There are limitations to travelling with dogs, but to us, the biggest of them all is not being able to take our dog on a hike with us.

It was shocking for us to find out that most National parks in Canada and the US do not allow dogs on trails.  Silly us planned our trip around those parks because we were travelling with a dog…

In the Unites States, there are 98 million households with pets, out of which, 60 million households have at least one dog.  About 30% of the the 98 million travel with their pets.  That is many millions!  We couldn’t find numbers for Canadian households, but we suspect that the percentages are similar.  We would speculate further that the percentage of RVers with pets is fairly high.

That a lot of people with a voice,  isn’t it?  So where is this voice, and who is lobbying for those dogs on the road?

I was excited to find a National Park map that shows all of the parks that allow dogs.  It looked very promising, with most parks allowing dogs until you drill in a little bit deeper and find out that most of them don’t!  For example, Yellowstone Park is shown as a park that allows pets, but do they really?  Turn out that yes, your dog is allowed in the parking lot, in your car, in a crate,  and in some areas around roads, but not on any of the trails or boardwalks.  Really? It’s a bit deceiving.  Why not show specifically the parks that allow dogs on trails?  Are there any national parks that do?  If someone has the patience to click on each one of these green dots claiming that they allow dogs, and find any that allow dogs on trails, please let us know!

So at Yellowstone, we watched Old Faithful erupt from the safety of the parking lot where there was no danger to the general public that our dog will attract Grizzly bears, but we couldn’t help but wonder about the park’s policy and the transparency of this policy.

Some parks don’t even bother to explain their rule, others, for example, Big Bend in Texas have a short explanation as to why they don’t allow dogs:

Why aren’t pets allowed on trails?

For many visitors, seeing wildlife is a highlight of a national park visit. Unfortunately, the mere presence of pets in the park alters the natural behavior of native wildlife. In national parks, the native species have priority.

Odors left behind by dogs may prevent wildlife from returning to important habitats such as fan palm oases.

Sensitive archeological sites are often difficult to see and may inadvertently be disturbed by inquisitive four-legged visitors.

The safety of your pet is important as well.Abundant cactus spines, rattlesnakes, and thorns are good reasons not to let your pet roam free. Dogs are natural hunters, but can easily become the hunted. Predators such as coyotes and mountain lions can kill pets, even during daylight hours.

Even though your pet follows instructions and is very well behaved, others do not know your pet and may feel uneasy when encountering an unleashed animal.

By following the park’s simple regulations and respecting fellow visitors, you and your pet can have a happy and healthy park outing.

Fair enough.  Some very good points, and I am sure that they are valid for some parks, or some areas in some parks, but some of these rules just seem odd as they ignore the similar effect that people can have on the same resources.  For example, as an archaeologist, I have seen a lot of damage caused to archaeological sites by people, burrowing wild animals, and natural processes, but I don’t recall any damage by a pet.  I am positively sure that if there is damage by dog it is far less than damage caused by people, yet people are allowed on archaologcal sites all the time.

If attracting wildlife is of concern, wouldn’t small children, lone hikers, menstruating women etc., will be an attraction as well?

It looks like these parks are taking the easy way out.  Perhaps they had to deal with complaints about dogs and decided to take the route of banning dogs, instead of enforcing rules?

Some good news from Quebec: after a 3 year pilot study, dogs will be allowed in parks, while in BC, a new ban on dogs in parks has been implemented.  Is the real reason in some of these parks just the fact that people don’t clean after their dogs? In the UK they say this outright.  This is probably a good spot in this post to say that really, us dog owners should follow those rules because if we don’t, we will be cutting the branch we are sitting on.  Pick up after your dog.  If your dog is aggressive or jumps on people, do not let it run loose.  You are ruining it for everyone else including yourself!

There have got to be some reasonable solutions and we can think of a few off the top of our head:

• If the concern is that owners are not responsible, charge a small admission fee for the dog, provide the owner with a few bags, and enforce the rules.  We would gladly pay instead of leaving our dog in the car.
• If dog aggression is of concern, state that only muzzled dogs will be allowed admission.
• If wildlife attack is of concern, request that hikers wait for several people taking the same hike before proceeding.  Some parks in BC, Canada do that in areas where there are bear sightings.

We would love to hear more ideas!  Feel free to post in the comment section

Given the fact that there is such a huge number of households with dogs, is there no one to advocate for those dogs that are left in cars?  Personally, we ended up avoiding places that made us leave our dog in the car and opted for state parks that did allow dogs.   Is someone doing the math to see the loss in revenue for parks this may represent, or perhaps this is an easy way to reduce crowds in parks?  If that’s the case, then it is unfairly targeting a specific group.

A sentimental note about our experience in the spaces that did allow dogs, we clearly remember the joy that Emma gave people who stopped and asked if they can pet or hug our dog.  We are not talking about children, we are talking about grown men that melt into a heap of emotions as they hug our dog.  Hey, we know that she is a special dog, but we are also sure that this was not the only reason.

There was not one person that showed resentment to having our dog there.  Not one person!

It will be great if this post can lead to some constructive discussions on different social media groups and platforms that are dedicated to RVing with pets, and maybe, just maybe, it will be the start of a change.

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