Dog-friendly walks in Barrow in Furness

Three miles of shingle and saltmarsh out along a causeway and the length of a bare pebble island east of Roa Island, with terns and ringed plovers on the ridges and Piel Castle across the channel. The dog rule here is absolute rather than advisory: Cumbria Wildlife Trust bars all dogs except assistance dogs from the island between 15 April and 1 August while the birds are nesting, and restricts everyone to the designated paths from 1 April to 15 August with Slitch Ridge closed. Out of that window dogs are permitted. The reserve can be cut off for a few hours around high water, so check the tide before you set out, and the causeway track is muddy and slippery.

A wild, wind-scoured walk up the west shore of Walney from the car park at Earnse Bay to the national nature reserve about three quarters of a mile north, where dune heath, hay meadow and saltmarsh run out to the northern tip of the island. Three coloured waymarked routes loop through the reserve. Natural England requires dogs on a short lead of no more than two metres from 1 March to 31 July because of the ground-nesting birds, and the dune pools are breeding sites for natterjack toads, one of Britain's rarest amphibians. There is no wheeled access into the reserve itself, and nothing at all in the way of shelter once you are out on the dunes.

The best dog walk in Furness by a distance: a National Trust national nature reserve of high dunes and slacks at Roanhead, with new boardwalks dropping from the dune tops onto a wide sand beach looking across the Duddon estuary to Black Combe. The Trust's own access statement says dogs and assistance dogs are welcome on site, asking for close control generally and leads through the bird breeding season. The dune slacks hold a quarter of Britain's natterjack toads, which is why sticking to the path network matters in spring. The Trust also asks visitors to keep off the inter-tidal area of the estuary, where the channels are deep and the tide comes round behind you.