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Tips for Travelling with Your Dog

  • 29/04/2019
travelling-with-dog.jpegBelieve it or not, vacation memories with your trusty canine companion can be some of the most sublimely relaxing moments you'll treasure for the rest of your days. Hardly anyone can deny the appeal of this. Whether you are travelling solo or with an entire family in tow, an inclusion of perpetually joyous furball to the proceedings can open you up to the new realms of joie de vivre. If you and your dog are primed and ready for such an adventure, here are tips for travelling with your dog.

Inoculate your canine

Priorities need to be addressed first, and the most important matter when it comes to travelling with your dog is to ensure its health. You should definitely visit the vet for the preliminary checkup, especially if it has been quite some time since the last visit. The battery of inoculations might be in order, depending on how exotic the destination is, and you’d be well advised to go through with them. Even if the vaccination package comes with a steep price, you should not risk potential health concerns down the road or, not to mention, the dog’s life.

While you are preparing your dog with necessary health checkups, you should also update its ID while you are at it. This, of course, should be done with another ‘worst case scenario’ in mind – in case your dog is separated from you and/or stolen. We usually do not want to think about stuff such as this, but a responsible pet owner will always consider the darkest of possibilities and take necessary action to prevent them.

If you plan to rent a car

If your destination is not a specific city, a resort or a hallmark, you should consider renting a vehicle in advance. The choice is especially crucial if you have a dog accompanying you for the trip. You can easily find a reliable cheap car rental agency that deals in standard SUVs and pickup trucks, which are the perfect types of four-wheelers if you are travelling with your dog. The choice between the two depends heavily on how well-behaved your canine companion is. If they are easily excitable, you may want to go with a standard SUV, since nothing will stop them from jumping out of the pickup as soon as something grabs their attention.

Check out accommodations online

Now, if you will be travelling cross-country, you should definitely use the internet to the best of your abilities to seek out pet-friendly establishments where you can rest for the night. It cannot be stressed enough how important this is to do long before you embark on the trip so you’d avoid unpleasant surprises.

Unfortunately, planning (and booking) for lodgings in advance can take some of the excitement and unpredictability out of the ‘adventure’ part, but you simply have to do this if your dog is in tow. Thankfully, no matter where you are travelling these days, many hotel chains and privately owned accommodations have gone out of their way to create perfect conditions for dog-keeping so they’d attract more customers.

Take your dog’s anxiety into the account

On the one hand, your dog will probably be excited and elated by a significant number of new experiences. On the other hand, the lack of familiarity with new environments (especially when you stop by a pet-friendly motel) can cause them a lot of stress which may prompt them to act out in the most inopportune moments. Damage to someone’s property should be the least of your worries while you are on a relaxing vacation.

For this reason, you should make sure that your dog is not unattended. See to it that the accommodation doesn’t only have pet-friendly sleeping quarters but that it also boasts day care services and a possible professional assistance. You should also bring your dog’s favourite toy and/or blanket along for the trip, so they can always have something with a familiar scent in their proximity. In fact, your dog should probably sleep on their favourite blanket no matter where you pull in.

While we are on the topic of that, you may want to consider purchasing a crate for your dog, and this item can be used whenever you decide to travel. It is a multi-purpose element that will serve both as a familiar environment and protection for your dog. Certified crates come in different shapes and sizes; they can be used to keep your dog safe in a car and as an ‘anchor’ of familiarity that will reduce their stress to a minimum.

A dedicated dog suitcase

Of course, in order to make sure that you have brought all the items your dog needs for the duration of the trip, you should probably dedicate a small but important suitcase just for the canine’s stuff. Items needed to care for your dog during a longer vacation should not be an afterthought scattered around a mountain of bags and suitcases, so having only one where all the dog stuff is located will make your life significantly easier.

Even though the idea of travelling with your dog is an enticing one, you should still heed the advice such as the one listed above for a very simple reason. No matter how well behaved, when dogs are exposed to completely new sensations, they can become unruly and unpredictable. Should you prepare yourself for this, you can ensure that most – if not all – of the trip is smooth sailing.

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