The Red Lion, Madley

The Red Lion is a village coaching inn a few miles west of Hereford, and the thing that sets it apart for dog owners is simple: your dog can come into the dining room with you. That is rarer than it should be in pubs with rooms, and it changes the shape of a stay - you eat dinner and breakfast together rather than taking turns upstairs with a takeaway.

The kitchen goes a step further and sends a sausage out for the dog at breakfast, which is the detail guests travelling with dogs mention above all others. Staff are described as kind with dogs as well as with people, and bookings with more than one dog have been taken without fuss. The food itself does a lot of the work here: the menu is wide for a village pub and the fish and chips in particular gets repeat praise, which is worth knowing when the alternative is driving into Hereford for dinner. Dogs are charged at ten pounds each per night, and dog-friendly rooms can be picked when you book online.

Bedrooms are in a converted barn next to the pub rather than over the bar, so evenings are quieter than a room above a busy taproom would be. It is worth knowing how that barn behaves. Water running anywhere in the building carries through the pipes into every other room, which is disruptive at three in the morning; ground-floor rooms pick up footsteps from the hard floors above, and their windows open straight onto the pavement. The road outside is busy during the day and settles after about eight.

Two cautions specific to dogs. The rooms are not large, and a couple with a dog and its bed has found the floor space tight. And because dogs genuinely do stay here, there have been complaints of a lingering wet-dog smell masked with air freshener - worth a quiet word at reception if your room greets you that way, since the staff get consistently good notices for putting things right.

Best for a dog that is happy lying under a pub table while you take your time over dinner.