Pet Friendly Restaurants

Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, hosts of the podcast "Stuff You Should Know", discuss traveling and dining with dogs. Ever wonder why it's OK to bring your dog to dinner in Paris but not in any American city? There's no federal law prohibiting pets in restaurants and, recently, dining establishments with outdoor seating have been growing increasingly tolerant of our furry friends. Hear all about pet-friendly restaurants in this episode of the "Good Dog" podcast with Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant hosts of the podcast "Stuff You Should Know" and writers/editors at www.howstuffworks.com.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Smarter Podcasts dot Com delivering sound advice. If you're listening to me now,
chances are you have elevated your dogor dogs to the status of treasured family
member. That is why you willprobably be interested to hear about pet friendly

(00:22):
restaurants. Hi. I'm Joe AnneGreen and welcome to Good Dog Where Today.
I'm pleased to be speaking with JoshClark and Chuck Bryant, hosts of
the podcast Stuff You Should Know.Josh and Chuck, be honest with me.
How crazy are you guys when itcomes to your dogs. I am
fairly crazy, mainly due to mywife, but I am a big dog

(00:42):
lover and so she's kind of rubbedoff on me in that way it happens.
Yeah, my dogs are definitely partof my family. They're pretty much
my kids. And based on youknow, you've heard the theory that how
your dogs turn out will be howyour kids turn out. So I'm really
really frightened about having children. Youknow, it's good to start on dogs
and practice with them, but thatwhole thing about putting the food in the

(01:03):
bowl and putting the bowl on thefloor and walking away just doesn't work with
kids, right. No, No, it does, but they usually get
in trouble. You know, itcan be a problem, but you know,
taking them out for a walk it'sa good idea for both kids and
dogs. I think. Yeah,So you don't you guys have any crazy
anecdotes, like just to show usjust how over the top it can get.
Um, I don't have any crazystories. I could show you some

(01:26):
vet bills that are I would putin the category of fairly crazy. Spend
a lot of money on the dogsevery year at the vet, of course
we all do. That's why.That's why insurance is probably a very good
idea. But I do have toadmit I haven't done it yet. I
haven't either. Wait, we're supposedto take our dog to the vet every

(01:47):
year. You gotta talk to yougotta talk to each other more definitely,
So pet friendly restaurants in Europe,in France anyway, you can bring your
dog to dinner. What's up withthe fact that you can't do that in
the United States? Can? Ithink this would chuck feel free? Well,
we have things called healthcoats, that'sthe details details. But they stay

(02:09):
on the floor, so that's ourshoes are on the floor. You know,
if people can be responsible and makesure that their dogs have done their
business before coming into the restaurant.I've never understood why. I agree,
um, and I think that oneof the one of the reasons why some
restaurants don't allow pets, um,you know, to come by and maybe

(02:30):
have a meal, is because there'sprobably a bad experience somewhere in the restaurant's
path where they may be allowed that. And of course there's no bad pets,
just bad pet owners. And perhapssomebody didn't let the dog do their
business en route. And um,you know, yeah, our shoes are
on the floor, but very rarelydo our shoes you know, you're innate.

(02:50):
That's a good point. Now,these are just local health ordinances.
There really there's no federal law inthe United States that restricts animals from restaurants,
as I understand it, right,that's correct. It usually comes down
to state and local level. Iknow. One example in the article is
Saint Petersburg, Florida requires restaurants ifyou want to have your dog outdoors,
like on the patio, you haveto have a permit and that those restaurants.

(03:15):
There is a Florida law requiring thateach table have hand sanitizer. So,
but that's just that one particular locality. In general, more and more
are restaurants that have outdoor areas,outdoor seating areas allowing dogs. That definitely
seems to be the case to me, especially in more temperate climates. It's

(03:36):
just kind of a pleasant way tospend an afternoon, you know, sitting
on on a patio with your pet. And I think it's in the restaurant's
best interest to allow that so longas you know, there's there's no disturbance
or anything like that, because itjust generates more business. There are some
restaurants that have actually put items onthe menu for dogs. Right. There's
a place called the park Bench Cafein Los Angeles. Of course it's in

(03:58):
Los Angeles. Yes, you know, home of dog lovers everywhere, um
where dogs are jewelry basically, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I
said this because I'm in San Francisco, safely eight miles away. Yeah.
I'm going to say, do youguys, do you guys carry your dogs
in little bags? We do not, we do not? Okay, good,
good? But yeah, in LosAngeles and possibly because of them,
I guess accessory pet trend. Uh. The the park Bench Cafe has actually

(04:23):
a separate menu for pets. Umthings like turkey burgers and um uh,
four slices of bacon. I thinkis an entree. You know, any
dog could love that. And what'ssurprising though, is not that they have
a pet menu, but that theprices are so reasonable. It's like seventy
five cents to just send her twoand a half dollars for an entree for
your for your dog. So that'skind of staggering to me. For Los

(04:46):
Angeles, I would think I thinkI might order off the pet menu.
Actually, the bacon. It's prettygood to me. For seventy five cents,
I think you're on definitely. Now, there are etiquette rules that people
should observe. As you say,no bad dogs, only owners. And
we don't even say bad we saybad behavior, right right. Um Yeah,
I was gonna initially when I wasthinking about this, was going to

(05:08):
say that you should employ the samerules as you do at home if you're
out. But that's probably not thebest idea because a lot of people at
home, don't you know, they'llfeed their dog table scraps and let them
jump up at the table and stufflike that. So I think you should
use pet etiquette, dog etiquette evenat a greater degree than you would in

(05:28):
your own home. So no begging, no jumping, no barking, absolutely
not, definitely no eating off thetable right right. And also you want
to make sure that you know youryour pets vaccination tags are visible and on
their collar. And it's also probablya good idea not to depend on the
restaurant to have, you know,a bowl of water or bowl for food
and bring your own. I'm prettymuch as Chuck was saying, you know,

(05:51):
kind of step up the good behaviora little bit, kind of like
how how you would expect your childrento act at a restaurant, except you
know, they don't have to wearback nation tags or anything. Right,
People just make assumptions here. Youcan attend to think, you know,
well, that child looks healthy,it's probably inoculated. Are there generally areas
of the United States that are morepet friendly than others? I think I

(06:14):
live in one of those. Ifyou walk down a street in most towns
in the San Francisco Bay Area,there are always a couple of stores that
put the water you little dog waterbowls out in front of the restaurant.
They have little hitches where you cantie your dog up if you're going to
come in. Some stores allow youto bring your dog. In fact,
Macy's here. I don't know ifthat's a national thing, but you can
come and shop with your dog.Now, wow, that's pretty cool.

(06:38):
I know Atlanta. My personal experiencewith Atlanta is that it's pretty dog friendly,
and especially the area of town whereI live, certain restaurants are known
for allowing dogs on the patio andthey'll have dog bowls of water out for
the dogs, and you know,once the restaurant kind of gets known for
that, you're going to see fouror five six dogs up there during our

(07:00):
time. I've also always noticed collegetowns tend to be much more pet friendly
than any other kind of town orcity. And Chuck and I both went
to the University of Georgia and Athens, and you can pretty much take your
dog absolutely anywhere, and where Chucklives also, it's almost like an extension
of that kind of that kind oflifestyle, that kind of living. So

(07:20):
yeah, you can kind of findthat, especially when a lot of people
who went to school in a collegetown settle in the same area, you
start to kind of see that trendI've noticed of a more pet friendly attitude.
Got it? There are, bythe way, a series of websites
and we will post them on theGood Dog Blog that help you find restaurants

(07:41):
that are more pet friendly and ingeneral information about travel. So we do
have a couple minutes left. Let'stalk about travel. What are some of
the things to avoid when you're travelingwith a dog. My suggestion is not
to move two cats and two dogsfrom Los Angeles to Atlanta? Did you
do that? I did that,and we rented a minivan just to carry

(08:01):
the animals. My wife drove thatand I drove the moving truck and towed
our car. And it was amiserable, miserable experience. I'm not gonna
lie to you. Who did worse? The dogs? Are the cats?
Well, the cats were pretty chillin their crates, so that wasn't too
bad. The dogs got very carsick because you know, usually the dog

(08:22):
when they get in the car,I think they're going someplace exciting and they
will get there quickly. So LosAngeles to Atlanta, a Forday trips was
not fun. I mean, Iwon't say you should have married yeah,
And I won't say you should havestayed in Los Angeles. Definitely. No,
it was a welcome change. Itwas good to be moving back home,
for sure. But better to driveyour pets than to ship them,

(08:43):
right, That was not an optionfor us because of expense, and my
wife would not allow our dogs tobe carried under the belly of a plane
for any reason. But it canbe done. It can be done.
And I'm not saying you're a coolowner if you do that, but my
wife pampers are dogs, and shethought that would be too scared and suffer
suffer from it. Can you tellus a little bit about how it works

(09:03):
to ship a dog? Well,yeah, I can actually um the most
airlines, most commercial airlines actually dooffer a pet cargo carrier fee. And
I wrote a little bit on thisand was surprised to find that actually,
if you have a pet carrier thatis small enough that it will fit under

(09:26):
the seat in front of you likea carry on bag and your pet can
stand up and turn around in it, you can actually bring your pet into
the cabin like that for an extrafee. But when you actually ship your
dog, they treated as cargo andthat's when prices start to get up.
Another argument for having a small dog. I think true. I think so
too. Yeah, I mean,I think it's like fifty dollars for that

(09:48):
fee, And if you ship apet as cargo, it gets into the
several hundred dollars. And what's worsethat they're they're actually treated like cargo.
They're putting into the cargo hold,you know, and depending on the flight,
probably with a lot of other pets, and it's probably not a pleasant
experience. You would think that youshould, you know, maybe sedate your
pet, but that can actually bedangerous, especially if very short nosed,

(10:11):
short muzzled dogs, like say apug. They can have breathing issues as
it is, and when they're sedatedin a slightly thinner atmosphere, they can
actually you know, have trouble breathingand possibly die. So there's there's actually
I think the way it Chuck didit, the chances of them getting in
a car, excit, it mayhave been higher than the chances of you
know, the dogs falling out ofthe sky in an airplane. But it

(10:33):
seems a lot safer to actually justtravel with your dog with you rather than
ship it ahead. Well sure,and it certainly reduces the dog's anxiety.
Sure, but the chances also ofme taking a left turn at Texas and
heading north to Canada were also great. So there is at risk as well,
and they wouldn't have cared right thedogs, they would have missed me,
my wife. I'm not sure.Let's talk about your podcast. Tell

(10:56):
us about the stuff you should know, Chuck. Well, it's a little
old podcast that we do here forHowStuffWorks dot com, and we've got a
lot of fans. Now, it'skind of odd. People have kind of
caught onto what we have to say. We generally take articles from our website
that are the most interesting and explainthem in a great detail as only Josh

(11:20):
and I can. So what's themost recent episode? Oh, how how
can I stop junk mail? WhichChuck and I both agree is not our
best. Probably our most favorite recentepisode was going over Niagara Falls in a
barrel? True? Can you dieof fright? That? Can you be
scared to death? That was one, But personally I want to know how
to stop junk mail? Well,actually, there's there's several steps you can

(11:41):
take um and if you go onto if you go online. I can't
remember the website off the top ofmy head. There is um there's a
way green Times well, Greendimes actuallyis a service that will handle stopping junk
mail for you, but you cando it for free yourself. It takes
a lot the legwork, but there'sthere's since the advent of the internet,

(12:03):
there's sites that you know, centralizecredit reporting agencies so you stop getting um,
you know, preapproved credit card offersthat people can steal your identity with.
There's actually a series of steps Iwould recommend if you really are interested
in listening to our podcast, howcan you stop junk mail? Excellent?
And we can find your podcast oniTunes and anywhere else. It's what how

(12:24):
Stuff Works. Yeah, it's mostpredominantly found on iTunes, I believe,
or eat more more easily, Ithink. And it's all free. And
what are eighty or ninety episodes?Yeah, so just press subscribe and sit
back and wait about three hours andthen you can start. Excellent. Thank
you both for being here today.Thank you so much. Joe Anne Wolf
Wolf, Josh Clark, and ChuckBrian, hosts of the podcast Stuff You

(12:46):
Should Know from how Stuff Works dotCom. I'm Joe Anne Green,