A few weekends back I spent a pleasant Sunday afternoon in dog-friendly Woodstock, New York. Woodstock has long been a haven for those who travel to the beat of a different drum. And now the stores and restaurants in town have signs that not only welcome hippies and wiccans, but dogs, too.
They also have a lot of “please don’t feed the bears” signs as there has been a huge increase in the Catskill bear population.
Woodstock actually borders on a town called Bearsville, where two of my favorite restaurants can be found. There is the Bear Café, which offers fine food and excellent wines and The Little Bear Restaurant, which serves Chinese food in a more casual atmosphere. Both are set back in the woods in a streamside setting.
No bear sightings to report.
If you are a dog lover who longs to take your dog along for the ride the Library can offer you Dog-Friendly New England: a Traveler’s Companion, Traveling with Your Pet: the AAA Petbook (covers the US and Canada), and Globetrotting Pets: an International Travel Guide.
If you would like to do some armchair traveling there is John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley which is about his coast-to-coast 1960 road-trip with his standard poodle Charley.
Or you can go international with Michael Konik’s Ella in Europe which is about Konik’s six-week European tour with is Lab/greyhound mix Ella.
Go, dog, go!