Things to do ... with dogs!

[bunn]

We're going to Shepperton  (off the M3 near Woking) in March, so Mollydog can have her details taken for her sculpture.   We'll be there at 10am, and it probably won't take more than an hour or so, so we thought we'd look for something interesting to do afterwards or on the way home.

Thing is, the SouthEast seems to be a monumentally un-dogfriendly place: anything that looks vaguely interesting is 'no dogs', or at best 'dogs allowed only into the peripheral areas where nothing interesting can be seen'.    I was thinking perhaps RHS Wisley, but no, it's no dogs (so is Rosemoor now, I note - :-( I'm sure that's changed recently, too, and I don't know *why* - if you go there in the winter, the place is practically deserted, they'd attract more visitors if they were dogfriendly at least out of season  ) .   Westonbirt Arboretum is dog friendly, but that would mean coming back along the M4. which makes the journey quite a bit longer.     Maybe we'll just come home and then do something locally instead.  :-(

Comments

[bunn.livejournal.com]

.... because I should be doing a particularly dull bit of work, I was intrigued by this question, and did some superficial research.

The Petfood Manufacturers Association says that in 2004, there were 5.2million dog owning households in the UK.

According to statistics.gov.uk, in 2001, there were 7,220,594 families with dependent children in the UK.

This was closer than I was expecting, I must say. The PFMA also reckon that dog ownership is most common among people in their 40's and 50s. So it's possible that the audience for horticultural gardens may even be as likely to own a dog as to live with a toddler. Strange.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

More likely, surely; not all dependent children are toddlers.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

You are right: I think I had some muzzy idea that people who had lived in households with toddlers in the past might still be more likely to enjoy the company of other families with toddlers, but then realised that probably didn't entirely stack up...