For my husband and I, our dogs are part of our family and we enjoy sharing our vacations with them whenever possible. They’ve traveled with us in cars, planes, sailboats, powerboats, and ferry boats. Our old dog had the honor of having peed in every state and province on the east coast of North America, except Rhode Island. We’ve learned a lot of lessons (some vicariously and some the hard way) about how to travel safely and happily with our dogs.
Here’s the second half of our list of top tips:
- Keep in mind that other countries and cultures have a different idea about what is an acceptable accommodation for a dog, and ask very specific questions about those accommodations. We once planned a trip that included three days on a mail boat poking in and out along the coast of Labrador. When I booked our passage, they assured me they had kennels for dogs. When we boarded the mail boat in Newfoundland, in 40-degree sleeting weather (and icebergs floating by offshore) we discovered that the “kennels” were wire crates lashed to the open back deck of the boat. That might have sufficed for a sled dog, but not our little terrier mix that had never spent a night outside in her life. So much for the mail boat trip.
- Bring a sturdy, collapsible crate for your dog. You never know when you will need it. After the mail-boat fiasco we decided to fly from Newfoundland to Labrador and didn’t have a crate with us. The nearest store that carried dog crates was a half-day’s drive away. Luckily a kindly local, whose dog had died a few years back, came to our aid and gave us his old dog’s crate.
- If you plan to stay in pet friendly lodging, find out if only specific rooms allow pets and make sure you reserve one of them. We made reservations at a motel that said,”oh sure, we allow dogs,” only to find out they only allowed dogs in one specific room and that room was taken.
- Teach your dog to wait for your signal before jumping out of the car. Make sure this skill is absolutely rock solid. If your dog needs an emergency poop stop on a busy highway, you absolutely need your dog to wait in the car until leashed and given the okay to jump out.
- If you are travelling by boat and using a dinghy to ferry your dog to land for potty breaks, teach your dog to absolutely wait in the dinghy until I say,” okay.” I once witnessed a family coming ashore in an inflatable dinghy with the husband in the stern, wife in the bow, and two huge dogs in the middle. The wife got out, both dogs jumped out, and the dinghy flipped bow over stern, dumping the husband in the water.
- Pack a poop and puke clean up kit and keep it in the car. Sometimes there just isn’t any way to safely pull off the road for a poop emergency. Life will be much better if you are prepared to deal with the consequences.
- Teach your dog that uniformed people walking up to your vehicle is a good, fun thing, especially if you plan to do a border crossing. Your growling, snarling, barking dog just might put that tired police or customs officer over the edge.
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