If you take your pet with you, like we do, you know there can be certain challenges with taking them with you . But for the most part we wouldn’t go anywhere without our dog since she is part of the family. Sure we don’t go out to restaurants because we never leave her alone on the boat or in the RV when we are not with her, but it’s a small price to pay. When we do work to pay for our adventures, we find a doggy daycare to put her in during the day.
Doggy Day Cares, Kennels and Boarding
Maybe you feel the same way, accidents can happen on board, or in an RV and there is no one to help them get out in case of emergency. For what we pay for doggy daycare, it’s worth it to know that she is not alone and someone is taking care of her. Some towns don’t have doggy day cares for your pets, so we have her boarded at a local vets office. For $8 a day, she is being watched and taken care of. We drop her off in the morning on the way to work, pick her up on the way home.
Animals, like children love to explore new places with their parents, but if they are left alone, they get anxious and nervous and start to worry that they were abandoned. Our dog loves to be with us, and ever since she was a puppy we never really left her alone. She doesn’t like to be alone. Now she does like to be left alone at times but she has to be able to see us when she has her alone time. We did try to leave her alone once on the boat while we went outside, and she managed to escape and swim across the marina to where we were at. So that was the only time we tried.
Making arrangements to board your pet at a kennel or doggy day care can easily be done with the search of the town that you are in, and where you will be staying. Even if we want to do something for a day that she can’t go with us, we call ahead of time and find a vet or kennel to keep her for the day. Mostly though, we plan our activities around places where we can take her with us.
Dogs and Boating: Making Potty Runs
While we are out boating, and not near land for a few days, we use puppy training pads for her to use the bathroom. We did try the artificial grass for her to use the bathroom, but that was messy and didn’t work well for us. we found the puppy pads are easy to clean up and easy for her to use. We don’t use them in the RV since we can always take her out, but boating is different. Sometimes we anchor out for a few days and can not get her off the boat. so we have to find alternatives for her to use the bathroom. We found that these are the most easiest way to solve her potty problems.
Cats are easy to take along with you. They have no problems using the kitty litter box, but with dogs, you have to take the time to train them to use the potty pads. It didn’t take our dog long to learn to use it. After all she may like boating, but she doesn’t like water, so she doesn’t have much choice when we anchor out.
Food:
We always carry dog food with us, since both of our homes are movable, we solved the problem of food being thrown everywhere out of her bag. We usually purchase 20 pounds at a time of her dog food, which will take her about a month to eat. Well she won’t eat it if it’s stale, and we solved both of these problems by putting it in gallon size Ziplock bags. When we get her food home, we automatically divide it up into Ziplock bags and seal them so that she will always have fresh dog food, and we no longer have the problem of food being scattered when the vehicles are moving. We also keep a gallon of water in a jug just in case of emergencies for her.
Taking your pets with you for the Day:
We have a little doggy pack that we take with us when we take her out with us. While we are prepared to go for a day, many people don’t think about preparing their dogs for the day of sight seeing, and traveling. Dogs need water during the day too. while you may pack water for yourself, do you think about taking it for your dogs? In her doggy pack, we have a copy of her recent vaccinations, rabies shots, and emergency contact numbers (which are our cell phones in case she gets lost).We keep paperwork in a Ziplock bag. Her dog tag also has our cell phone numbers on incase she gets lost. We freeze water for her before we go out, and pack that in her pouch, we take her dog food, and a collapsible dog food bowl, one for water and one for food. This way if we can’t get to water for her, we always have cold water for her as the day goes on, the ice will melt and keep it cold for her. We take her medication and some emergency supplies incase she gets hurt. It usually isn’t much, but some sealed medication in case she gets bit or something cuts her. We have never needed to use this, but her little doggy pouch doesn’t take much room in our backpacks and gives us peace of mind.
Taking your pets with you will make everything better. While they may keep you from doing certain things, we would be lost without our dog. Before taking your dog on your trips, think about what modifications you will need to make to make the trip more comfortable for them also.