Dog-friendly The Jurassic Coast

Thatched Palmers inn sitting right on West Bay beach, the oldest building on the harbour and the one used as the Broadchurch hotel. Dog friendly according to the brewery, with outside dining, sea views and bedrooms. You can walk out of the door onto the shingle.

Thatched pub in the estate village a mile west of Bridport, with a garden, a skittle alley and the Colmers Hill walk starting from the door. Palmers list it as dog friendly with outside dining and parking. Symondsbury Estate's cafe and shop are next door.

Sixteenth-century farmhouse turned inn below Eggardon Hill, with a big garden and long views into the vale. Dog friendly on Palmers' listing, and there are bedrooms if you want to walk the hill fort at dawn. Deep in the lanes, which is the appeal.

Small pub in the hamlet of Eype, a few hundred yards up the lane from the beach and the coast path to Thorncombe Beacon. Palmers list it as dog friendly with a beer garden and sea views. The obvious pairing with a walk on Eype Mouth beach, which takes dogs all year.

St Austell's inn on the seafront at the bottom of Broad Street, with bedrooms over the bay. Dogs are allowed in every part of the inn except the main restaurant, and a set number of bedrooms are dog-friendly at £20 per dog per stay. Dogs must be on a lead in public areas and not left alone in the room.

A pub practically on the shingle at Seatown, under Golden Cap, with a terrace built for watching weather come up the Channel. Dogs are welcome while you drink or eat, on a lead and off the furniture, and it is common to find several in at once; note the notes box when booking a table. They are not allowed in the B&B rooms.

Long-running seafood cafe on the shingle at Hive Beach under the golden sandstone cliffs, crab and lobster eaten at outdoor tables. Dogs are welcome and there is a dog menu, with handmade biscuits baked in their own bakery. Get there early in summer.

Wood-fired pizza and seafood in the old watch house on West Bay's harbour arm, with tables looking out at the boats. Dogs are welcome and the kitchen bakes its own dog biscuits in the micro bakery next door. Busy in season, so expect to queue.

A 5.6-mile out and back east along the low clay cliffs of Weymouth Bay to the Smugglers Inn, about three hours with 220 metres of undulating climb on grass paths and a short stretch of shingle beach. Start at the Bowleaze Cove car park, pay and display, large but shared with the holiday park and prone to filling on hot afternoons; the number 5 bus from Weymouth stops on Preston Road ten minutes away. Bowleaze is one of the Weymouth stretches where dogs are allowed all year, the cliff path itself is unfenced and slipping in places, and the Smugglers Inn at the far end takes dogs in the bar and garden, which makes the turnaround point a proper halfway house.

The 2.6-mile village stroll behind Bridport, an hour and a quarter, up the little pine-topped cone that appears on every Dorset postcard and back through the hollow ways of the Symondsbury estate. Two short steep pulls on grass, otherwise farm track and lane, and the sunken lanes hold water for weeks after rain. Start from the Symondsbury Estate car park by the Ilchester Arms, free for visitors to the estate and about thirty spaces, filling at weekends when the kitchen is busy; this is working farmland with sheep on the hill and cattle in the valley, so leads throughout, and there is a water bowl outside the estate shop.

Four and a bit miles and 250 metres of climb to the highest point on the south coast, done comfortably in two and a half hours: sheep-cropped grass, a brutal flight of steps up the seaward face and easy woodland forest road round Langdon Hill on the way back. Start at the Anchor Inn car park at Seatown, which charges and holds only about forty cars, with a rough overflow field in high season and no other parking for two miles. Conservation cattle graze the Golden Cap estate and the fields above Seatown, so carry a lead and expect to use it; the summit plateau is unfenced above a 190-metre drop, and the stream at Seatown is the only reliable drink on the route.

An easy 4.4-mile out and back along the South Dorset Ridgeway from the Hardy Monument, two hours on springy heath and a stony bridleway past a line of forty bronze age barrows, with only 120 metres of climb and views to Portland the whole way. Start at the free Dorset Council car park below the monument on Black Down, which is small, exposed and holds perhaps twenty-five cars, with a second National Trust car park nearby on restricted hours. Cattle grids at the entrance are a warning: stock roam the down, so leads are needed on the open sections, and there is no water anywhere on the ridge, which is a real consideration on a hot day.

A 4.2-mile two-hour loop east along the low sandstone cliffs to Cogden Beach, then inland on farm tracks and back through the thatched middle of Burton Bradstock. Flat by Dorset standards, 90 metres of climb, and the cliff path is grass over crumbling rock with no fence. Start at the National Trust Hive Beach car park, pay and display and free to members, which takes about 150 cars and empties onto a single lane, so aim to arrive before ten in August. The clifftop and Cogden fields are open all year with cattle in places, and while there is a dog water bowl outside the Hive Beach Café the beach itself falls under the Dorset Council seasonal order, signed at the slipway.

A 2.6-mile hour-and-a-quarter town circuit round the working harbour, over the town bridge and up through the woodland walks of Nothe Gardens to the fort, with views along the Jurassic Coast from the gun batteries. All surfaced paths, steps and pavement, with one steady climb of 45 metres to the headland. Park in the Nothe or Melcombe Regis pay and display, both signed from the seafront, or leave the car out of town and take the harbour ferry across, which carries dogs. Leads are required in the gardens under the Dorset order and along the quayside, where the drop into the water is sheer, but this is the driest, most sheltered walk in Weymouth on a filthy day.

Small, carefully done bed and breakfast a short walk above the seafront, five rooms and no children under twelve. Two of the rooms, Church View and the sea-view Premium room, take one small dog under fifteen kilos with the house Pooch Package added. Cats and other pets are not accepted.

Handsome 1735 house in gardens above the Cobb, the smartest address in Lyme and the best lawn to eat lunch on. Dogs are welcome in the gardens, the bar and the sitting room, but the hotel no longer takes them in any of the bedrooms, so this is a lunch stop rather than a dog-friendly stay. Worth knowing before you book.

Georgian coaching inn on the hill above the harbour, where John Fowles wrote and where the sea view rooms look down over Lyme Bay. Several bedrooms including sea-view ones are dog-friendly at £10 per dog per night; book direct and say the dog is coming so you are put in the right room. Their own guide to the town's all-year dog beaches is unusually accurate.

Twenty acres of walled and woodland garden begun in 1765, sheltered enough for tree ferns and palms, with a viewpoint over Chesil and the Fleet. Dogs are welcome throughout the gardens on non-extendable short leads, and waste bins are provided around the paths. They are not allowed at the Swannery, the same estate's other attraction.