So, you and your best friend missed Dogfest at Dog Mountain in Vermont this past weekend?! Don't start howling yet. I've tracked down a few more dog-friendly events taking place around New England where you can catch the last of this year's glorious fall foliage.

Still, few events can match the unadulterated dogginess of Dogfest. With temperatures in the low 60s and fall foliage still to be seen even as far north as St. Johnsbury, the several hundred visitors to the annual event hosted by internationally renowned artist Stephen Huneck enjoyed a perfect day. The setting--the Huneck's 400-acre mountain-top farm called Dog Mountain--affords a bird's eye view of the Northeast Kingdom's rolling hills, festooned with autumn's scarlet and gold. We'll have photos from the day posted on Chaucer's website soon.

I expected that first on my list of still-to-come dog-friendly events would be the All Pets Festival in Manchester, New Hampshire, on October 18 and 19. Reading the lengthy event description in New Hampshire To Do magazine , I thought The Boy and Chaucer and Brontë would enjoy the dog fashion shows, the dog agility course, and something called "dancing with the dogs."

Type "dog-friendly hotels" into your favorite search engine, and you'll be overwhelmed with the results. But which website to trust? There's nothing worse than showing up at your hotel only to learn your four-legged family member is not welcome after all. (As once happened to us upon a 2:00 a.m. arrival at a supposedly dog-friendly hotel in Oklahoma City. But more on that below...)

So I was glad to stumble upon a new (for me) dog-friendly travel site called BringFido.com recently. Founder Melissa Kendall launched the site in 2005 after trying to book a Cape Cod stay for a friend's wedding at several supposedly dog-friendly hotels listed on another website. When she called each hotel and found that they did not, in fact, permit pets, she decided the world needed a reliable dog-friendly travel site.

We're cruising east along the New York Thruway as I write this, hoping to make it to Route 9 in time to cross Vermont before sunset. As if the possibility of catching the first fall colors on that already beautiful road weren't enough, we want to make it to the "cheese shop" before they close. From maple syrup to souvenirs, the store sells much more than cheese. Yet ever since we discovered their variety pack of locally made, maple-infused cheddars, the place has been known to friends and family as "that cheese shop."

(By the by, the "Canine Traveler" column in Dog Fancy's October issue, now on newsstands, features a visit to the dog-friendly Northeast Kingdom region of Vermont.)