Boston Park and Canklow Woods

Four and a half hectares of ponds, wetland and wildflower meadow bank beside the River Don on Sheffield Road, built on the site of the Seven Sisters steel foundry and doubling as part of Rotherham's flood alleviation scheme. Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust permits dogs but requires them to be kept on a lead. Twenty-three butterfly species have been recorded here along with damselflies and dragonflies, which is why the lead rule exists on a site this small. It is a short, flat, entirely urban circuit sandwiched between the A6178 and the river, useful as a leg-stretch rather than a day out.

Rotherham's main town park, a Victorian layout of avenues, bandstand lawns and mature limes on the rise between Clifton Lane and the town centre, with the museum in the old Clifton House at the top. This is the one place in the borough with a formally designated off-lead area, marked in blue on the park's own map, and it is also the one place where being off lead anywhere else will cost you money. Dogs are barred from the Watersplash water play area entirely and must be on a lead around the children's play areas, and only assistance dogs go inside the museum. Paths are tarmac and gently graded, so it walks in any weather, and there are waste bins right through the park.

A hotel on West Bawtry Road just off junction 33 of the M1, on the southern edge of Rotherham above the Don valley. It keeps a set of rooms specifically for guests with dogs at fifteen pounds per dog per night, and will put food bowls and waste bags in the room if you tell reception before you arrive. Dogs may use designated areas around the hotel including the open lobby, where there is table service, but they cannot come into every dining area and must stay in the room if you eat elsewhere. Ulley Country Park and Canklow Woods are both within four miles.