A dog friendly holiday to Padstow

We recently went on our first dog friendly holiday to Padstow. Regular readers will know we go on holiday to Padstow in Cornwall every single year. We love it. For us, it is a real home from home.

Last year, we had already booked a normal (not dog friendly) holiday apartment before we got Hetty. We ended up taking her away with us and she stayed at kennels in nearby Wadebridge. We took her out with us every day, but she had to be back by 5pm.

This year, we booked the dog friendly Bumblebee Cottage, close to Padstow town centre. Bumblebee Cottage is a small, pretty cottage. It has two bedrooms and sleeps four. The only clues that is dog friendly are that it provides two dog bowls (although we’d brought our own with us) and that it smells quite strongly of diffusers – presumably to disguise the smell of other people’s dogs!

The cottage is right on the pavement (no front garden or front drive) close to a busy junction in Padstow. There were a lot of people walking past and Hetty did a lot of barking.

We let some of the home rules relax a bit, just as people often do with their kids on holiday. The settees had throws on them, which were clearly designed for dogs to sit on. So Hetty was allowed to sit on the throws on the settees. She isn’t allowed on the settee at home.

At home, she sleeps in the hallway, just outside our bedroom. All the doors are shut, so she can move around the hall, but can’t get upstairs or into any other rooms. At Bumblebee Cottage, the downstairs is an open living space – lounge, dining area and kitchen – with open stairs. Hetty wouldn’t stay still and settled downstairs. She kept barking and running up and down the stairs. (She doesn’t go upstairs at home unless she is supervised.) So we took her bed into our room. She jumped straight from her bed onto our bed. We tried returning her to the lounge one more time, but realised she would be sleeping on our bed for the entirety of our holiday. We just had to hope that being back in a familiar environment at home would mean she would adjust to her old routine of sleeping on her own in the hall.

Hetty loved being on holiday with her family around her all the time, although the weather was the worst we’ve had in a very long time! We went for walks and she got the chance to play on the beach. She loved running on the sand and in the sea. This year, she discovered digging the sand. So we buried her balls for her to find, which was great fun for her.

There are A LOT of dogs in Padstow. This isn’t surprising. If you’ve got a dog and you’re holidaying in the UK, it makes sense that you would want to take your dog with you. Also, kennels can be really expensive and massively push up the cost of your holiday.

Most of the beaches around Padstow are dog friendly. The only exception I can think of is Trevone, but it’s wise to double check before heading to the beach. Nearly all of the pubs, restaurants and shops in Padstow are dog friendly too. Unfortunately, Rick Stein’s Fish & Chips isn’t dog friendly. I always love eating in there, but this year we just had to make do with a takeaway. Our favourite restaurant, Caffe Rojano, has a dog friendly (covered) outdoor seating area. This area can’t be booked, so you just have to wait/ get lucky to get a seat.

Despite the horrendous weather, we enjoyed our dog friendly holiday to Padstow. Most importantly, so did Hetty. We will be booking another dog friendly cottage next year.