About
Everything here was checked by a person
Most “dog-friendly” lists are assembled from other lists. A restaurant gets described as welcoming to dogs because it once was, or because a reviewer brought a small one and nothing was said. Six months later you are standing on a sidewalk with a leash in one hand and a wet dog in the other.
Big Happy works the other way round. We start from the practical questions — can the dog come in, is there shade, is there water, is it off-leash, is there a fee, is there a size or breed restriction — and we publish the answers as structured fields. If we cannot confirm something, the listing says so rather than implying a yes.
Where we cover
We currently list 188 places in 41 cities across 5 regions — Europe, Asia, Oceania, Canada and the United States. Coverage runs from London, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Lisbon to Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Vienna, Milan and Dublin, through Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok, Dubai and Hong Kong, China, to Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, and on to Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal and twelve US metros. Cities are added when there is enough verified material to be useful, not on a schedule, and the leash rules differ by country — an off-lead heath in London, a designated dog run in Tokyo and a dog beach in Barcelona are all governed by different law.
What we record for every place
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Leash policy | Three values: leashed only, off-leash permitted, or leashed on site with a designated off-leash zone. Nothing else. |
| On-site amenities | Water bowls, indoor access, shade, fenced areas, dog menus, wash stations, step-free access. |
| Cost | Whether entry or a pet fee applies, and whether it is charged per visit, per night or per stay. |
| Restrictions | Weight limits, breed restrictions, dog limits per room or table. Stated plainly when they exist. |
| Practical notes | The things that actually trip people up — where the gate sticks, when the shade runs out, which entrance to use. |
What we will not do
- We do not sell placement. Ordering is editorial. No venue can pay to rank higher, and no venue can pay to be included at all.
- We do not publish a listing we cannot describe accurately. A thin listing is worse than no listing.
- We do not guess at policy. Where a rule is seasonal, enforced intermittently or left to individual staff, the listing says exactly that.
- We do not accept a venue's own marketing copy as fact. “Dog friendly” on a website is a claim, not a confirmation.
What the numbers mean — and why some listings have none
Where we have measured nothing, we publish nothing. Every listing is researched from the venue’s or park authority’s own published information and cross-checked against public records, and every listing carries a Source link to the page we checked. None of them carries a star rating or a review count, because a score we did not compile would be a score we made up. Where a pet policy is documented only through third-party directories rather than the venue’s own site, the listing says so in plain words.
How listing updates work
- Every listing page carries a Report an error link that opens a pre-filled message with the listing reference already attached.
- Corrections from readers and venues are checked against the venue directly, or against an official published policy.
- Confirmed changes are published and the listing's review date is updated. We do not silently edit.
Imagery
Listings carry a real photograph of the venue or its setting — credited on the image and reused under the photographer's open licence — or a plain frosted placeholder when we have no photograph we can verify yet. We do not publish generated or invented images of places. A photograph shows how a place looked when it was taken; it is not a promise about how it looks today.
Money
Big Happy is non-commercial. We do not run advertising, we do not publish sponsored content, and we do not use affiliate links — no link on this site earns us a commission if you book or buy. Nothing here is for sale, and no venue can pay to be listed or to rank higher. The full detail is in the Non-Commercial Policy.
Safety and responsibility
Pet policies are set by individual businesses and by national, municipal or park authority rules, and they change — often between neighbouring towns, and even more so between countries. A directory can tell you what was true when we last checked; it cannot tell you what is true today. Confirm before you travel, keep your dog leashed anywhere that is not a signed off-leash area, and clean up after them. Read the Disclaimer for the limits of what we promise.
Get in touch
Suggestions, corrections and city requests all go to the same inbox and are read by a person: hello@bighappy.com. You can also use the contact page.