Dog friendly France?

Rufus

Guest
Hi All

This is my first post, so I hope I'm in the right place.

Off on my travels again soon, but this time with the newest addition the the family, Heidi, the dog.
I've always found it very easy travelling through Europe in the past, stopping at Aires, French Passion and the very occasional campsite when in France. I usually just make it up as I go along, with the weather forecast taking priority over the road map. (Got off the Ferry last year in torrential rain, intending to go to Brittany and ended up on the Med), but I now find myself wishing to do a little forward planning.

Pet passport, vaccinations etc all done, but I realize that I have never thought to note how dog friendly places are on previous trips.
I know there are restrictions on most UK beaches in high season, but what about beaches in Brittany, Normandy, or Northern Europe generally?
Heidi is only a small dog, so the 'dangerous breeds' restrictions in Germany and some parts of France would not apply.
Is France generally dog friendly?

Any info would be most welcome, as I'm finding it difficult to gain any useful insight from the French Tourist Offices or general t'interweb.

Thanks

Rufus
 
Many French beaches ban dogs, others don't but insist that they're on a lead, some allow them. A bit like the U.K. I suppose. I don't think that you can plan your holiday around lengthy research into which beaches will allow you to take the pooch, so I'd just go where you want to go and suck it and see.

Yours is a small dog. It's owners of the large ones that could be mistaken for a small horse that need to worry!
 
HI,

This will be our 4th year in France with a Dog - and yes they are very dog friendly.

As said most Beaches ban dogs during the High season / some split the beaches etc. This is one reason we got a motorhome, the dog is quite happy sleeping (in the shade), while we spend a few hours on the beech.

We also just follow the locals, and always "pick up", never had a problem.

The dog has been into Bar and Restaurants with us with out question.

There is a Vet in the Town of Arques (50.73261,2.298763) we used last year, stayed on the Aires next to the Campsite ( 50.746741,2.301282 ), it is about an hour from Calais.
 
we took ours earlier this year she only small and we had no problems is only the busy beaches with the dog bans we seldomuse those anyway
 
I have a small dog, miniature schnauzer, that travels everywhere with us. She was born in Spain, and has a Spanish passport
!0 years living in Spain and camping all over France, Spain and Portugal. Never had a problem any where.
We always remember watching an elderly, very posh looking French lady arriving at a beach one day. She glanced briefly at the sign saying "no dogs", bent down and scooped a shallow hole in the sand where her little dog promptly settled down. The lady removed her wide brimmed hat which she settled gently over the dog. Problem solved French style.
 
Thank you All

I feel a lot more confident now that I can just take my usual 'just go and see where you end up' approach, without too much bother.
I usually stick to the quieter, inland Aires anyway and just do trips to the beach; I was just a bit concerned that I would end up driving from one disappointment to another.

The dog has learned to like spending time in bars, after much training, so it's good to know that won't be a big issue.
If I end up in Paris, I'll get her a designer pooch carrier bag and some bling.

Thanks again

Rufus
 
In restaurants you regularly see French women with small dogs bags under the table.As Northener said you can't plan your holiday around dog banning beaches,The French don't usually follow rules anyway so dog doo everywhere is the norm and large dogs running loose on beaches is common too.Just take it as it comes and don't let it spoil your :fun:
 
We took our little jack russel to france and she came with us to all the bars,cafe and resturants ,no problems any where,
 
They all seem to have dogs.

We've just come back and found that dogs are quite rightly banned from beaches and must be on a lead in a lot of places. When I first got there I was impressed to notice that their poop scoop bins have holders for clean bags, until I noticed they were all empty. I was less impressed by the amount of dog faeces everywhere, as the poop scoop idea doesn't seem to have caught on. This is a sore subject for me as I like walking on the clean pavements here and when I worked in a country park used to get really annoyed by people who either didn't clean up, or hung bags of faeces on trees or fences, expecting our rangers to handle them when litter picking.

I'm not anti dog, or anti dog owners, as long as people take responsibility for their pets faeces, as most do in this Country.
 
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