Dog-friendly Exeter & Mid Devon

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.

A thatched sixteenth-century pub on the square at Winkleigh, in the mid-Devon farmland between Okehampton and Barnstaple. Dogs are very welcome in the main bar area, with its flagstones and open fire; the dining side is not mentioned, so the bar is where to sit.

A sixteenth-century village inn at Sandford, a mile or so up the hill from Crediton, with a cobbled courtyard and its own small cinema. The pub states simply that it is dog friendly; whether that extends to the bedrooms is not published, so ask when you book a room.

A handsome old customs house on Topsham's quay, facing the Exe mudflats and the bird hides beyond. It is a dog-friendly pub and restaurant throughout, so you can stay for dinner rather than a quick half, and the quayside square outside is a natural stop off the Exe Estuary Trail.

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.

Two and a half miles of flat waymarked walking from the canal basin at Tiverton along the resurfaced towpath, then back by a quiet lane and a woodland track, an hour and a quarter with almost no climbing and limekilns, bridges and milestones to look at on the way. Start at the Canal Basin on Canal Hill, where the pay-and-display car park has toilets, a tea room and horse-drawn barge trips in season; the whole eleven and a quarter mile towpath is a public right of way if you want more. Dogs are permitted throughout the country park and the canal gives them water at every bridge, but they must be kept under control at all times and out of the adjacent farmland, one field on the loop carries livestock, and failing to clear up carries a fine of up to a thousand pounds.

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.

Two and a half miles round the Killerton estate, an hour and a quarter on easy terrain with moderate slopes, out from the stable block across parkland and up through the beech and oak of Danes Wood on the old volcanic hill. Start at the main Killerton car park off the B3181 north of Exeter, free to members and charged with admission otherwise, with a café, toilets and a plant centre; it is signed from junction 28 or 29 of the M5 and holds hundreds of cars. Dogs are welcome on this parkland and woodland circuit and there is a stream at the bottom of the park, but sheep graze the open parkland so leads are needed there, dogs are restricted in the formal garden, and the woodland tracks are steep and slippery in leaf-fall.

A 1.2-mile waymarked loop of the parkland at Knightshayes, twenty-five to forty-five minutes with 60 metres of climbing and a few steep and uneven stretches through specimen trees and open pasture above the Exe valley. Start on the Stables lawn by the café and follow the dog-walk waymarks; the estate is a mile north of Tiverton off the A396 with a large car park, free to National Trust members and included in admission otherwise. This is the designated route for dogs on the estate, so it avoids the formal garden where dogs are restricted, there is a water bowl at the stables, and the only real hazards are the sheep that graze parts of the park and the drive traffic at the start.

An easy three miles of about an hour and a quarter, out along the Goat Walk above the Exe, round the sea wall to the RSPB viewing platform at Bowling Green Marsh and back through the Dutch-gabled streets of Topsham, all on roads and hard flat paths. Park in Holman Way in the middle of the town, which is paid and busy on market days, or take the branch line train from Exeter which stops five minutes from the start. Dogs need to be on the lead for most of this one: the Goat Walk is a narrow raised path with the tide on one side and gardens on the other, the marsh is a nationally important roost for waders and wildfowl where dogs must stay on the lane and out of the reserve, and the hides are not for dogs at all.

Quiet Forestry England woodland two miles north of Okehampton, with forest roads through beech and conifer above the Okement valley. Dogs are allowed and assistance dogs are welcome; there is no cafe and little else, which is rather the point on a busy August afternoon.

Forestry England's largest site near Exeter, on the ridge above Kennford, with waymarked walking and cycling trails through conifer and broadleaf. Dogs are allowed on the trail network and assistance dogs are welcome throughout; the site asks visitors to read its dogs-in-the-forest guidance before setting off.

The ruins of the largest castle in Devon, on a wooded spur above the West Okement a mile south-west of the town centre. English Heritage's line is short and clear: dogs on leads are welcome, with no areas singled out as off limits, and the riverside walk below the keep continues towards the moor.