It’s the last full day of our vacation in beautiful Montreal, and since it’s sizzling hot outside today, we’re taking a few hours of down time in our beautiful, dog-friendly, air-conditioned vacation rental apartment on a tree-lined street close to one of the many hearts of the city. (The sign above is for a nice little walking area a block away.) Jake stayed home in San Francisco with the Mr., but my daughter, Laura, and I have had enough wonderful dog encounters to keep us from going through dog withdrawal.

Montreal is a very dog-friendly city, with great parks for dogs to explore, and numerous dog-friendly farmer’s markets, alfresco restaurant dining areas, and hotels. And it’s a great place for humans, too: If you want to go to Europe but don’t want to leave your dog behind or just can’t afford a hop across the pond, this eclectic, vibrant city is a wonderful alternative. (Obviously the convenient locale is for our US and Canada readers. Dogsters in Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe, Asia, etc. may not find Montreal quite as convenient a destination…)

Here’s a glimpse of some of the dogs — and dog-related venues — of Montreal.

This terrier is our new little friend, Louis (pr: Loo-ey), whom we met with his friendly entourage at the Atwater Farmer’s Market near our apartment. The farmer’s market is outstanding, and so is the policy of permitting pooches at the outside areas of the market. If you’d like to see more of Louis, he has his own page at a French dog website called toutoublog.com. It turns out his real name is Louis Scoundrel, and if you read French, you might be in for some fun tales about this terrier!

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Even large, high-end department stores here celebrate canines. This is a charming window display of one store on Saint Catherine Street, the main commercial street that runs through Montreal.

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While strolling down a pier in gorgeous Old Montreal, we happened upon a woman pushing Maria (not me) and Pancho in a stroller. She was very happy to have her babies pose for a picture.

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An unusual little pet-supply store on St. Catherine Street also happened to be a sort of a dog and cat daycare. And the dogs have free run of the place, as do the cats. It’s an interesting mix, and everyone seemed pretty happy. Actually, the dogs seemed very happy, since when you set dogs loose in a pet-supply store, they’re kind of like kids in a candy shop. They were good about not nosing the bins too much, but then the store manager gave them the OK to pick out a treat.

For some reason the shepherd just watched as the rottie noshed.

Laura supplies the rottie with some welcome ear rubs when he was done with his choice from the bin.

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We were lucky enough to stay at a wonderful vacation rental apartment owned by Oleg and Luda DeVreeze, who were extremely helpful, friendly, and caring. Here are their terrific sons, Vladmimir, Vadim, and Napoleon (he’s the furry one on the right). Napoleon is one of the smartest, sweetest dogs we’ve ever met, and along with everyone else in the family, made us feel very much at home. He welcomes other dogs and their people to the two vacation rental apartments in “his” 100-year-old brownstone.

We tried to get rid of Napoleon’s redeye using handy editing tools, but it didn’t really work out. Sorry, little buddy.

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The scoop-the-poop signs in Montreal are rather fun. It seems like a pretty clear universal message no matter what your language, but Laura says she can’t help but see it this way: The person’s hand is putting down a mess, and the dog’s rear is about to almost magnetically pick it up. (Er, it’s good to think outside the box, right?)

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It will be hard to leave this city tomorrow. We travel by rail (the Amtrak Adirondack) back to New York for a gorgeous 11-hour ride along Lake Champlain and the Hudson River Valley, and then Wednesday we fly back to San Francisco. It might be a little slow again on the blog for a couple of days, but things will be back up to speed shortly after our return. We’re looking forward to being home in many ways, but we wouldn’t have missed this trip for the world. We’ll be back soon, Montreal!