Findhorn Upper Apartment, Tighnabruaich

Findhorn Upper Apartment looks out over the water at Kames, on the Shore Road just along from Tighnabruaich on Argyll's Kyles of Bute. The front rooms have an unobstructed view across to Bute, the kitchen is properly equipped for cooking, and behind the property there is a fully fenced back garden. That enclosed garden is the reason dog owners rate the flat: it is secure enough to open the door and let a dog out without a lead, which is not a given in a shorefront apartment.

The access is the thing to understand before you book, because dog-owning guests have raised it independently of one another and neither treated it as a minor grumble. Parking is across the road rather than at the property, the entrance gate is too narrow to bring a car through, and the back steps up to the upper apartment are steep, narrow and uneven, and slippery in the wet. Carrying dog bedding, food and luggage up that route in the rain is hard work, and guests with arthritis found it genuinely difficult while managing a young dog at the same time.

Set against that, what waits at the top is well judged. The apartment is tastefully done, clean by every account, spacious in the living room and equipped to a high standard, and the village is quiet and easy to potter around with a dog. The shoreline gives you flat, open walking straight from the door.

There is no published pet policy, so nothing is on record about fees, numbers, weight or breeds, and it is worth asking directly. Guests have also flagged a couple of layout niggles that have nothing to do with dogs, chiefly a small shower room and a kitchen that is awkward to work in.

Findhorn Upper Apartment earns a 4.5 out of 5 paw rating. It suits an owner with a fit, portable dog who wants a fenced garden and shorefront walking, and who does not mind carrying everything up a steep flight of steps to get it. If you or your dog would struggle on those steps, this is not the one.