No dogs allowed?????!!!!!!?!?!?!

[YourFriendDeb]

This past weekend, my in-laws, my husband and I rented a cabin in the hills of Kentucky - so we could enjoy a little R&R away from the city. Its about a 2 and a half hour drive from home. Of COURSE we took Legend & Mazzy. The cabin was beautiful, tucked away in the secluded wooded setting of the mountains...very quiet and peaceful. It overlooked a lake and we spent the evenings sitting on the swing on a big covered porch.

The cabin (who's owners allow dogs - we found it on petfriendlytravel.com) is a few miles from Natural Bridge/Red River Gorge state park. For those of you unfamiliar, you can take different trails to see beautiful arches, cliffs and a "natural bridge" created from rock. We load up the dogs in the car & head for the park on Saturday morning. Ready for a day of exploring and a little leisurely stroll through the woods.

We get up to the trail entrance and see this sign:

NO DOGS ALLOWED ON TRAILS. NO DOGS ALLOWED IN WOODS. NO DOGS ALLOWED IN PARK.
:confused: :confused: :mad: :eek:
WHAAAAT??? A park you can't take you DOG into? We stop, stare at the sign and then stare at each other. Meanwhile, the dogs are tugging at their leads, just DYING to get started on the trail! I almost teared up. Hanging our heads, we trodded back to the car, the entire time, the dogs are wondering...WHY aren't we going Mom??

Can you believe that? I was so mad! :mad: I guess I should have checked before driving almost 3 hours away from home...but I never IMAGINED that a state park wouldn't allow DOGS!

So for future reference...don't bother going to Natural Bridge or Red River Gorge in Kentucky with your babies! I wonder how people would feel if they put up a sign that said "NO KIDS ALLOWED!" :mad:

 

[Loke]

I can't say I've ever encountered this problem. We have a couple little parks around with trails and they don't mind dogs. Sorry your trip didn't go as well as you had hoped, but I will have to keep that in mind for our future travels.

 

[clearlykoi]

No dogs

Very few lakes around here allow dogs anymore. Unfortunetly, dog owners here are VERY irresponsible, and there was always dog waste, and a large number of dog fights from unleashed dogs :( Thankfully, I never did hear much on dog attacks on humans in those areas.

Sorry about your trip....... I agree with your "No kids allowed" point!

 

[SouthernArt]

I know how you feel!

We took Duchess with us to the Smoky Mountains back in December. We stopped in the park to walk some trails and ran across a similar sign. :mad: Back to the car we went...

It's really awful that irresponsible pet owners can spoil the fun for everyone else!

 

[trudy]

Well i guess I am not as good as you....hee hee hee, i would have went anyway....

In my mind those signs are posted for the irresponsible people who let their dogs just run free and pay no attention to what they are doing and don't clean up after them...

There is a beautiful state park near us that we go to and there is a sign posted "No Dogs" However, that seems to be all there is in there, people and their dogs...

Sorry that you had that experience but like i said i would have went anyway and if "Ranger Rick" saw you, just say "huh, what sign? oh sorry we're from out of town" :D

 

[KarenD]

Unfortunately, I have encountered this problem many times and it really makes me mad. We too like to rent cabins and hike. It is getting tougher and tougher to find cabins that will allow 2 dogs over 50 lbs and parks where you can hike with them.

 

[Jan]

I have travelled a fair bit in the US and have found that there are very few parks that allow dogs on the trails. None of the National Parks allow dogs on the trails and most of the State Parks don't either.

Unfortunately it is because there are just too many dog owner that cannot obey the rules. There was a time when dogs were allowed, as long as they were on leash. but everyone seemed to think that the rules were for everyone else and would allow their dogs off leash anyway and of course woudn't pick up after them either. The result was that they decided to ban all dogs. :(

 

[kala]

I don't travel much but last summer some Doberman friends and I went to Lake Murray in south central Oklahoma and it was wonderful. Not only do they have cabins that allow dogs but you can take your dogs swimming in the lake. I don't know about trails for hiking but we had so much fun swimming the dogs and just walking around the cabin area it didn't matter. Oh and since some of our dogs wouldn't do their business on leash we took them to the basketball court every morning and let them run in the fenced in area. No one said a word since we cleaned up very good. I would recomend that state park to anyone who wants to travel with dogs. Everyone there was nice and we had 5 Dobermans all together and I was so surprised they were welcome with open arms.
sue

 

[Harlan]

Oh, I feel your pain. I'm from California and they are getting really HORRIBLE about all the laws. My thought on this is, what better place for a dog to be than hiking outdoors in nature?!?! My parents (they have 4 beagles) are almost considering moving out of the state because of all the stupid laws.:mad: They have found that you can take dogs on "fire trails" in certain areas. Maybe it is the same there? They had to go get a book to start double checking ahead of time because they were tired of running into the same problem you did, driving way out only to find that your furbabies are unwelcome. Well, I hope you find some places to go that let the "kids" :D come too! Good luck!!!

 

[frankies_mom]

I dont know why people dont understand about having babies

EVERY house we have looked at, wont allow dogs. Thankfully we are in a place right now, where we can have any animal we want (we're out in the country) We have been looking for a place in town for almost a year now, and they all end with a "sorry we dont allow dogs", that IS like saying, sorry, we dont allow children in our homes. Our landlord right now is so passionate about dogs because she was an only child, and her only companion was a dog. She told me I can have as many animals as I want, even an elephant, which I thought was pretty cool of her..so I guess we will just have to stay put.