About Hiking Dogs
We map where dogs are actually welcome in New Zealand, walk by walk, rule by rule. When we cannot prove a rule, we say so instead of guessing.
Why we built it
This started with one dog and one annoying question: where is he actually allowed to go? The answer was scattered across DOC pages, council bylaws and beach signs that change with the seasons, and half the internet just guesses. So we built the map we wanted. Every walk here has a straight answer, yes, permit first, or not this one, and each answer traces back to whoever actually wrote the rule. Where the evidence is not there the page says unknown, because a wrong "dogs welcome" ruins someone's day at a carpark two hours from home.
And the birds were here first, fair enough. Plenty of places are theirs. Knowing exactly where the lines fall is what gets you and the dog out more, not less.
Banks, chief scout
The dog in question is Banks, half Border Collie, half Golden Retriever. Official title: chief scout. He has personally tested the important parts of this site: whether the climbs are honest, whether the swim spots are worth the detour, and whether the walk ends anywhere near a decent sausage roll. He has never read a bylaw in his life. That is the point of the site, so you never have to either.
What we check
475 of our 1,904 walks carry a dog verdict traced to a named authority; the rest are published on the cautious reading of licensed public walk data, with the authority that governs the spot named on the page. Hundreds more were refused outright for lack of evidence, and 285 verdicts have been overturned by hand, each logged with its reason and source. The full method lives on how we check. And if a rule here looks wrong, there is a report button on every page: every report gets re-checked against the source.