Bury St.Edmunds won the Awards for the Most Dog Friendly Town in our Awards last November
Welcome to 2025. Well I am glad to get 2024 out of the way. All the economists telling us that there were positive signs for the economy didn’t seem to end up in our pockets. Lin and I, once again, had to rely on our good old British resilience and love of dogs to keep us going. There were some positives at DogFriendly in 2024, though. We were delighted to see so many wonderful DogFriendly members at our DogFriendly Breaks last year. James Waters, who runs the breaks, has pulled together some of his favourite pictures from the events which were held at Dunster, Sidmouth, New Forest and Eastbourne. Every dog we met was truly gorgeous (page 64). Also, we started our podcast in 2024 and talked to so many interesting people, including Lisa Dean championing the lost dog’s cause; Sue Allen, who discussed with us what makes accommodation truly dog friendly, not just dog tolerant; and not forgetting Dave Ford, who has hundreds of Youtube videos giving you wonderful previews of walks across Dorset, the New Forest and Hampshire. You can listen to all our podcasts at dogfriendlyinfo.podbean. com or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Just search DogFriendly.
At the end of last year we revamped our online shop to include more trusted dog product suppliers that share an affinity with us for making great products that improve the lives of both dogs and owners. We hope that we can help more owners find useful dog products in 2025. Visit dogfriendly.co.uk/shop for our latest range. And let’s not forget our biggest ever awards ceremony held at the end of November, where so many of our partners and friends managed to join us. We felt really privileged and it reinforces how important the DogFriendly mission still is. See the full results on page 46. So, while things were tough in 2024, we still love our dogs more than ever and they are helping us to cope. Here’s to great breaks and waggy tails in 2025. Steve and Lin DogFriendly founders
The September Dog Friendly Weekend in Sidmouth
