A GUIDE to dog friendly Welshpool is being produced to help dog owners find out where they can go in town without having to leave their dogs at home or in the car.

Esme Jaye Owens came up with the idea after being asked regularly for dog friendly places to eat and drink.

She then decided to ask the Facebook group ‘Welshpool Melting Pot’ if local businesses would be interested in being listed in a guide, and got a huge response.

She said: “I did not expect the amount of interest that I got. I didn’t realise how many places were dog friendly.”

So far Esme has had up to 30 businesses get in touch with her, including restaurants, cafes and even barbers.

The dog friendly guide will be called ‘Paws around Welshpool’ and will be in the form of a Facebook page and a leaflet, which will be distributed in the tourist information centre and in caravan parks. On the Facebook page, Esme also plans to highlight different local dog friendly business each month.

When businesses sign up to the guide, they will also receive a sticker to put on their window to let people know they are dog friendly. Esme said: “For me as a dog owner it is very much the case of going through with a pen or standing outside, and if it’s not clear I probably wouldn’t go in.”

Esme said that other bigger businesses aren’t always dog friendly because “they don’t have to be. People will always go there, it doesn’t make a difference to them. A lot of the businesses that are dog friendly are part of the town family.”

Ally Clarke from Ginger Hounds Photography and Katie McGuire have both offered to help Esme out with the project free of charge.

John Hughes, the singing farmer, and his dog, Jess, have even got involved in the conversation by promising to write a song about how dog friendly Welshpool is.