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Or should this be on the dog etiquette thread.
From the Mountain Bothiwes Assoc Facebook.
" "Contenders for 'They should have booked a hotel' award.
Please remove if not in keeping with the group, this situation was actually quite upsetting for me.
I turned up at GlenCoul bothy late on Saturday night (paddling in on the slack tide), solo with my dog. I was greeted by these 2 men who did not allow me to stay in the bothy as they were bothered by dogs (there are 2 separated rooms and it sleeps 8, they even said the wind had changed so it would be behind me paddling back out! I compromised and went to check out the little shed (which had evidence of rats), and when I came back out they had hidden inside the bothy and shut the door.
I slept in the shed but due to 'fellow guests' didn't get much sleep and gave up my plan to go higher up the plateau for more paddling due to keeping safe, and just paddled back out to Kylesku.
The reasons given that I wasn't allowed entry- I arrived too late, and one of the men didn't like dogs, and as a Buddhist didn't believe dogs should be kept as pets! My dog was on the lead at all times.
I've been to several bothies, slept in cramped Shenavall, been kept awake by drunk nighttime fishermen at Loch Ard, slept outside Carnmore , experienced lots of kindness like my first solo bothy, paddling Loch Etchachan, the men at Hutchy actually let me sleep solo inside 
.
Not once have I felt unwelcome or that my dog was a bother before this weekend, but rather part of something more. Please could people remember the bothy is for all, not just those who arrived first, but for all who are outdoors and seeking shelter. Apologies for preaching to the choir.""
I can't post a link as I am not on facebook but was told of this elsewhere.
I think it’s dog owner blocked from bothy
It says here you can take a dog. So I’m on her side
https://www.mountainbothies.org.uk/bothies/faq/
Amazing how often people are absolute dicks.
Surely she could have slept in the bothy and put the dog in the shed?
I think it’s dog owner blocked from bothy
Yeah, the title is a bit clickbaity.
Amazing how often people are absolute dicks.
Maybe the gender was relevant after all 😁
I think it’s dog owner blocked from bothy
+1 but I'm still siding with her
Surely she could have slept in the bothy and put the dog in the shed?
A. Dog may well go nuts being shut in a strange shed and left
B. Why TF should she? Dogs are allowed in bothies.
MBA policy is that dogs are allowed to stay in bothies as long as they are under control at all times. Simple answer is it doesnt matter what these men did or didnt like about the dog, they had no right to refuse the woman and her dog entrance. In fact if they felt so strongly about it THEY should have left.
Going to say it...and be unpopular.....as much as I like the concept and want it to work - just not sure it passes the 'fit for 21st century society and all our expectations/entitlement/oddities'. And death by numbers - more people (and more people new to the concept) into the same number of places and just too many people's buttons are pressed and it's rubbish for everyone. Too many people, too many freak flag flyers, too many insta influencers popularising, too many people with opinions or 'attitude' all squeezed together.
I suppose the point my better half would make is that I, as a man, turning up with my dog might be prepared to tell the other two to get back in their box and carry on with my planned stay. A line woman is highly unlikely to invite that degree of confrontation. Especially in an isolated location. So whilst I think the insistence of some dog owners to take their dogs wherever they go is sometimes prone to assuming other people will accept the choices, I'm going to side with her on this.
I think it’s dog owner blocked from bothy
Or, 2 weirdos want bothy to themselves.
Problem is people get sold on the idea of solitude and isolation so perhaps aren't prepared to compromise on that experience. I was denied (politely, I could probably have insisted) access to the only room in Gorton with a fireplace because the folks in there were already asleep (it was late to be fair) but I was wet and cold and could REALLY have done with getting a fire going.
I'll bet the Instagram version of bothying is very different from the MBA version, lots of beautiful views and sunsets and little mention of digging holes to shit in and snoring backpackers 😆
Edit: sort of what Convert said.
the insistence of some dog owners to take their dogs wherever they go is sometimes prone to assuming other people will accept the choices,
Just to be clear though that, in this example, if you're using a bothy you are accepting that there may be dogs there, because dogs are allowed in bothies.
in Gorton
There must be two Gortons, cos I can't imagine anyone would be bothying here...
What's Gorton like? : r/manchester
Just to be clear though that, in this example, if you're using a bothy you are accepting that there may be dogs there, because dogs are allowed in bothies
Agreed.
Problem is people get sold on the idea of solitude and isolation
I planned a multi day trip in Scotland and didn't include bothies exactly because I didn't want to share with strangers.
I hope the next bothy those two fellas try to stay in already contains a big wet stinking very licky st bernard.
I'm also on the woman's side. The men should never have refused her entry. There used to be an unwritten rule that a bothy was never full - no matter if people were crammed in and sleeping standing up. All they had to do was ask her to keep the dog in the other room.
Rule No 1 of bothying is to always assume that the bothy will be full when you arrive so always have a tent as backup. Not excusing the blokes behaviour, but everyone should have a backup.
Amazing how often people are absolute dicks.
Sadly, I am less amazed by this.
She should have explained to the hardcore Buddhist ,that it was a service dog that was helping her through a recent trauma , and that it was also part Lion dog ( Shih Tzus) , so he should show some more respect for her companion. 😉
I too think that the numpties in residence had no right to refuse anyone. Everyone, and thier dog, is able to use a bothy. I feel that two men on one woman was a real position of power that they abused.
They could easily have stayed in two separate rooms and ignored her and the dog.
I too also think like covert - so many more people in the hills, so bothy and popular camp spots are becoming a melting pot of many attitudes and cultures. And not always for the better.
I've started just using a tent. I avoids the flag wavers, the music boom boxers, the bottle of whisky being consumed before back to the rigs, the up until 3am because a bothy is a party groups. It also means I'm avoiding the shit behind every tree and log.
But then I'm a lonely, grumpy old fart who likes to seek out some peace in the hills.
In response to it being dog owner blocked. I was at bothies with my dog this week. Those guys wouldn't have stopped me going in. They obviously felt they could bully a lone woman.
Three bothies. On my own each time. Glendhu. Sulaig. And a non MBA one. So you can get solitude. It is not a guarantee. I fact good company enhances the experience.
Those guys should be camping if they can't share.
Assuming that's a truthful account, what a couple of turds. Fancy gatekeeping a bothy at all, never mind preventing a lone woman accessing it.
As for the truth. Apparently the mba facebook has a video.
Came here to post exactly what @franksinatra already has done.
Both parties should have been prepared to sleep outside the bothy.
In this case the fellas were more in the wrong though (IMO)
Both parties should have been prepared to sleep outside the bothy.
Totally irrelevant here. There was plenty of room (well 2 rooms). Anyone else getting Brokeback Mountain vibes?
Slightly off topic but it's interesting how the equivalent of bothies are supposed to work in Finland. The last person to arrive has priority. If the bothy is full, and somebody arrives, those who are already fed and warmed should pack up and move on, while the hungry and cold newcomer takes the space. I have no personal experience of how this works in practice. The Finns are, in my experience, very rational people.
Totally irrelevant here. There was plenty of room (well 2 rooms). Anyone else getting Brokeback Mountain vibes?
I spent the night in the buttermere bothy with my other half. We opened the visitors book and it was PURE FILTH. A wee while later three guys strolled up and looked a bit sheepish before asking if we intended to stay the night*
Could all have been perfectly innocent but after the erotica of the book we burst out laughing.
*Its a tiny bothy.
Wait what, these places are just countryside "love shacks"? Asking for a friend
Wait what, these places are just countryside "love shacks"? Asking for a friend
looks like the Fb post has been taken down.
I've used bothies twice. First time there was an obviously homeless dude using it as his home, and he massively resented us being there. The second time the bothy was occupied by a poor dude clearly having some sort of mental crisis. I use B&Bs and hotels now. Nothing in this OP makes me want to try a third time.
Totally irrelevant here
Nope sorry I don't agree with you.
If either party had been offended by the other's presence then they could have opted to camped outside the bothy or somewhere else entirely.
According to the story above, the situation was that the woman and her dog had to head home due to no shelter.
If she'd been prepared to stay outside then heading back wouldn't have had to happen
Surely she could have slept in the bothy and put the dog in the shed?
If that had been me, the 2 miserable ****ers could go sleep in the shed. Because dogs are, 99.999% if the time, far more preferable company, better behaved and less diseased.
I'd have been banging on the door and window all night keeping the arseholes awake. Then locked them in from the outside in the morning.
As you get older, have no time for folk that have their 'ikky' little preferences. True or not, I'd have quoted the rules, and said live with it.
You need to live and co-operate with others, so get on with it.
I've used bothies twice. First time there was an obviously homeless dude using it as his home, and he massively resented us being there. The second time the bothy was occupied by a poor dude clearly having some sort of mental crisis. I use B&Bs and hotels now. Nothing in this OP makes me want to try a third time.
When you dissect it, it's a bloody weird thing. There are few other times in your life you'd doss down in a pitch black room with no lights many miles from civilisation with a complete stranger that you found just hanging about when you arrived.
If I was an escaped convict I reckon that's where I'd go hide until the dust settled - dress up like a slightly cranky homeless guy and hang around a bothy or three cadging food from hikers. Or go full red sock and map case and blend in as a socially awkward munro bagger.
For those people saying what they'd have done, don't forget the gender dynamics. The fact it was a single woman versus two blokes is significant.
There is that, of course. Needs to be highlighted and shouted about. Shame the dog wasn't trained to remove ballcocks on command ?
It's like Golf clubs - men only. Fark off
For the always take a tent crowd. I have been using bothies since the 1970s and have never failed to get a place in a bothy. I never carry a tent. Exceptions being when a group of us went to Bob Scotts and took tents as we would otherwise be the ones overcrowding the bothy.
I have once changed plans and not stayed in a bothy, when I got to Mark Cottage and a team of 8 from Castlemilk had driven in with a 4x4 and were already bevvying at 4pm. In fairness they were friendly enough but with another 8 hours drinking ahead I moved on.
I do avoid weekends and small popular bothies though. Going to Corrour or Hutchison Memorial Hut without a plan B would be unwise.
My last 20 or so bothy trips I would guess around two thirds I had the place to myself and the rest there was another/others. Never a crowded bothy though. Last month the bothy book at one had around 8 entries this year.
I'm too antisocial to share a bothy with strangers. If I've ever planned to use a bothy I always have my tent or bivvy bag with me - and then I think "if I've brought it, I might as well.use it".
For those people saying what they'd have done, don't forget the gender dynamics. The fact it was a single woman versus two blokes is significant.
Dynamics will depend entirely on the woman, her dog & the men. Some very sexist & presumptive comments on here.
That's not sexism from Molgrips, Dickyboy, that's feminism I agree with. Do really think that if Andrew Tate with his foul dogs had walked in they'd have kicked him out ?
And while I'm here I'll use the words Jordan Peterson, manosphere, macho, misogynist, passive aggressive... because they were the words that flashed through my head as I read through the OP. The sexism I see isn't so much on this thread (thank you convert for your balance adding contribution 😉 ) as in that bothy.
thank you convert for your balance adding contribution 😉
Your honour,
I'd like to plead that my post was in fact a play on male naive stereotypes and a mocking of male chauvinistic preconception and expectations. Or something.
The books is quite good btw.
Might be of interest
https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/2AHP599UMSYI4B4Q9G2C?target=10.1111/tran.70011
Just to be clear though that, in this example, if you're using a bothy you are accepting that there may be dogs there, because dogs are allowed in bothies
100%. 👍🏼👏🏻
Claiming that, being a Buddhist, a person shouldn’t have a dog as a pet, is a pretty flimsy argument - I’d want to check the bloke over in case he had lice or ticks, in which case he was carrying his pets with him. 🤷🏼♂️
Dynamics will depend entirely on the woman, her dog & the men. Some very sexist & presumptive comments on here.
Now, i am clearly not an expert on the matter.
But while the intentions of these two knob heads might have had nothing to do with gender their behaviour is not supportive is it. It is not inclusive, and it paints a picture of bothies being an unwelcoming or possibly even unsafe place. That is most likely to be felt in the less well represented groups who have historically had more to be concerned about.
That could be gender, colour or sexuality.
Is that not the point people are making not rather than "all women are wee defenceless soles that need need internet hard men to defend them"
Very happy to be corrected on that, lot's to learn as i have no frame of reference...
Gorton with a fireplace because the folks in there were already asleep (it was late to be fair) but I was wet and cold and could REALLY have done with getting a fire going.
Which is really the purpose of a bothy, primarily being a shelter not a free hotel room you can have dibs on.
I think the plot just seems to get lost nowadays and TBH they are always going to be places where dogs are likely to be as travelling on foot in the middle of nowhere with a dog has sort of happened for the last 13,000 years give or take a thousand.
Claiming that, being a Buddhist, a person shouldn’t have a dog as a pet, is a pretty flimsy argument - I’d want to check the bloke over in case he had lice or ticks, in which case he was carrying his pets with him.
Not only that, but their pets are going to be getting jiggy with each other all night long.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-61894186
Out of interest, what is a 'flag waver' what people are referring to above?
I think I referenced it first so I guess I should account for it.
"Flying a freak flag" used to mean an oddball that gave off enough vibes you could got an early warning 'flag'.
And I suppose it was in this old skool context I used it. The crank in the local pub who is a permanent resident who everyone trys to avoid getting stuck talking to.
More recently it's been 'reclaimed' as a positive to mean to be different and proud of it.
That's not how I intended it...
Blimey. Guessing she was left to head out, with her dog, into the night to look for another bothy. What were they thinking?
Q - if it was a bloke with a dog, would they have done the same?
Do hope they get named and shamed.
Guessing she was left to head out, with her dog, into the night to look for another bothy.
And the next nearest one is several miles away at Glendhu, up a different sea loch altogether. Which is pretty much a non starter, no matter how youre travelling to a bothy. There's no arguing with the fact that this appears to have been disgraceful behaviour in all respects
More recently it's been 'reclaimed' as a positive to mean to be different and proud of it.
I always took it as sort of a positive thing, more in reference to hippies etc. Think Jimi Hendrix uses the phrase on Electric Ladyland, I forget which song though...
I think I referenced it first so I guess I should account for it.
"Flying a freak flag" used to mean an oddball that gave off enough vibes you could got an early warning 'flag'.
And I suppose it was in this old skool context I used it. The crank in the local pub who is a permanent resident who everyone trys to avoid getting stuck talking to.
More recently it's been 'reclaimed' as a positive to mean to be different and proud of it.
That's not how I intended it...
Where does flag shagger fit in here?
It was nothing to do with the dog and everything to do with them believing that it was their fiefdom as they arrived first. It was very bad form to leave the woman with no alternative but to retreat rather than facing a confrontation. I really do hope that this woman can put this behind her and not be put off from enjoying her hobbies in the outdoors.
Very poor behaviour by the two men. It wasn't up to them to tell the other hiker to piss off. I don't even like dogs...or people come to think of it.
Where does flag shagger fit in here?
It doesn't - different kind of flag.
Though I suspect your average flag shagger would find a modern proud freak flag flyer a bit too woke for their tastes.