paulscuba's VirtualTourist Home Page

Life has been busy but we finally got a chance to train our child. Well that's how the wife sees him. We are now trying to include him in some of our travels. So I will start giving helpful hints for dog travelling. First even when we don't have our puppy with us we are trying to support dog friendly places.

If we find a place that takes Zeiss without issues, they will take any dog. We had plenty of attention distracting treats just in case something alarms him and he starts grumbling. We've also trained him to respond to signals as well as commands. The hardest part of traveling is the hotels with people thumping around in the nearby rooms which triggers his alarm response.

Rotties are very protective and as the Rottie mantra goes
"If I see it, its mine.... If I want it. it's mine..... If you think you own it. It's mine"

He has been known to protect a house after staying in it all of two days. Protect is a relative term. He will bark and grumble at unannounced strangers but if someone was intent on doing harm I believe he might hide behind us.

We found that some National Parks and State Parks do allow dogs. Check the websites for the parks first as many have a pets section. If they don't, do e-mail the contacts to verify the pet rules. For instance Chicamauga National Battlefield does not have anything on its site regarding pets but we found it was very pet friendly.

Most parks with nature trails will not allow the dogs on most but their are exceptions which I will put in the travel pages when I find them. Usually dogs are allowed on the paved trails. My wife and I have gotten good and taking turns going into visitor centers when we have Zeiss with us.

I believe everyone should see and appreciate as much of the country they live in as well as visit the more exotic locales around the world. In the case of the US, the one thing it has that few other countries can match is the natural scenery. This is more due to being blessed with so many climate zones and geologic conditions. There are few countries where you can visit active volcanoes, flowering deserts, glacial inlets, Alpine Meadows, coral reefs, temperate Rain Forest, Kelp Forests, Taiga Forest, and a variety of erosion created rock formations(Arches, Grand Canyon,Bryce Canyon, Badlands, Pinnacles, etc).

Thus our goal is to see every National Park/Monument/Historical Site in the US as well as visit so many other places in other countries. Since there are over 300+ sites run by the NPS, Forest Service or BLM we will be very busy for many years. So far we have visited approximately 55 locations since we started dating/got married 7 years ago. As expected the challenge will be to get several of the Alaskan parks that are best described as in the boonies.

Even with all there is to see here, I'm always looking for good ideas of other places to go in other countries. I always like to find the special out of the way locations that everyone else doesn't visit. Examples of this in the US are (Chiricahua NM and Theodore Roosevelt NP) They are great places to visit w/o being ruined by crowds of people. In both places we were able to hike for hours and not see a soul.