what to do with pets at National Parks?

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henkelphoto

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Hi guys! I understand that most Nat'l Parks do not allow pets inside the parks or at least not on most hiking trails. So do the parks have day kennels for dogs?

I'm really reticent about leaving our two little guys in the trailer all day, they'd be bored, the neighbors would probably be unhappy and we might be asked to leave.
 
We take a couple of different approaches, stay on designated paths only, take turns doing a hike while the other stays with the dogs and as our dogs are not nuisance barkers we sometimes leave them in the rig, but only for a couple hours.  We have never done it, but I know of others who have boarded their dog(s) in a local "doggy daycare" business, while they were out enjoying the park.  No question bringing dogs along presents it challenges, but not insurmountable and at least for us, well worth the extra attention required.
 
Many parks do have kennels. Pets are allowed in most every National Park, they just are not allowed on marked trails.

They are OK in campgrounds if on a leash. The Pa'rus Trail in Zion and the South Rim Trail in the Grand Canyon both allow dogs on the trail if on a leash. There might be others but those two are definite.

https://www.citrusmilo.com/zionguide/parustrail.cfm

http://blog.gopetfriendly.com/dogs-dig-the-grand-canyon/

Both trails are spectacular to say the least. I used to hike the rim trail every morning when I lived at the canyon. I never got bored of the beauty.
 
If you need a kennel or day care, look in the surrounding towns, not just at the park itself. They will obviously require vet records, so keep a copy of your pet's immunization with you. Our dog stays in the trailer quite happily, but we always have the vet give us a copy of an immunization record plus test results for things like giardia.
 
Yes, dogs and parks can be difficult. Usually you can walk them on the asphalt paths. We take ours always, park the furthest from attractions and walk her all around, to the places where we can. We always try to camp outside of the park so our dog can get lots of exercise out of park. We stayed in Zion for a week, lots of BLM land around, took her for walks all over the place in the am. Put her in TT for a few hours to do some hiking on the trails and then took her where she was allowed in park in the late afternoon.  Yep... we got in lots of walking hiking that week, but everyone was happy!

Yellowstone is the hardest one for us, as campgrounds are IN the park and you cannot get them off leash easily. We generally stay in West Yellowstone so our Golden can run in the forest!

Have fun!
 
We usually just let ours stay in the MH if we aren't going to be gone very long. I did see people with dogs at Mt. Rushmore this fall. I have never seen that before. They weren't wearing the service dog clothes, either. There are signs saying no dogs allowed, but some people........

 
We took ours to the Great Smokie Mountains a few years ago, and it is a totally dog-unfriendly place, mainly because dogs in the woods can agitate the bears and cause bad results. I can totally understand the logic behind that. There were a couple really nice doggy day care facilities in town that were very nice that we ended up using. In the end, we scratched the Smokies from our list of places to go. But, that?s a choice everyone with dogs has to decide. It?s still a lovely place.
 
We leave our 90-pound lab in the motorhome. He used to be able to go 7 hours but now he?s an old man and can only handle 5 hours so we return to the RV in less than 5 hours.
 
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