Glacier National Park is beautiful, wild and an absolutely worthwhile place to visit (and camp!)
If, like us, you also prefer to bring your dog with on your camping trips, it also takes a bit of planning.
Well - really, you should probably do quite a lot of planning regardless of whether you're bringing your dog. Glacier is an absolutely huge national park with a lot of things to do and a lot of people, so it's going to help a lot to think ahead. But for those of us with dogs, there's definitely a few extra elements to consider.
Most of Glacier National Park is NOT dog friendly. There are very few trails in the national park dogs are allowed on, and they are not allowed on most of the major ones. This means that if you want to hike any of the big trails (and you should!), you're at the least going to need to space things out so that you're not leaving your dog for too long on too many days. You'll also, of course, need to find somewhere safe and climate controlled to leave your dog when you're off hiking the human-only trails.
We mostly stayed on the east side of the park and loved it for its ease of access to the three east side entrances (and the fact that we could still find a campsite even though we didn't book ahead as far as we should have). If we were to go again, though, I would spend at least half the trip or more on the west side. There are far more dog friendly trails and activities on the west side of Glacier. The only dog friendly trails in the national park itself are far on the west side (just inside the entrance, in fact). If you're looking for a longer and more challenging hike with your dog outside the park, there are also a lot of options on the west side in the national forests and town parks. We didn't find much of anything similar on the east side, and spent a lot of evenings instead just walking in circles around the campground to tire the poor pup out.
In the days we did spend on the west side, we were able to check out a few absolutely amazing places that allowed dogs on their trails, including:
Flathead Lake State Park (that's us at our campsite in the photo above)
Mt Aeneas in Flathead National Forest (absolutely beautiful, but if you're taking a camper be prepared for a VERY rough and rather narrow road - the cabinets fell right off the walls in our camper)
Exploring a bit in Kalispell
Glacier was one of the most difficult trips we've done with our dog so far, largely because he has so much energy. Due to the distance between the dog-friendly hikes and the non dog friendly hikes, we weren't able to follow our usual rule of making sure that we were giving him a long, new hike every other day to make sure he was tired out when we did the hikes he wasn't allowed on. Keep your dog's energy level in mind, and also his level of leash training. Some of the trails we went on were pretty steep downhill treks, and if you have a dog who is a puller it could be difficult. The west side does have a lot of different dog friendly trails with varying difficulties, but you might need to drive half an hour to an hour to get to them.
Depending on your dog's comfort with car rides, you can also take them on the Going-to-the-Sun road drive, as they are allowed in your car and on the side of parking lots for bathroom breaks. (Be sure to keep a close leash, as a lot of the parking lots and shoulders are small.) Keep in mind that this does limit you to just a driving day, as you wouldn't be able to take your furry buddy on any of the hikes off the main road. There are, however, some little small sightseeing spots where you could take turns jumping out of the car and walking down to a great view.
Finally, whether you're going to take your dog with you to Glacier of course depends on your accommodations, whether you can climate control your camper to leave your dog for a hike, and whether the campgrounds allows dogs to be unattended.
Glacier is a challenging destination to plan with your dog, but it's a beautiful place and as long as you're willing to spend a little time planning, you can all have a great experience.