A Dog's Guide to National Park Adventures

So first off, Ryan, could you tell us a little bit about your day job as Senior Director of Conservation Science at the National Parks Conservation Association? You’re coming at this project from a very specific perch.

My role at NPCA is essentially to help integrate science into the advocacy that we do to help protect our national parks. So I come from a strict science background. Prior to this, I was with the Smithsonian for a very long time, and then with university life, so jumping to the other side of the conservation spectrum, which is advocacy, was a little bit of a culture shock. But that’s where the science is needed. And so my role is essentially to find ways to empower our advocacy with good quality science.

Fantastic. So let’s talk about dogs in parks. We’ve heard there’s a lot of confusion about where you can take your dog and where you can’t. And you obviously took this on as a project. How did that come about?

I was up for a sabbatical at work. We get a six-week sabbatical every seven years. And we were very happy to start thinking about where we could go. You know, what’s a new place we can see that we haven’t seen before? And parks have always been part of that vacation planning. It’s good to note that in the parks you have culture, history and the environment. And there’s over 400 park units. So there’s a lot to choose from. A couple of friends of ours wanted to experience the annular solar eclipse in Chaco Canyon and so that became a really interesting target. So we made that the center point of the trip.

The trick now was, how are we going to do a loop to get to Chaco and back in this time of a sabbatical. And so we allocated four weeks for a round trip, with Chaco Canyon being the center of this journey. We just had to get there, and then we’d find our way back and along the route. We just wanted to figure out how many parks can we possibly see on that journey. And then, of course we have this new dog with us. So that’s how the idea came to start on this project, because I didn’t know anything about dogs in parks, which parks might be accessible which are not.

So I wanted to have canine companionship in my life. We’re out in the country. It was time to get a dog. And so I took about a year to research all possible breeds and types of dogs, and I looked at rescues, and I looked at every possible scenario, and it came down to an English Springer Spaniel because this particular breed checks off most of the boxes of things that we wanted in a dog. They’re very lovely companions. They’re very athletic. This is the field variety of Springer Spaniels. They’re normally bred for hunting. They call them Springers because you send them into the bush. They spring up and down, they flush out birds for you. So this one doesn’t bark a lot. They’re just wonderful field companions, easily trainable. And so Ennio sort of came at the right time.

How did you gauge whether he was ready for a long road trip? I have a fox red lab who’s full of energy. I’ve taken him to Shenandoah before, and it’s always like, how’s he going to do, two hours on the road? Were you worried about that?

Well, that’s a great question, because I didn’t know whether it was going to work. And that’s a big gamble. You’re getting on the road with a dog for four weeks in a camper van and you have never done it before with anyone. So we just made some educated guesses that we’d figure it out, but the first year of owning a dog, as you know, is a really important one for bonding. And aside from some basic training, I just really wanted a great opportunity to learn about Ennio and for Ennio to learn about us. And this was a great way to do it. Going to different environments, letting him see and experience all these different things, giving him some exposure to other humans and other dogs. We live fairly remotely, so we don’t come across a lot of people where we are. And that part of dog socialization is quite important. We did as much research as one can do. We jumped in the van and gave it a go. Fortunately it worked out, but it wasn’t all easy.

So it just turned out that the parks that we chose were some of the more challenging ones, but every park has really great opportunities for dogs. And so that’s something we quickly learned. If you show up to a national park, one of the first things that we want to do is to talk to one of the staff at the visitor center to quickly get an idea, what are those limitations? Are the trails restricted? Can I take Ennio with us? And a lot of times the answer was no, but there are other options that you can do. We did learn a lot on this journey, but we didn’t plan it in advance, and so I don’t recommend that people do what we did. Do your research, be prepared, and then travel to those parks. But the good news is that there’s great stuff in every park for dogs to do.

What would you consider the biggest wins and fails in terms of the experiences you had?

Some of the wins, I guess, are just knowing that all parks are accessible to some degree. Bona fide service dogs are the only dogs that can go anywhere a human can go. But outside of that, you can’t take your dog inside that visitor center. It was nice, though – every park there’s stuff around the visitor centers. They sometimes have services for dogs. They have designated dog areas, or they have specified trails to encourage you to take your dogs on. So we got to experience 16 national park units with Ennio. That’s a big win.

Every park had something to offer visiting with a dog, but there were some challenges, and I guess you could call them failures in some ways. And that’s mostly on the camper van side of things. We were on a long journey. We didn’t know what we were getting into. We just gave it a try, but car sickness – that’s a real thing for a dog. Knowing where to put your dog in a car when you’re driving for hours on end, that’s a serious consideration. Breaks and feeding cycles and everything else with that journey. When do you plan to show up, at what hour, and what resources would be available at that time?

I think part of the challenge is just trying to be as aware as you can, and being prepared. And then you have to have a lot of water with you. It’s surprising, you think like, oh, I have a bottle. I have a bottle for the dog. They go through water very fast, and if you’re out in a hot park like Chaco Canyon, there’s no shade there. If you’re going on this wonderful 8-mile loop. That sounds terrific. You might be surprised that you need a lot more water for both you and your canine companion. And then there are considerations of their paws on hot surfaces. Are they going to run into things that they normally don’t know about, like cactus? Are there snakes there? You know, a lot of things you have to think about. So those were some of the failures in not planning, although we didn’t have any real issues, but a lot of lessons learned through the journey.

How long did you find you could be on the road between stops with Ennio? I’m sure that depends on the dog, too. But if they’re drinking a lot of water, that means they’ve got to go out to pee more often, right? When you were on those long stretches, did you go two, three hours at a time or were you taking a lot of breaks?

We are lucky that Ennio sleeps really well in a vehicle. Not all dogs do. So I would test that out before you plan a big journey. Just go for the day and see what happens, but dogs can become reactive to certain things in a vehicle. It’s surprising how quickly a vehicle can get hot inside. You stop at a gas station. You go in to use the restroom. You can’t let your dog run loose, so the dog is there and if you’re there 10 minutes or so, it’s surprising how quick that temperature can change. So I would say three or four hours is probably good, making those little pee breaks. See if there’s another potty break that needs to happen. Stretch your legs, get some good water and kibble in there. But I wouldn’t go for much longer than that without consideration for the needs of the dog to take a break.

Makes sense. I love the photo gallery you had in your article, because it looks like you had so many great adventures. You took Ennio out on a boat, and I’m curious if you have advice on dogs and boats?

Yes, for sure. You know there are a lot of watercraft in national park units. It’s everything from zodiacs to ferries to something you can rent through an outfitter. When we were on the Buffalo National River, which is a fantastic park to experience, we didn’t know what we were going to encounter with Ennio in a canoe but we just knew we wanted to do it, because this dog’s up for anything. And that’s probably the case for most dogs. They’ll just be up for whatever you’re doing, but you just have to be prepared for what they might do that’s unexpected, like jumping out of a canoe after fish and things like that.

So following the park rules, you always have to have your dog on a leash, a 6-foot leash, but I highly recommend a harness and not a collar. The kind of harness that has a little handle on the back. So if you need to grab that harness and pull your dog away from something, or in this case out of the water, then it’s easy to do so. And also think about the journey. How often are you going to be out on the boat under the sun? Ennio is black and white, but it’s shocking how a black dog can just immediately become quite overheated, just from that color. The black is going to absorb a lot of that UV radiation. Your dog is already very hot, just being out in the sun for less than an hour. And so you just have to be careful. You’ve got shades. You’ve got your hat, and you’re not thinking that your poor dog doesn’t have either – although they probably make those things for dogs. So those are some of the considerations.

What were your favorite parks? The best ones from Ennio’s perspective, or your perspective being there with him?

Out of 16 park units we visited, there were some that weren’t as desirable for a dog because as it happened to be the season and the amount of sun. Some parks were tough, but I have to say that Chaco Canyon was a favorite. They have great trails for dogs. There’s something about the sandstone and the terrain that is fun for a dog to run about, and there are a lot of sensitive archaeological resources there obviously. So you can’t take your dog into those ruins, but there are a lot of trails both around in the valley and then up around the cliffs that are just so fun for a dog. Buffalo National River because of the canoeing. It’s a limited park, but there are some great hiking trails as well, and being on a canoe with a dog is a lot of fun.

But honestly, this is a little bit biased, but my favorite park unit for dogs is right here at Shenandoah National Park. It’s one of the most dog friendly. Almost all the trails are open to dogs – not every one – but most of them. There are a lot of black bears in that park, and so there is a potential to have wildlife interaction, but it’s a shaded park. It’s got great terrain.

There’s water everywhere in Shenandoah. There’s creeks and rivers all throughout this entire park, and waterfalls. Then there’s open areas like Big Meadows and places where you can have more of an open setting. It’s got a good mix of everything. And so, yeah, I’ll say Shenandoah is at the top, but I really loved the experience of Chaco Canyon during an annular solar eclipse with a dog.

What would you consider the worst sins that dog owners can commit with their dogs in the parks?

Well, there’s a lot of that. One of the things that I did on this sabbatical was to interview park staff, but also visitors. And I targeted a lot of visitors that didn’t have dogs, because I’m very sensitive to the impact that I may have on another person if I were coming in proximity in a park, especially if you have a dog. You have no idea how people feel about dogs. They may be fearful of them. If they have a dog, then there’s really a big question looming when you get closer together. What’s going to happen? Dogs on leash respond differently than off leash. They can be almost a little more aggressive sometimes.

The concern that people shared most was off-leash dogs. In a national park that is a rule that everyone should follow, to keep your dog on a leash. Not everyone does, because they may think, my dog is friendly, it’s fine. What they don’t know is how that other person feels. If you’re a parent, and you have a toddler with you, and here comes an off-leash large dog down a trail and you don’t see the owners. That’s a terrifying situation as a parent. I feel the same way with just Ennio, with my springer spaniel on a leash. I don’t know what this dog’s gonna do. So that is something that people need to realize is that their behavior does have a serious impact on other people. Off-leash dogs also can harass wildlife. They can run off and damage things.

The second biggest issue is the poop bags. For some reason visitors will collect dog poop in a plastic bag in a park, but then leave it on the trail. This happens a lot. It’s one of the biggest problems that parks face where there are a lot of dogs visiting. And so I tried to figure, why is this happening? And one of the reasons I got from a person who did it was that they said they were going to pick it up on the way out. And you know that’s not going to happen – you’re going to miss it or forget it, but you’re leaving it there for someone else to experience and it’s essentially littering, because not only is the poop there, but the bag’s now there. Or worse, they will bag the poop and then toss it into the neighboring vegetation to get it out of the way. Neither of those things need to be in parks. So off-leash dogs and collecting poop are BARK Ranger principles.

You mentioned the BARK Ranger program. This is the National Park Service’s effort to explain what responsible dog visits are. Could you tell us about that?

I think the BARK Ranger program is really a brilliant thing. The Park Service has done an awful lot to accommodate visitors with dogs, because parks weren’t set up for dogs. So this BARK Ranger program is part of what’s called the “healthy people, healthy parks” initiative of the Park Service. BARK is an acronym. B means “bag your pet’s waste.” The A is “always leash your pet.” The R is “respect wildlife and visitors and the park.” And then the K is “know where you can go.”

You can actually get your pet certified and you can get the little dog tag or a bandana, and an actual printed certificate with your dog’s paw print on it showing that they have met the requirements. It’s a fun thing, but the idea behind it is that by doing these activities to get the certification, you will then learn what it’s like to be a good park visitor with a dog.

A perfect segue to the other incredible thing that you’ve created: the first comprehensive, interactive map of all the National Park sites and their rules for dogs. What went into that?

It was a really fun project. I have a background in geospatial science, so I’ve worked with maps for a long time. We used software from a company called ESRI, the Environmental Systems Research Institute. ESRI has these things called StoryMaps, and it’s an absolutely brilliant type of software that allows you to tell a story through geography. So as you’re telling the story you’re seeing the map react to it and you can create any kind of story on a map.

With 430 park units across the country, they’re all spread out. It’s hard to know which ones are dog accessible. So I used this software to start cataloging all this stuff. But before making the map you had to do the basic spreadsheet. I called almost all the park units. I visited all of their websites and I got as much high-level information as I could get about their dog policies. This took months, and I just started populating this spreadsheet over time. When I finally finished all 430, then I could visualize that data. It was really hard to to figure out okay, I’m gonna have 430 dots on the map. What am I going to do with these things? What level of dog accessibility exists for that one park? So I just came up with those criteria of “Open, Limited and Restrictive.”

I had a lot of fun with it, but it’s important to note that this whole resource has not been vetted by the Park Service. I’m actively seeking review from them. I did talk to a lot of park staff, a lot of park rangers, park superintendents. I visited their websites. So a lot of it is from the Park Service, but I’d feel better if I could work with a human one-on-one to go through the whole database.

If you go to the Park Service’s website now you could find a good pet page. Nationally, you could find the Bark Ranger pages. Some individual parks also have a pet drop-down menu so you can see what the expectations are if you visit that one park. But there doesn’t seem to exist a national, comprehensive, interactive map from the Park Service yet. And so I hope that this could help provide such a resource. I think a lot of people would find it useful.

I do want to come full circle back to your trip. So you take this epic trip with Ennio. You came home. Does Ennio now look at you occasionally, like, “where are we going next, dad?” And do you feel inspired to do that again?

Yes, it was stimulating enough to want to do it again, but I would do it differently. Obviously, we learn a lot from each of those experiences, but we were very happy to get home. Four weeks in a camper van with a dog is challenging. We spaced it out with some hotel stays because it was just getting a bit too much in the camper van, and being on the road four weeks is very hard, especially with a dog. But the experience taught us that there’s too much cool stuff out there to see. And a lot of that cool stuff is captured in the parks.

We went in October, so it wasn’t as hot. And that’s very important if you’re taking a dog. And we were also kind of coming into the fall season, so we had beautiful fall foliage on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains. Even in Rocky Mountain National Park those aspen trees turning yellow. It was really extraordinary, so I absolutely want to do it again. But I wouldn’t do it as long and I wouldn’t visit as many parks. Go someplace for a week or so, and just target one park, or maybe two, but certainly not 16. I think that would reduce the stress and you would just get to enjoy it a lot more.

Any final advice for dog owners and park lovers?

For people that want to visit parks and have dogs, you’ve got to put the time in to prepare. Don’t do what I did. Know before you go. There are a lot of great resources, and I hope that this map certainly can help. It never hurts to call the park up and check on conditions. They change daily, but you might find that you have plans to go and do those big hikes, but then you can’t take your dog. It could be a seasonal limitation, there could be some event like a bear was sighted and therefore they close the trail down, or an endangered species is nesting at that particular time.

Follow those wonderful BARK Ranger principles. Be a responsible dog owner. And then as unusual as it may be, try to think like your dog. The conditions, the heat, the exposure. You might be ready for a big 10-mile hike, but maybe your dog is not. But yeah, have fun. There’s stuff there for everybody and for all kinds of dogs as well.