TRAVEL INSIDER : Finding Room for Fido Can Still Dog Travelers : Pets: Hotels that accept canines are rare. But a helpful book lists pooch-friendly establishments in California.

Yes, these are dog days in the hotel trade. But that doesn’t mean your hotelier is likely to take those words literally. Even with inns, hotels and resorts scrambling to fill empty rooms, only a small fraction of those establishments are willing to accept canines.

“Of the 30 bed and breakfasts that I’m associated with, I don’t know of any that allow it,” said Betty Ryan, president of the Bed & Breakfast Innkeepers of Southern California and proprietor of the Loma Vista Bed and Breakfast in Temecula. “Too many people have allergies. We don’t allow any dogs, even our own, in the house.”

At Hilton hotels, management at each site sets its own policy, and the results are not easily predicted. The Los Angeles Hilton & Towers doesn’t take dogs. The San Francisco Hilton & Towers does. The Anaheim Hilton & Towers does, too, but asks guests to sign a contract pledging that “I agree to be personally liable for all damages caused by my pet, including cleaning charges.”

All of this rejection and uncertainty makes the expertise of Dawn and Robert Habgood, Boston-based authors of “On the Road Again With Man’s Best Friend,” a valuable commodity in canine households.

For several years now, the Habgoods have been hotel-hopping across the country, looking for and appraising dog-friendly establishments. The vocation began when they were living in Mill Valley, looking for a way to spend weekends away with their dogs. One thing led to another, and the first edition of “Man’s Best Friend” in 1985. The repercussions continue.

In their early 30s and now relocated to New England, the two work full-time in the pet-travel publishing business. They send out questionnaires. By phone, they affirm that a hotel will admit their golden retriever, Baxter. Then they visit anonymously, footing their own bills.

“There are a lot more upscale places that take dogs now, and more places are willing to talk about it,” said Dawn Habgood recently. “Before, you had to ferret it out of them.”

But it still isn’t easy. In the third edition of their book, which reached stores in September, the Habgoods list about 160 lodging establishments in California, Oregon and Washington that accept dogs--a selection distilled from visits to about 300 lodgings, the authors estimate. The first edition in 1985 listed about 125 places; the second in 1988, about 145. (Last year, the Habgoods published a New England edition of the book; in April, 1993, they will add a volume on the mid-Atlantic states to the series.)

The Habgoods say the rise in West Coast hotel listings probably has more to do with their widening research efforts than with desperation in the lodging business. But in a few cases, Dawn Habgood said, hoteliers have seen dogs as “a new angle to bring people in, to capture a market they haven’t been capturing . . . And the dog-traveling public tends to have a fair amount of money. Often, it doesn’t matter if they have to pay extra.”

The most dramatic example of dog-marketing, the Habgoods say, is River Run (Main Street, Fleischmanns, N.Y., 914-254- 4884), a nine-room bed and breakfast in the Catskills village of Fleischmanns, N.Y.

Taking over the 1887 Victorian building last May, new owners Larry Miller and Jeanne Palmer launched a campaign to lure dog-lovers from Manhattan. They sent out press releases, schmoozed with groomers, left brochures in pet stores, and invited dog-paddling in the stream that skirts their one-acre property. Miller, the former marketing director of a national ad agency, pitched the place as “the inn for pet lovers” and started sponsoring ASPCA events.

“We don’t put any restrictions on guests, other than the dogs be well-behaved,” Miller said. If guests want to go dog-less to dinner, Miller said, he provides dog carrier, or kennel, to hold the pet until its owner’s return. Rates are $40-$85 nightly. In seven years of following the business, Dawn Habgood said, “I’ve never seen a place exactly like this.”

Miller said his cleaning costs are no higher than a traditional bed and breakfast’s, and that he has even had inquiries from cat owners. Unfortunately, he added, “I can’t start mixing species at this point.”

And who on this coast admits dogs?

Well, Sheep Dung Estates, for one.

That inn is perhaps the most eye-catching entry in the new edition of “On the Road Again With Man’s Best Friend,” in which the Habgoods cover California in 135 pages (Oregon gets 34; Washington, 47). The options range from the remote to upscale urban. Sheep Dung Estates (P.O. Box 49, Yorkville, Calif., 707-462-8745, unit 5285), not surprisingly, holds down the remote end.

The inn, which at the moment amounts to one guest cottage on a 160-acre property off Highway 128 two hours north of San Francisco, carries a nightly tariff of $75. Their location is far-flung and entirely solar-powered--and you can reach it only by ascending a steep and winding dirt-gravel road two miles long--but owners Anne and Aaron Bennett, who live in another house nearby, have built a lodging with hardwood floors, tiled bathrooms and a pond in progress. They hope to have another cottage completed by spring.

In the year and a half that Sheep Dung Estates has been open, “We’ve had some real weird dogs here,” said Anne Bennett. But the two, dog owners themselves, are sticking with the inn’s open-door, leash-free pet policy, and like the River Run’s proprietors in the Catskills, they’ve started to market the inn through Bay Area pet shops and other dog-related businesses.

On the upscale and urban side of the Habgood’s listings, there’s the Hotel Bel-Air (701 Stone Canyon Road, Los Angeles, 800-648-4097), with nightly rates of $245 and up for a double room, and a long history of dog-friendliness.

“These dogs have amazing pedigrees--sometimes better than their owners,” said Hotel Bel-Air manager Frank Bowling. “We’ve never had a problem.” Bowling said guests bringing dogs are asked to pay a $100 non-refundable fee to cover extra cleaning costs.

In between the extremes lies a long list of destinations, many of them comfortably within middle- class budgets. The Best Western Yosemite Gateways Inn (40530 Highway 41, Oakhurst, 209- 683-2378), for instance, charges about $50 nightly for double rooms 15 miles from the south entrance of Yosemite National Park.

The Habgoods have also compiled a list of seven items a dog owner should bring on any trip to a hotel, inn or resort. This is it:

* A leash and collar with ID tags.

* A few play toys, chew bones, treats, etc.

* A container of fresh water.

* Dog bedding (towel, mat, pillow) or carrier (kennel).

* Grooming aids (comb, brush, flea powder, etc.)

* Prescription medication. If your dog is a nervous traveler or already is on medication, you may wish to consult a veterinarian before leaving.

Ultra-cautious travelers may also want to include their dog’s vaccination records in case of an emergency. And those who prefer to take their chances sneaking their dogs into places who don’t allow them should consider this tale from Betty Ryan, back at the Loma Vista Bed and Breakfast in Temecula.

One night about three years ago, a couple showed up at the bed and breakfast with reservations, but also with their poodle concealed in a purse. Spying it, the innkeeper reminded them of the rules. They pleaded, and pledged that the dog would be silent and would accompany them everywhere. Then that night, while the couple was out to dinner, Ryan heard a yipping sound coming from behind the closed door of a certain guest room. There was unpleasantness when the guests returned. Ryan reported, not unhappily, that the couple and their poodle ended up finding someplace else to stay that night.

“On the Road Again with Man’s Best Friend” (260 pages; $12.95) is available in many bookstores and can be ordered through Dawbert Press (P.O. Box 2758, Duxbury, Mass. 02331, 800-933-2923 or 617-934-7202).