thank you so very much for telling all of us about this. i really would love to return to cape may–not in the middle of february–and be able to bring desmond. i will be holding on to this post in my little travel folder i keep in my email.

Even though my dog has never bitten anyone (nor any dog) I sometimes have him wear a basket muzzle when I am going to be somewhere which might have a lot of dogs and people. It has the drawback of making me more self-conscious about my reactive dog (he looks like Hannibal Lecter) but people do get the hint and know to keep their dogs and children away and don’t, themselves, walk up and try to pet him. Plus, when he does end up lunging violently at someone who wandered into his cone of protection, they aren’t as angry or scared, seeing that he is muzzled.

Koly and Fe are always wretched the first few weeks of cabin season, barking at all the neighbors who have been dropping by and hanging out on our deck since before they’ve been alive (for woof sakes), but by the end of summer things are usually pretty calm. I love having a cabin I can count on every year!

We’ve traveled with the Greyhounds for years without any trouble, but I wasn’t sure what to expect when we took Morgan along with us. She’s not dog reactive, but she can be people reactive, particularly when it involves men with hats. If she does see someone suspect, then every man becomes suspect that day. Last year we took her to Greyhounds in Gettysburg with us and I learned a lot about her during that trip. She handled it beautifully — even when a locksmith had to break into our van after hubby locked Bunny and Morgan in the van with my purse. One thing that worked in our favor is that we did a lot of different things in different places where she’d never been. She was always with us and Bunny or Blueberry. We found that exercising her brain created a very good kind of tired for her. She rested more deeply and contentedly than normal for her. As a matter of fact, we laughed that she slept the entire twelve hour drive home. She needed to experience a lot of new things and engage her brain. We were careful not to overdo it with any of the girls, but we did get them tired enough to sleep well. Even Lilac slept well on the trip! lol I wouldn’t say that we put her in situations that were too much for her, but we did challenge her and she rose to the task beautifully! Now to see how it goes this year!

I also have to agree with your suggestion to visit places in the off-season. One year Rod and I went down to a B&B in Cape May where they did Chocolate Lover’s weekend for Valentine’s Day. The town was deserted, quiet, almost surreal. It couldn’t have been better. Good luck in the voting!

Bwa ha ha. I bet that was the last time that campground owner tried to be friendly and chatty. 🙂

I’ve found it remarkably easy to rent dog-friendly houses. At the VRBO site I linked to, they have a check box for house features which includes pet friendly. We used that to find a nice cabin in the Adirondacks once.

We’ve done best in Cape May with the links from the Cape May newspaper. But the other rental agencies also advertise pet friendly houses.

Although I was disappointed once when we were looking at renting an island in North Carolina. We thought it would be the one safe place for Shadow to run off leash (she wasn’t trustworthy anywhere else). But when we looked at the fine print, it said the dog wasn’t allowed in the house. And it seemed pretty expensive to rent a private island just to sleep outside in a tent with the dog. 🙂

Jen is a good dog mama to make sure everyone (except her) is happy when she goes on vacation. 🙂

You’re certainly right. But since I don’t see Asia and Africa turn up in my blog stats very often, I thought it was presumptuous to think anyone from those varied and ancient cultures would care about something so petty. But what the heck. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Perhaps I should count Mars and Saturn for the East Coast too. 🙂