog tethers for outside and the collies were fine, but my GSD pulled it out, bent it etc (very easily I might add).  Next time I intend to tether him to a delta peg. 

As for in the tent, I took two dog cages, one for the the GSD and another for one of the collies, the older collie just slept nicely in the tent.  Like you, I could not trust the other two younger dogs to stay put! 

When the dogs were tethered out, be vigilant and notice if there is anything happening in the vicinity that is likely to make them bark etc.  I got the dogs into the habit of going into a down when anyone approached and staying there until they had passed.  They soon got the hang of it. 

The only advice I can give is make sure their obedience is up to scratch and don't let them off the lead if they may be a pest.  There's nothing worse than somebody else having to deal with somebody elses badly behaved dogs.  Remember you can be in breach of the Dangerous Dog Act if your dog(s) put somebody in fear (that doesn't mean actually attacking someone or something, but merely if someone thinks they may).  If your dog is on the lead it is under control.  If your dog is not, and not walking to heel and does something naughty, it isn't.  The other thing of course is if your dog is off lead, it is much harder to notice if they've done anything that needs cleaning up.  My advice is keep your dog on a lead (thus under control) unless you are absolutely certain there is nothing likely to set off some bad or uncontrolled behaviour.  Campsites have children running around and doing unpredictable things and if your dog does something, it will spoil your holiday.

Sorry to harp on about this but as the owner of a large GSD I  had to be careful as people tend to be more nervous of these larger breeds.  Because of this I am seriously into dog obedience and get quite annoyed when owners of other dogs who aren't trained cause a nuisance. 

Take your dog, enjoy it. 

Hi, we took our springer spaniel (9 months old) camping for the first time a couple of weeks back and she was brillant.

We had her on the long lead spike when we where at the tent,off lead for some good long walks and at bed time she thought she was the bees knees, couldn't make her mind up which air bed to sleep on or who with so she took it in turns before finally settling for the night. When OH got up for the ritual night time visit Molly jumped straight into his sleeping bag so they than had to share.

Can't wiat for next week when were away again.

we've got a large black dog who needed a lot of behavioural training when we first had him (he was a very scared, anxious stray who turned up on our door and we ended up keeping him!) and we didnt take him with us for ages but now when we go with him we put a long windbreak up outside the tent so he cant see everything that's going on and that keeps him calm, keep him on a lead at all times, we tether him close to the tent so we dont have to hold him all the time and we invested in a "dog bag" which we got second hand - it folds down really small and pops up like a small tent, it has mesh sides but you can zip up the doors and it makes him feel nice and safe and keeps him cool too

he sleeps in it ouside our sleeping pod, and keeps us awake with his snoring! lol!

because he can get worried easily we tent to stick clost to the tent and go for long walks, sometimes we go to a pub for lunch and a drink if it has a garden

Hi There

We always take our dog (black lab/lercher) and would not have it any other way..

We keep him on the lead at all times when on site, and on a long lead attached to a spike at the tent. We try to find sites that have designated areas that you can exercise dogs off the lead.

Lots of long walks which is great for him and for us exploring the area

As for pubs and such we use ones with gardens or allow dogs

A very good website to use is http://www.dogfriendlybritain.co.uk

Regards

Ian

Quote: Originally posted by Christina1 on 22/5/2008

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Hi,  We camped for the first time with our three, a GSD and two collies a few weeks ago.  I think the general rule is, if you take your dogs you adjust your holiday to what's appropriate, if you don't want to do that, leave them at home. 

We had the dog tethers for outside and the collies were fine, but my GSD pulled it out, bent it etc (very easily I might add).  Next time I intend to tether him to a delta peg. 

As for in the tent, I took two dog cages, one for the the GSD and another for one of the collies, the older collie just slept nicely in the tent.  Like you, I could not trust the other two younger dogs to stay put! 

When the dogs were tethered out, be vigilant and notice if there is anything happening in the vicinity that is likely to make them bark etc.  I got the dogs into the habit of going into a down when anyone approached and staying there until they had passed.  They soon got the hang of it. 

The only advice I can give is make sure their obedience is up to scratch and don't let them off the lead if they may be a pest.  There's nothing worse than somebody else having to deal with somebody elses badly behaved dogs.  Remember you can be in breach of the Dangerous Dog Act if your dog(s) put somebody in fear (that doesn't mean actually attacking someone or something, but merely if someone thinks they may).  If your dog is on the lead it is under control.  If your dog is not, and not walking to heel and does something naughty, it isn't.  The other thing of course is if your dog is off lead, it is much harder to notice if they've done anything that needs cleaning up.  My advice is keep your dog on a lead (thus under control) unless you are absolutely certain there is nothing likely to set off some bad or uncontrolled behaviour.  Campsites have children running around and doing unpredictable things and if your dog does something, it will spoil your holiday.

Sorry to harp on about this but as the owner of a large GSD I  had to be careful as people tend to be more nervous of these larger breeds.  Because of this I am seriously into dog obedience and get quite annoyed when owners of other dogs who aren't trained cause a nuisance. 

Take your dog, enjoy it. 

 

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We took our 5 month old Border Collie last month for a week and it was a far more enjoyable experience than leaving him at home with our parents. He is crate trained so we took his crate with us and also the large cork-screw looking tether for when we were outside the tent. We only went to pubs with a beer garden and we never ever let our dog off his lead whilst on the site. I couldnt live with myself if he was to attack a young child, besides which Ive yet to see one site that actually allows dogs off lead!

Since 12 weeks old we have taken our dog to training / obedience classes, besides  teaching the dog how to behave it instills confidence in the owners, as a result our dog goes everywhere that we do! :)

WOW! Thank you all so much for your words of wisdom...all common sense isn't it really....suppose I wanted to gauge the amount of people who did and how it was percieved. I think I should just 'get in there' and just do a one night stay somewhere to see how we all get on.

The snoring comments made me laugh because Stanley snores rotton too!!   I agree with the all the behavioural comments. There is nothing worse. Especially the old chestnut..."don't worry love he won't hurt you"...doesn't do much for the profile of dogs does it when a nervous person is 'wearing' an enthusiatic pet!! Stanley stays on the lead AT ALL TIMES mainly because his breed has such a bad name ( ) despite HIS wonderful nature!

The tips about the equipment, website etc etc are all great, Thank You, and I have really, really enjoyed hearing about all your dogs too. I hope to bump in to one or two of you in the future   (especially the Neo Mastiff...I lurrrve Mastiffs)

Take care all....happy camping & thanks again. Sarah x

Quote: Originally posted by Christina1 on 23/5/2008

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Enjoy your dog, and most of all, enjoy your holiday.

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I would have put that the other way round christine

I suppose you can enjoy your dog but not your holiday or enjoy your holiday and not your dog or you could do neither!  Lets hope we can do both!  MMMmmmm - it's been a long day - thank goodness for the weekend!