Hi, I’m Joanna. Thanks for visiting Bring the Dogs.
This site is a guide to dog-friendly holidays and days out across the UK. At launch we cover Cornwall, the Dartmouth and Salcombe areas of Devon, and the New Forest, with blog posts on our Cornwall week and a recent trip to the New Forest. The plan is to grow it region by region from there.
Everything here is built around real visits that I and my partner Ros enjoy with our four miniature schnauzers – Nell, Gertie, Wilma, and Silky Sue. Max the cat is the fifth member of the Fabulous Famous Five and holds the fort at home.
Why this site
When you have dogs, choosing a day out raises questions a normal guidebook will not answer. Where can the dogs have a sit-down halfway round? Which beaches are still open to dogs in June, and which have started their summer ban? Will the pub welcome four schnauzers, or only one or two? How rough is the path, and is there a way to bail out at three miles if you need to?
Once you know what a place actually offers and how taxing it is on the legs, you can choose something that suits both you and your dogs on the day. A youngster who wants to run all morning. An older dog who wants a steady mile. Two of you with three of them. The day works better when you know in advance what you’re walking into.
This site is for the rest of us.
What you’ll find here
- Places to Visit, with filters for distance from your base postcode, type of place, dog rules, weather suitability, cost, and how strenuous the walk is. Add your postcode and the site will surface what is within an hour of you.
- Places to Eat, with the same approach. “Dog-friendly” can mean anything from a single bowl of water out the back to a dog menu and a bed under the table. The reviews tell you which is which.
- Places to Stay, with details on dog fees, enclosed gardens, towels, beds, how many dogs are welcome, and whether the bedroom door shuts properly.
- Trip reports when one is worth writing up. Sometimes a single beach. Sometimes a week-long base, like the one we are doing in Cornwall in June 2026.
- Dog Travel Kit, the gear we actually take with us when we go away with the dogs.
Every place is marked with one of three badges so you know what you’re looking at:
The crew
Nell is thirteen and the eldest. She is a complicated little thing. She was badly abused at the puppy farm where she had been used for breeding, and she does not trust easily. There are no squeaky toys in our house, because beeps and squeaks terrify her, and thunder and fireworks are not welcome at all. She has come a long way over the years. She is now a very loving and playful little schnauzer who loves going out and is a great companion. She loves all her sisters but has bonded particularly with Silky – she follows her about and copies what she does, which is very sweet and very funny.
Gertie is around ten. She was the first puppy farm rescue I adopted, and she came home at two years old. She is sweet, playful, and on a mission to wrestle Max the cat at every opportunity. She has a particular thing for shoes – she likes to move them around the house and tuck them in her bed or near doors. She also loves food, and spends a lot of time trying to find ways to steal Max’s.
Wilma is also around ten. She spent about a year at the rescue centre having health issues investigated, in a comfortable home-style set-up called Munchkin Manor (sofas, TV, and visitors who came to cuddle her). She is the quietest and calmest of the four, and the biggest, which often has people thinking she is a boy. She has beautiful brown eyes and magnificent eyebrows. She loves cuddles more than treats, though she would never say no to a treat. As a result of all that early cuddling at Munchkin Manor, she now believes it is everyone’s duty to make a fuss of her, and if you are not cuddling her enough she will give you a firm tap with her paw.
Silky Sue is around ten as well. Like the others, she came from a puppy farm. She had cataract surgery a few years back, and lost her left eye to glaucoma a year or so ago. She copes brilliantly with the eye she has. Silky is the greediest of the four, and she knows how to work a room to get what she wants. Say “treat” or “walk” and her head tilts and her ears stick out. When she really wants something she bounces up and down like Zebadee. She digs in the flower beds, kicks up gravel in the garden, and is incredibly mischievous. She also has the sunniest, most infectious disposition of any of them. Cuddle yes; being picked up, no.
Max is the cat. He doesn’t come on the day trips. He runs the house, mostly by tolerating Gertie’s wrestling and defending his food bowl from her, with mixed success.
The five of them are the Fabulous Famous Five on Instagram and on Facebook, where you’ll find them being themselves rather than reviewers.
The site itself came together over time. I have had so many wonderful days out and holidays with the ladies over the years and posted about them on Instagram and the Fabulous Famous Five Facebook page, but as the months go by the posts pile up and the useful bits get lost. Most of our trips have been with two of the dogs at a time. This year Ros and I planned a couple of UK breaks with all four, which is a different kind of challenge, and it sent me into deep research mode for our June Cornwall week. By the time I had pulled together the dog-friendly cottages, the beaches with summer rules, the pubs that welcome four, and the walks the older legs would still enjoy, I realised how useful it would be to have all of it in one place, alongside the trips themselves once we had done them. So here it is.
DBARC
All four of the ladies came from Diana Brimblecombe Animal Rescue Centre (DBARC) in Hurst, near Reading. Max came from DBARC too, as a kitten. They take in dogs, cats, rabbits, and guinea pigs, and have had a lot of ex-breeding schnauzers through their doors over the years. I volunteer there regularly. If you are looking for a rescue to support, DBARC would be a very good place to start. You can donate to them here.
My promise
I would only recommend a place I have been to with my own dogs. Where I have not been somewhere yet, the entry is marked On my list to visit, and any photos are credited to whoever owns them. I would not recommend an attraction or a pub that I would not take Nell, Gertie, Wilma, and Silky Sue to.
A small income from the site comes from affiliate links. For example, when you book a cottage through one of my Sykes Cottages or Booking.com links, or buy something from the Dog Travel Kit page through Amazon, the site receives a small commission, at no extra cost to you. I will always tell you when a link is an affiliate. I do not accept paid reviews, and any sponsored content will be clearly flagged.
How to follow along
- Newsletter: the easiest way to get a new post when it goes up. Sign up at the foot of this page.
- Instagram: @fabulousfamousfive, where the ladies run the show.
- Facebook: Fabulous Famous Five
- Email: hello@bringthedogs.co.uk for tips, suggestions, or to tell me about a great dog-friendly place I should visit.
If you go to somewhere I have written about, let me know how it went.
Joanna and Ros, with Nell, Gertie, Wilma, Silky Sue, and Max
