The Townhouses @ Carus Green

The Townhouses at Carus Green are four modern holiday homes on the grounds of a golf club on the northern edge of Kendal, and dog owners need to read the pet rule carefully before booking. Only one of the four, the four-bedroom Townhouse 1, takes a dog at all, and it takes one small dog. The other three do not accept pets, so booking the wrong house means arriving without your dog or not arriving at all.

The houses themselves are excellent. They are clean, spacious, modern and properly equipped, guests score them 9.7 out of 10, and the position is a good one for the southern Lake District, with Kendal a few minutes away and the fells around Windermere and Staveley an easy drive.

Two things have gone wrong for dog owners, and both are worth knowing before you book. The first is money: a guest booked on a listing that showed one pet at no extra charge, paid a non-refundable amount, and was then told a £25 pet charge applied. Whatever the current position, get the pet fee confirmed by the property in writing before you pay anything.

The second is the outside space. The rear terrace is not enclosed. It opens on one side onto a neighbouring drive and the main access driveway, and on the other onto a field with sheep in it. For a dog that recalls reliably and stays put, that is manageable. For a young dog, a bolter, or anything with an interest in livestock, it is not, and the terrace cannot be treated as a safe place to let a dog out unsupervised.

The result is 3.9 out of 5: a genuinely good property with a narrow and poorly signposted pet offer, best suited to a calm, on-lead small dog whose owners have confirmed the details in advance.