Finding a dog-friendly hiking trail isn’t as easy as you might think.
Though your pet might feel at home in the great outdoors, many nature preserves, including state and national parks across the U.S., have strict rules about where dogs can and cannot go, whether for their own safety or to prevent paws from trampling plants and bugs in fragile ecosystems.
Showing up at a scenic spot with your furry friend only to discover the animal can’t go much farther than the parking lot would be a doggone shame.
To help avoid that disappointing outcome, the premium pet food brand Orijen has developed an online tool for discovering dog-friendly hiking trails in over 100 state and national parks across all 50 states.
Known as Orijen Trails, the free digital platform lets users search by location or interactive map to access curated recommendations for rewarding routes for dogs and humans in parks from Acadia to Zion and dozens of intriguing sites in between.
Depending on your pet’s activity level and preferred sniffing environment, you can choose from lakeside meanders in Michigan, forested strolls in Virginia, mountainous treks in Washington State, grassland ambles in South Dakota, and coastal jaunts in Rhode Island, among many other options.
Individual trail maps feature pet-centric info about the park, turn-by-turn directions for the route (which you can download ahead of time as a PDF in case there’s limited cell connectivity out in the wild), pointers to scenic overlooks and rest areas, time and mileage estimates, and other helpful stuff.
You can even create a profile for you and your pack so that you can upload photos, log the trails you’ve completed, and rate your faves.
To start exploring, go to Trails.OrijenPetFoods.com.
Related: The Most Dog-Friendly National Parks in the United States
