Dog-Friendly Alexandria: Old Town Waterfront Life With Your Pup
Alexandria looks designed for dogs: brick streets, waterfront parks at the end of every block, and roughly eighteen off-leash dog areas for a compact city. Old Town is the center of it all.
The Alexandria Dog Day
A classic Alexandria dog day starts at a fenced park like Eugene Simpson Stadium Park or the Duke Street Dog Park, moves to the Mount Vernon Trail for river views, and finishes at a waterfront patio: Virtue Feed & Grain keeps a dog menu, Vola's Dockside Grill and BARCA Pier & Wine Bar seat pups along the river, and Union Street Public House, The Warehouse, Chadwicks, and Blackwall Hitch round out the Old Town set. King Street's boutiques and the Del Ray shopping street add stops in between, and the city's unfenced off-leash areas at Founders, Windmill Hill, Fort Ward, and Chinquapin cover the rest of the map. It is a weekend in one square mile.
Places, hours, and pet policies can change with the seasons, so confirm details before you go. And if your dog has a favorite NOVA spot I haven't mentioned, I would love to hear about it.
All the best, GG