The Times Jim Soar and dog Alfie discover that North Devon is canine heaven...

Alfie was puzzled by the sheep. Our young black Labrador had raced out to investigate the paddock behind the rented cottage and found several large, woolly white dogs on the far side of the fence. They smelt a bit funny and refused to bark or growl. The strange dogs just stared benignly as Alfie wuffed and sprang into play-with-me postures. So he wuffed some more, tried a playful growl and ran around in circles. They carried on staring.

The North Devon countryside can be a confusing place for suburban four-legged visitors, but they soon learn to appreciate it, as Alfie did (although the little cameo with the sheep was repeated every day of our stay). With switchback coastal paths curving through heather and gorse, the vast expanses of Exmoor and Bodmin Moor to roam, open beaches (no ugly groynes to be skirted in this part of the world), rock pools to nose in and streams to splash through, it is canine heaven.

For an area offering such a lot of great outdoors, it can only be good news that the dog-owning consituency is neither small nor shrinking. There are something like eight million dogs in Britain, and according to the Kennel Club their owners are more likely than average to take their holidays in the UK. What's more, in a recent survey, one owner in five said they would be more likely to book holidays at home if they knew they could take their dog - so it's no wonder that North Devon Plus regards visitors with dogs as "a strong and growing sector" (inquiries up 4.2 per cent this year).

In a recession, why pay kennel fees that could be more than £100 a week, just to be uncomfortably parted from your beloved pet, if you can take that beloved pet with you?

For our family, heading west on our first holiday in several years, and first ever as dog-owners, the omens were good even before we left the motorway. Did service stations on the M25 always provide adjacent grassy areas? I couldn't remember but Alfie was grateful. Our final stop, at Sedgemoor on the M5, was swarming with canine travellers, from pugs to Great Danes - almost too exciting for a three-year-old, inexhaustibly sociable Labrador.

Our destination was a farm near the village of Bradworthy, between Bideford and Bude, which proved to be an excellent base. Our cottage, from Helpful Holidays, was a converted former piggery with all mod cons for guests and their dogs, including an outside tap with hose for washing muddy paws, a well-fenced garden and a rough towel for drying - essential for water-loving Labs, which were once used to haul in nets from the freezing seas off Newfoundland, and have never lost the urge to plunge into water of any description (and mud).

While Amy, our teenage Goth daughter (this year's beach look: thick eyeliner, black tights, black hoodie and back-combed hair) relaxed in the cottage, my wife Pip and I took Alfie out for the first of many memorably enjoyable walks, down lanes thick with meadowsweet, across fields and over stiles to the woods around the Gnome Reserve - surely the most unlikely, but enduring, tourist attraction ever to feature on North Devon signposts.

With fine weather and limited time, we headed mostly for the beaches on subsequent days, though it was reassuring to note that if the weather took a severe turn for the worse (a bit of light rain doesn't deter dog-walkers - after all, we're a hardy bunch) there were other places to head for: Milky Way allows dogs in most of the park, for instance, and The Big Sheep offers a free kennel while the rest of you have fun. If your hound is happy to be on the lead for long periods, then Clovelly and Arlington Court are not out of bounds. (Note to dog-owners: if you're staying in a cottage, owners often frown on your animal being left in it unattended, so daily plans must be made with this in mind).

Of course, some of the best reasons for staying in North Devon are those that involve no admission charge. A more measured and forgiving pace of life (shop closed at lunchtime? Never mind, we can wait); the chance to breathe air salt-sweet that has just blown in across several thousand miles of ocean; peaceful evenings, and nights when the silence is broken only by the occasional coughing sheep or distant moo, and the only light is from moon and stars (can't see your finger in front of your face? Then just relax and go to sleep).

For off-lead walks, you are spoilt for choice. We loved the coastal paths best, but there are countless more along footpaths, beside rivers and streams, round lakes and through woods. Among the best ones suggested for visitors are those at Baggy Point, over the Hangman Hills from Coombe Martin, around the Torridge Valley Circuit from |Great Torrington, and through the Lyn Gorge.

With freedom comes responsibility, of course, which for dog-owners means always poop-scooping, and keeping the lead ready and a wary eye out for sheep and cows. David Kennard, who farms just outside Woolacombe (and stars in the Channel Five series Mist), blogs scathingly about one visiting family whose three dogs drove five different groups of sheep over the cliffs in a week - and who, when caught, said that "it doesn't matter, it's only sheep". His reply is not recorded.
Luckily we managed to avoid causing any major incidents with Alfie, who nonetheless made the most of every minute: nosing through furze bushes, swimming in the sea, racing about on the beach.

While it's true that dogs are banned on some beaches in summer, others welcome them - try Lynmouth, Watermouth Bay, Hele Bay, Mortehoe Beach (Rockham), Saunton Sands or Sandymouth (Alfie's favourite). Others, including Woolacombe Bay and Widemouth Bay, are divided into restricted and dogs-welcome zones.
On our all-too-brief travels we were pleased to find many bowls of water outside shops, and cafés where dogs were allowed. Those are pleasing steps in the right direction, not least because the alternative for owners may simply be to leave their dog in the car, which in summer heat really can be risking its life.

"There is obviously a huge desire for people to holiday with their dogs," says Heidi Ancell of the Kennel Club - and to judge from our experience, North Devon is well on the way to answering that desire.

For us there will certainly be a next time ... I wonder what Alfie would make of Exmoor ponies?