Are dogs allowed in Barnes & Noble?

Are you looking for an escape from the house? Do you want to hit up the closest Barnes & Noble to find a good book (or ten)? Are you hoping to bring your furry sidekick along for the ride?

If the answer to any and all of those questions is yes, then you are probably wondering whether or not you can actually take your dog shopping with you. And while we have seen sites like Wide Open Pets suggest that we can bring our dog with us to the bookstore, we decided to dig a little further for answers.

In our digging, we turned directly to the source – the Barnes & Noble Help Center!

Can you bring dogs into Barnes & Noble?

According to the help center, service animals are allowed in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Which is of course what we expected to see on their site, however, they also take the question a bit further with a section dedicated to non-service animals.

On the help center page the non-service animals breakdown reads as follows,

"Each store follows the local health codes for their town, county, or state. Contact your local store for more details regarding their policy on Non-Service Animals at their location."

What does this mean? It means that while technically there is nothing in the corporate rules that says you can’t bring your dog with you to Barnes & Noble, there are still health codes that need to be followed, so it is in our best interest to reach out to the store you want to visit before you head on over with your pup in tow.

In many cases, management might be perfectly fine with you bringing your pup with you, as long as you keep them away from the cafe area. (And this makes perfect sense as animals in general are not allowed in restaurants and cafes in general, unless they are service animals.)

Have you ever brought your dog with you to Barnes & Noble? Do your local health codes prevent you from bringing your pup along? We want to know.