Dog friendly FLX

This was our first time with the dog in the finger lakes (FLX) and we were not sure how things would go. We used multiple sources like Bring Fido (not a sponsor) to find dog friendly places to visit and have not been disappointed. Covid has moved a lot of the experience outdoors and that has made most locations “dog friendly”. 

Hiking is almost always dog friendly and as long as there is water, Luxie is happy. That is easy here since every gorge is about water so there are many opportunities for her to take a dip close to the trail. When it comes to our other “hobby”, visiting the breweries and wineries, we were not sure how it would go. This was not so new for us, but very new for Luxie. We started with one of our favorite spots, Hazlett Winery. The Oasis welcomes dogs so we stopped for a slushie and found a bench by one of the ponds. This was our first “training” stop, we wanted her to feel comfortable in this environment since we planned on visiting many locations like this during our week here. She did great, lots of people wanted to pet her and she seemed to like the attention. 

Next stop, Lucky Hare Brewing. This place has a special place in our heart because several years ago we met a very cool border collie here. She belonged to the hostess and what was so memorable was that she didn’t want to be petted, but wanted to watch videos on your phone. That was her favorite thing to do, and she would go from table to table begging to watch videos. If you gave her too much affection, she moved on to the next table. Luxie got to meet several new dogs and plenty of people wanted to say hi. Glad we stopped in. 

The next day we started at Grist with a stout and a Ceaser salad. Turns out Luxie likes Ceaser salad. She likes every part of it and was really well behaved as we gave her “samples”. The visit didn’t start so well, when we searched for seating there was a large family with three dogs already there that just went nuts. Two large dogs and small dachshund sounded so aggressive that she almost crawled into Karen’s shirt. We comforted her and after a bit she decided to just lay low and maybe they would go away, which they eventually did. 

We then took a short drive to Wagner Vinyards. Nice big closed in deck where we enjoyed a soft pretzel for the first time since Covid started. And yes, Luxie likes soft pretzels too. She wasn’t allowed inside due to food preparation restrictions but we were all allowed on the deck. More people wanting to meet her so lots of attention, but no other dogs this time. A bonus was a water bowl provided by the venue. Great visit and we will be back.

We can’t go to the Finger Lakes without visiting Three Brothers. Big place with lots of paths for Luxie to explore. She settled in quickly and guess who showed up… the family with the three dogs. She was nervous at first but she had heard there commotion before so it wasn’t as uncomfortable as the first time. After that we headed north to Bottomless Brewing which is also one of our standard stops. We were thrilled to learn that dogs were allowed inside! We then wrapped up the day at Starkey’s Lookout. They did allow the dog to pass through the tasting area and we prefer the outside deck seating with the best view of the day.

Every winery or brewery we visited had outdoor seating which was dog friendly but we did come across a few more that allowed all of us to be indoors as well. WeBe welcomed her and also offers dog treats that they manufacture themselves.

Our past trips have been mainly focused on the venues around Seneca Lake and those are the ones we are most familiar with. This trip we decided to take one day to tour around Keuka Lake. We started the morning with a short hike up Eggleston’s Glen (most places don’t open before noon). After our hike we found several breweries that welcomed her inside also. Finger Lakes Beer Company, LyonSmith Brewing, and Abandon Brewing Company were all very dog friendly.

It wasn’t until our last day touring that we found a map of all of the breweries in the area that were dog friendly. Looking forward to our next trip to the area to explore some new places!