Dog-friendly Exeter

A backstreet Exeter pub off South Street with its own brewery and smokehouse leanings. It calls itself a long-established people and dog friendly backstreet pub, which is about the plainest statement of policy in the city, and it stays small and busy accordingly.

Three miles there and back along the towpath of the oldest ship canal in the country, an hour and a quarter of completely level walking on a wide surfaced path from the warehouses on Exeter Quay to the lock keeper's house at Double Locks. Start at the Quay itself, ten minutes downhill from the High Street with paid parking on Haven Road and a free bike and boat ferry crossing the basin in season; the towpath is traffic free the whole way and shared with cyclists. It is the reliable all-weather city walk for a dog, flat and firm with grass verges to sniff and the canal to drink from, but the water is deep and steep-sided with few easy exits, the towpath is busy with bikes at commuting times, and there is no livestock or stile anywhere on it.

Four miles of waymarked forest road and woodland track on the Haldon ridge above Exeter, about two hours with 140 metres of climbing and firm going in all weathers, with the Exe estuary and Dartmoor both in view from the open felled areas. Start at the main visitor car park signed off the A38 at Exeter Racecourse, where parking is charged by the hour or by annual permit, with a café, toilets and dog waste bins along the trails; buses 39 and X38 stop a mile away at the racecourse. Dogs are genuinely well served here with wide firm tracks for off-lead running and no livestock at all, but there is no natural water on the ridge, mountain bikers use crossing trails at speed, and forestry operations close individual routes at short notice, so read the boards at the car park.