Dog-Friendliest City

Well my husband and I are now talking about planning a trip in April to fly down with Gizmo to Florida. We will be visiting my In-Laws live in the Ft. Meyers area. I certainly hope this is dog friendly. Can anyone confirm or make recommendations. After hearing how dog friendly FL was we decided it would be great to have him with us and see what dog friendly life was like. Now I'm hearing a different side to things. Help. If anyone knows great things to do with dogs in the Ft Meyers area please fill us in. I would hate to go down there and find that we can't share a family vacation.

You can check this site out: [linkhttp://www.dogfriendly.com/server/travel/uscities/guides/us/cities/usonlinecityFLFort_Myers.shtml]http://www.dogfriendly.com/server/travel/uscities/guides/us/cities/usonlinecityFLFort_Myers.shtml[/link].

I usually go the dogfriendly site to check for basic info on what is available in different cities for dogs.  Also, there is a book called The Dog Lover's Companion to Florida.  The last edition was updated in 2005, so the information in there is pretty accurate.  They have a section for Ft. Meyers.

I've lived in Florida (near Orlando) for almost my entire life and I haven't found it to be unfriendly to dogs, but I'm sure that every neighborhood has its dog friendly areas and areas to avoid.  I would check those sites out and follow [link>http://forum.dog.com/asp/showProfile.asp?memid=23183]TAOofGoldyShep[/link]'s advice and call a couple of local pet boutiques.

NYC is very dog friendly.  Dogs are allowed offleash in the parks before 9AM so that in itself is reason to live here as far as I'm concerned.  Central Park is 943 acres of breathtakingly beautiful terrain and it's ALL OURS before 9AM!  haha.  Dogs are still allowed in many stores here and restaurants with outdoor seating.  There is also an abundance of amenities here that are quite amazing - for example, in Chelsea there is an indoor, heated swimming pool just for dogs!  How much do we love that in the winter!?!?  We also have access to some of the most advanced medical treatment in the country including all things alternative.  Plus, you don't see many "dog haters" here.  I guess there are just so many dogs here that non-dog folks just accept them.  It helps that city dogs are, for the most part, very well socialized and well behaved.