If you have a pet, you understand why you never feel like leaving home without them. They truly our everything to us. I am a dog mom to my beautiful boy, Maui, who just turned 1. Time really does fly with this handsome boy. While we love spending time with him at home, I’m always on the lookout for places that are dog-friendly because Maui loves outdoors (which dog doesn’t? lol). This summer, I took Maui to a few dog friendly beaches and I had to share one that I feel stood out from the rest. Honestly, this dog friendly beach is at the top of my list for beach days with Maui, every year now. Pinery Provincial Park Dog Beach, Grand Bend might be one of the best dog beaches I’ve been to.
I know – I’ve already given away so much in that one line above but if you aren’t sold yet, read on more to know why. There are a few things that I care about while looking for dog friendly beaches and Pinery Provincial Park Dog Beach checks all of them –
- Proximity from Toronto /GTA so that it could be a one day trip if we want to just spend the day there
- Crowd
- Cleanliness
- Water quality at beaches (this is IMPORTANT especially in Ontario for a few beaches, I’ll explain why below)
- Dog friendly but something humans can enjoy as well
Proximity from Toronto / GTA
From GTA, this place takes 2 hrs 15 minutes and an additional 30 mins if you’re coming from Toronto. From where I stay, it takes 1 hr 45 minutes, which wasn’t bad at all. We usually take the country roads because we like to get glimpses of the towns on the way.
Pinery Provincial Park is a provincial park located on Lake Huron near Grand Bend, South West Ontario. The dark blue waters of Lake Huron are picturesque from every part of the shoreline – from the popular Grand Bend beach and Pinery Provincial Park. I could also see some turquoise hues at this lake and it was just beautiful.
Crowd
Now, all beaches will have crowds but I felt like the Pinery Provincial Park Beach definitely was so much better because the beach area is so large that there’s a lot of distance between each group that came to the beach. I loved that! It almost felt like our private space on the beach.
So for the dog beaches at this park, there is Dog Beach 1 and Dog Beach 2. Once you are inside the park, you will need to drive a bit to reach these spots. This park is also great for a trail with your pooch. There are some beautiful trails – I didn’t get to explore them this time because I spent all my time at the beach but
Cleanliness
I’ve been to a few dog beaches this summer and the worst part about some of them is how dirty the dog beaches are. Just because it is a dog beach, doesn’t mean we should tolerate watching floating dog poop / algae remains in the water, right? Ugh, that’s a nightmare story for another day. Anyway, Pinery Provincial Dog Beach was so clean, I was shocked. I don’t think I’ve seen even human beaches that are that clean. lol This was actually my favourite part. Obviously, the cleanliness really was top notch. I can see us spending all our summers here.
Water quality at beaches
This is the first thing I check when I plan beach activities for Maui. Some beaches can have blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) that makes dogs sick and is often, fatal as well. You do not want to take them to beaches that have algae contaminated water. So blue-green algae is not actually algae, but the organisms get this name because they often give the appearance of algae when they clump together in bodies of water. When clumped together, these usually look like greenish bundles, green flakes or brown dots in a lake. So, you do not want to take your dog, anywhere near such beaches.
For this, I use a resource called Swim Guide that is updated regularly based on water samples taken at the beaches and tested for water quality. Pinery Provincial Park Dog beach water quality looked great and I love that. They also have an app!
Dog friendly but also make it human friendly
While we’re busy looking for dog friendly beaches, we also need to remember to enjoy our time at the beach. This is sometimes not easy if you go to dog beaches that have dog poop floating around. lol can you tell I’ve had some bad experiences? Pinery Provincial Park Dog Beach is a dream for a dog owner – clean shores, clean water and a paddling heaven. We paddled and floated on the lake all day. I didn’t want to come back!
You can see why we loved our time at the beach. If you are a dog owner, don’t miss out on this amazing beach. It’s really worth the drive and time. You and your pooch will thank me for it. 🤗
