Spotted Dogs

Just got home this week after a three week vacation, nearly two weeks were spent in Switzerland and on a Rhine river cruise with Amawaterways, followed by a week in London. I'll do some blogs about our trip too.

This blog post is about spotted dogs, not dogs that have spots but dogs I spotted on my trip. What started out being about how dog friendly Europe was when I posted about a dog in the train station in Lucerne became a bit of a joke about spotting dogs of various breeds in the places that we went.

Dogs are allowed to travel on the trains in Europe so they were quite commonly seen in the train stations.  In Lucerne, I even saw one woman going into shops with her dog in tow; it seemed that they were allowed in the stores except when the store was serving food.

I  spotted two Scottie dogs in Riquewihr, France. It's not often that you see both a black and a white Scottie.

Scotties - Riquewihr, France

Then I saw a Sheltie in Strasbourg, France and now the dog spotting in Europe was really on.

Sheltie - Strasbourg France

Rudesheim am Rhine, Germany

In Rudeshiem, we rode up a gondola through the vineyards to get to a large monument. Dogs are allowed to ride in the gondola. Our guide said on nice evenings she would often bring her dogs up on the last gondola ride, have a glass of wine and then hike back down through the vineyards. What a nice way to spend an evening.

In Cologne, I spotted lots of dogs. The funny thing was though Europe is very dog friendly when I looked in the stores  there weren't that many stuffed dogs or statues of dogs. There were lots of cats, frogs, birds, you name it but hardly any dogs.

Springer Spaniels - Cologne Germany

Goldens - Cologne Germany

Black Lab - Cologne Germany

 The black lab was soon to be startled by the statue mime, when she moved, boy, did the dog ever start barking. The only time I saw a dog make a fuss in public.

Border Collie - Cologne Germany

Aussie in Cologne, Germany

Shepherd mix in Cologne, Germany

Maltese, Cologne, Germany

 Although they were hard to find I did finally spot some figurines and stuffed dogs too.

After the cruise, my sister and I went to London for a week. We flew from Amsterdam to London City Airport and took the Docklands Light Rail to Waterloo Station where we took a taxi to our hotel.  I didn't get any pictures but in Waterloo Station we spotted a police search dog.

The day after arriving we went to Buckingham Palace and to the Palace Mews where I spotted a dog in the Mews. I think he was a mastiff mix. See the horse harness in the background.

In Harrods and Hamleys, I also spotted stuffed dogs and a Lego corgi. Who do you think was with the corgi? Well the Queen, of course.

Leather stuffed dog at Harrods

The Queen and a corgi.

Lego Corgi

At Hampton Court Palace I spotted a miniature poodle and a topiary dog.

Miniature Poodle - Hampton Court Palace

Topiary Dog - Hampton Court Palace

At Hampton Court Paces there was also a wonderful display of folded napkins. Not sure there was a dog but I just had to include a picture. Apparently this was something that was done for dinners by the nobility and the very rich.

Folded napkin animals

 We went to Windsor, in one of the shops I spotted loads of stuffed dogs for sale as well as a very cute fox. I also spotted a boxer while we were having lunch in Windsor, hoping that it would stop raining.

Stuffed Scotties

Stuffed Fox

Pugs and Scotties

There was also dog spotted in a cannon in the Tower of London. You would think it would have been a large breed but no, it was a little Maltese but I guess that's appropriate as the cannon came from Malta.

Maltese dog on a cannon - Tower of London

The last real dog I spotted (that I got a picture of) was a little dog in the London Underground, the subway to us in North America.

Mixed breed dog - London Underground

I also spotted a dog while on a bus tour. Hard to get good pictures on a bus but if you enlarge the picture I'm sure you'll be able to see him. It was the Animals in War Memorial, on this side of the wall are two mules and on the far side are a horse and a dog. The dog is between the horse and the wall.

Animals in War Memorial

The last dogs I spotted on my travels were an explosives search dog in Heathrow Airport and finally there was a little dog in cabin on my flight. he was much quieter than the children on board.

I hope you enjoyed my "spotted" dog tour of Europe. But last of all there was also one dog spotted in our cabin of our cruise ship.

Towel dog