Say Why?

In October 2016, I decided to take a road trip from Townsville QLD to Armidale NSW to visit my adult daughter (approx. 3600km round trip). I had recently moved to Townsville so it seemed a wonderful way to see a stretch of our beautiful country that I had never travelled through. My husband and I had recently adopted a dog from our local RSPCA, so I decided to take Max (the dog) with me so that we could bond more closely. Hence, I packed the car with my dog, my swag, an esky, and whole a lot of enthusiasm. 

A couple of hours into the trip I thought that I had better find a dog park or an open area for Max to relieve himself. I had never travelled with a dog before and was not quite sure of how often a dog needed a rest stop. Finding a dog friendly park was not an easy task. I was travelling down the highway and was not aware of any of the facilities available in any of the approaching towns. On top of that, I did not want to randomly detour too much off the highway either. I thought to myself, ‘I wish there was a website that easily identified local dog parks.’

But that was not the only inconvenience on this road trip. Each afternoon, I needed to find dog friendly accommodation to stay at for the night. Unfortunately, most Visitor Information Centres were difficult to locate and they were usually closed in the late afternoon/early evening. My only hope was to pull the car over, hop on my ‘smartphone' (so I thought), and start searching for dog friendly accommodation. It seemed that not all caravan parks welcome dogs. On top of that, there were times that I had to backtrack many kilometres to the only dog friendly accommodation in that area. Once again, I thought to myself, ‘I wish there was a website that easily identified dog friendly accommodation.’

On my drive back from Armidale, I entertained the idea of creating a website that would help people and their dogs find:

On 23 February 2017, the Aussie Dog Friendly Business Directory website was launched. Were we ready? Not at all. However, since then, we have added more dog parks and off-leash areas, as well as, additional dog friendly business categories to cater for each sector in the dog friendly business market. Many of these changes were initiated because of the wonderful suggestions provided by lovely business owners who believe in what we are working towards ... consolidating 'ALL-THINGS-DOGS' across Australia - I am forever grateful to them. 

However, in late 2020 during the infamous COVID-19 episode, I decided to place the Aussie Dog Friendly Business Directory on paws (pause) while the world worked out what was going on etc. Unfortunately, a lot of my clients were really disadvantaged during the shutdowns, and there was a lot of uncertainty for my business as well. Later that year, my husband and I moved to South Australia for his work and we immediately fell in love with this state. So much so, we bought a cute aussie cottage on a small landholding in the beautiful mid-north. I have been homestead-playing for a few years.

Jumping to May 2025... even though the directory was on pause, it was not forgotten. I regularly thought on how I would do things differently etc. At last, I stopped thinking about it and decided to jump back in.  We have made a few tweaks to the website, added more categories, but the biggest change is the huge reduction in the yearly subscription fee. Our new and very low subscription fee ensures that ALL dog friendly businesses regardless of their size can now join us and be seen by the Australia-wide dog community. Our vision has always been 'consolidating 'ALL-THINGS-DOGS' across Australia', we have just made it easier for everyone.

The mission of the Aussie Dog Friendly Business Directory is to make it easy for dog owners to connect with dog friendly businesses and dog friendly activities via the following categories: 

* Refer to Terms & Conditions

Enjoy your day with your dog by your side!

Monica & Max (my RSPCA dog)