If you have ever met us, you know how obsessed we are with our pup. Our furbaby. Our darling princess queen bee nugget Coconut. So when we decided to take a long road trip around the Western U.S, we thought well of course we will take Coconut with us! Well, that’s what I thought. Ryan was a little more practical and said – maybe we should think about this a little more. And of course I won out and we took her with us! But there are some serious things to consider when deciding whether you should bring your dog along with you on your roadtrip.
Coconut was with us for 5 weeks on the road and we absolutely loved having her along for the adventure. After all, you wouldn’t leave your kids at home for such a grand adventure, so why would we leave our fur-kid at home?!
Guarding the camper from any possible intruders!
And then we began to realize that all of the moving around and driving in the car and uncertainty and activity that she wasn’t used to was beginning to stress her out. So she’s now back in sunny Florida at Chez Grammie & Pops, living the relaxed, sunny, backyard-on-a-lake and lots-of-treats lifestyle. We miss her so much but it’s better for her not to be dragged about from campsite to campsite and hike to hike and boarding spot to boarding spot.
That’s how we resolved the question for our little family, and here’s what you should consider when deciding whether to take your furbaby(ies) with you:
Will They Be Able to Enjoy the Trip With You?
Most national and state parks do not allow dogs (or cats or bunnies or iguanas – this really could apply to any pet you are considering bringing along with you, but for simplicity’s sake, I’ll say dog and you can interpret that to mean whatever pet is your little baby!). Some parks will allow you to have dogs on paved trails, but not on any other kinds of trails or other locations in the parks, others don’t allow them anywhere in the park. And some parks allow you to bring your dog onto certain trails in the park during the day, but you cannot have them with you at night in the Park.
So this means that you’ll have to board your pet sometimes. There are sometimes options for boarding facilities in the national parks or very close by – see this post for a recommendation for where to board your fur baby at Joshua Tree National Park! – but sometimes your options are limited. If you do plan to bring your pet with you and board them at night, I suggest making reservations as early as possible – what a bummer it would be to plan your entire trip and then not be able to go because there were not available spots at the local dog boarding facility.
AdventureDog – probably the only Lhasa to ever visit the Ancient Bristlecones!
Will They Enjoy The Activities on the Road?
You should take into consideration what your dog likes to do.
You really want me to ford this river?!
Fine, I’ll do it but I’m not going to be happy about it.
For instance, Coconut loves nothing more than to be wherever Ryan and I are – ok, let’s be honest it’s just wherever Ryan is. I’m second fiddle to him. But she REALLY loves it when she’s sitting on Ryan’s lap on our couch. She is a creature of habit and loves her home (our apartment in San Francisco). She sleeps all day, plays fetch all night when we are home from work, takes her two block walk each morning and night, and usually has a trip to the park or the beach on the weekends.
And that’s what she loves to do. If you try to get her to walk the other way around the block, she’s not having it. If you try to walk her more than her normal 2 blocks, she lays down and refuses to budge another inch. So when we took her on the road with us, it was WAY outside of her comfort zone and we could tell that we were stressing her out a ton.
We took her hiking and she loved it, but what we didn’t consider is that she probably was not getting enough sleep. She slept at night, but she is used to sleeping at night and also napping most of the day. So that weighed on her and we could tell she was losing a bit of weight from the stress and the severe change in her routine. She absolutely loves snuggling with us in the camper, but the many hours of strenuous activities, or stressful boarding with strange dogs while we were out adventuring did not make her a happy camper.
Snuggled up at our feet
Coconut loves second-most to ride in the car with her head out the window, with the wind in her hair and her nose on high alert for all the smells! But what she doesn’t like is riding in the car without the window down. It gives her anxiety. It always has. She’s always been a dog who shakes in the car and hops around from lap to lap trying to get comfortable and not able to – she might get a little carsick, who knows. We thought that she’d get used to it, we made her up a little bed in the backseat where she could snooze while we were driving during the day.
Didn’t work, she never learned to relax and lay down in her little bed, so we’d have to let her lay in her little bed on our laps, which gets old pretty quickly on a long day’s driving.
You should consider whether your pup will adapt to live on the road and such a change (and changes most days) of scenery.
Will They Impede on Your Desires?
See above – you can’t actually take your dog to a lot of the places you may want to visit on your road trip. If one of your goals is to visit lots of state and national parks, you may want to consider not bringing your pup along for the trip, or for that part of the trip in particular. Will you be worrying about your pup in the boarding facility while you are out for your hike?
Will you consider cutting your trip short or crossing off places that you really wanted to visit if it turns our that your furbaby isn’t permitted to enjoy it? What will you do with the pup while you are rock climbing/canyoneering/(insert other adventurous but not-pet-friendly activities)?
These are all things to take into consideration when deciding whether to bring your pup on your roadtrip.
Will You Be Able to Treat Them As They Need to be Treated?
Will you have the time, patience and energy to exercise your pup as much as they need it? If you have a particularly energetic breed that needs lots of exercise everyday, consider whether you’ll be up for taking the pup for that 5 mile run after a full day of hiking in the national park.
Think about what you’ll do if the weather doesn’t cooperate? Are you willing to take the dog for a long walk in the pouring rain (when at home you probably simply let the dog run around in the rainy backyard while you enjoy being dry in the house?!). Will the pup be able to get enough rest? As I mentioned earlier, Coconut sure loves her sleep – as do most dogs. Most dogs sleep 12-14 hours a day and spend about 30% of their waking time resting and inactive even if awake. That means only about 20% of a dog’s day is spent being active. Of course this varies depending on breed, age and temperament of the dog, but you get the picture. They are mostly sedentary. So taking them along for hiking most of the day and other intense activities – running, biking, whatever it is that you’ll be doing on your roadtrip during the days, can really wear them out and cause ill effects on their health.
You should also consider whether or not it is safe for your pup to come along with you on your roadtrip. One serious consideration is the heat, depending on where you are roadtripping – dogs should never be left in an un-air-conditioned car in any temperatures over or under probably about 65 degrees or so (and that changes if the sun is shining right into your car). Really they shouldn’t be left in the car ever. Also consider whether the terrain may be too rugged for your pup, or there may be other dangerous critters that could harm your pup. We had serious worries about Coconut while we were in southern Arizona because coyotes abound and we could hear them howling and yipping not too far from our camper at night. She is a tiny little tasty morsel just waiting to be snapped up, so we had to keep her very close and be careful. There are also snakes, scorpions, ticks and other nasty beings that could have harmed her so we were very careful and aware of our surroundings and how they might affect her, and you should do the same. Will the altitude negatively affect your pup? Will his or her paws be torn up by an unforgiving terrain (those booties really don’t work so well, they always fall off after a while!)?
Do you have the Right Vehicle for Bringing your furbaby with you?
What kind of vehicle and equipment are you traveling with? We have seen plenty of happy healthy dogs on the road who are living with their owners in giant charter-bus-sized RVs or huge fifth wheels, complete with air conditioning, plenty of space and safety from the elements.
We have also seen dogs traveling with their owners in vans or other small cars or tent camping, and I wonder often if the dogs are properly cared for. We have a teardrop camper, all of nine feet long and 5 feet wide, which leaves enough room for snuggling with our fur baby at night, but doesn’t give us the option to leave her in the camper during the day.
That’s a huge consideration – you have to think about the weather and decide if it will be too hot or too cold to leave your pup in the car or camper. Some places explicitly prohibit pets to be left in cars and campers, but they also don’t permit you to take your pets on the trail with you or into the buildings, so that could leave you in quite a conundrum.
Traveling with your pet can be a wonderful adventure – we absolutely loved having Coconut with us for the five weeks that she was an AdventureDog on the road with us in the camper. But we also recognize that we were causing her a lot of undue stress and we also were prohibited from certain activities when we had her. Give it a lot of thought – consider both your own needs and those of your pet, as well as the needs and considerations of those around you, and decide whether it’s a good idea to take Fido along or if you should leave him at home for a little R&R and sleepover at a friend’s house while you are out on the road.
Hanging at the Hoover Dam
BY Jackie
BLOGGED FROM Kings Canyon National Park, California
