Hands up if like us, you can’t go anywhere without your dachshund! Seth, through no fault of his own, is a “velcro dog” permanently attached to one of his humans (he does own us after all…..).  He loves nothing more than coming with us everywhere!  Leaving him alone at home is simply not an option for us, so we are always on the hunt for dog friendly places to visit.

You can imagine our joy when we discovered the new dog revolution that is happening over at Dog Furiendly, an exciting new community being built by Adele Pember and her team of Explorers.  Her army of dog owners are joining paws with their pets to sniff out all things dog friendly, not only in the UK but worldwide!  We have been lucky enough to join the pack and are discovering places in North Wales – you can check out our discoveries via @seththewelshsosij, @dogfuriendly or at www.dogfuriendly.com.  Fellow Dachshunds Mitzi and Heidi (@thesomersetsausage) Baxter (@baxtertheminidach) and Tanpopo (@dackel_dackel) are also pack Explorers and you can follow their adventures too.

Founder Adele Pember and her dog Charlie, a Jack Russell X Chihuahua (who is an Instagram star in his own right – @charliebigears) is on a mission to empower dog parents to share their favourite places, as well as getting businesses to woof out loudly about their dog friendly status.  We all want to benefit from taking our pooches places right!?  What Adele and her team of explorers are creating is a one stop portal that you can easily access and find out if somewhere is dog friendly – simple.  They also organise events where your dog can join in the fun – sounds Pawsome!!

We spoke to Adele about her Dog Furiendly venture…..

Where did it all start?
Five years ago, I picked up my little fur baby, Charlie. A confident little pup in the arms of his humans, but anxious and nervous the moment we popped to the shops, grabbed a bite to eat or met up with friends.  After months of trying to help him overcome his separation anxiety, I decided the best thing we could do was take him out as much as possible.

Was it that easy? No!  Websites were old fashioned and listings out of date.

I discovered me and Charlie were not alone. Leaving the dog behind is a tough situation and over 8.5 million dog parents face this everyday with 75% of dog’s going through separation anxiety daily in the UK alone.  We surveyed 500 dog owners across the UK. 99% said there was a need for this service, 94% want more dog related social events and 65% had never heard of our competitors.

I spent time pulling apart the survey to tailor exactly what dog owners were calling for, an easy search bar, a place to leave reviews, a tight-knit community and regular events. Dog Furiendly was born!

We love your Dog Furiendly events, which have you enjoyed the most?
I have thoroughly enjoyed every single one of them, they all bring their little quirks.  Our first ever Dog Furiendly Pup Crawl in Cardiff was particularly memorable for us with all the games, laughs, woofs and memories. Dogs were treated to bottles of pawsecco, beer, treats and plenty of games throughout the night.  Dog owners were discovering new places they did not even know were dog friendly! Bringing people together through our events is important to us and pulls the community closer together.  It makes us remember that we are all in this crazy dog world together.

Where would you like to see Dog Furienly in the future…
We are actively working on new and innovative ways to bring businesses closer together making them more accessible for dog owners. We have projects in the pipeline to enhance that bond between human and dog through events and new technology.

Our Explorers (brand ambassadors) are truly the future of Dog Furiendly. They are the ones empowering people in the community to find new places and to take the dog out.  In the next few months we are launching in England and Ireland, making us UK wide.  We have already started expanding further afield with Explorers in both Japan and America.  We want to see Dog Furiendly communities run by Explorers across the world – creating Pawsome, fun and exciting events for owners and their dogs to enjoy.    

We are giving Adele and Charlie big high paws for creating such an amazing website for us all to use.  We love taking Seth with us everywhere, it means he can go out and sniff new sniffs, boop all those wet noses and socialise with a variety of people and their pets.  We can’t wait to get exploring and chant Dog Furiendly’s mantra….  “If we can’t bring the dog, we’re not going”.

Visit www.dogfuriendly.com to find out more!

This post was written by one of our community members (Emma Hughes). This is not a sponsored post or advertisement. We simply support amazing initiatives like Dog Furiendly!