Fulltiming dog?

[Wagonmaster]

How many of you full times travel with a dog and how do they adjust to it? We have a small terrier whose getting up in years, he is 10yrs old. He is a great little camper for a short duration, a 2 or 3 week stretch but I don't know how he will do on full timing. Any helpfull sugestions will be appreciated. Janet

[richfaa]

Dogs like people will adjust..The age could become a problem . When our dog got up in years she could no longer get up into the camper and since she weighed @ 50+ Lbs taking her in a out no longer was a option..We finaly had to leave her with kids when we camped.She passed on and we will not have another..We do however have a parrot

[CountryGuy]

Give em extra love, carry small terrier up stairs if that becomes a difficulty. Everyone knows ole crazy Carol has 4 yorks. Truth, I won't have 4 again, but I would not trade ANY one of them, and would not have missed having them in our lives.

They ARE dogs, and must be protected from elements, and other animals. Keep em leashed or crated. Crating in the truck is mandatory, you don't want that cute baby to become a missle in the horrid situation of rolling that rig. It does happen, and we need to be prepared and think out consequences whenever possible, IN ADVANCE!

Keep phone number of your home town vet handy. Be sure you know how to treat any ongoing medical situations your pet may have, carry extra meds. If on prescription food, carry enough to get you by, some states will not let vets sell you prescrips without SEEING the dog, ohhh, fee is a vet call, one place we were was $45.00 to just walk into the office.

I say, take the dogs, love em, take care of em, love em, ohhh, said that. One of the reasons we embrace this life style is cause we CAN take the dogs. With 4 there are some places I cannot go, Love me, Love my dog. You don't want my dogs, I can take my camping coin somewhere else!

Don't give up your baby. Keep on Camping!

[ronstan]

Carol I agree whole heartedly. You know we love our little Eli. It like you said if we didn't have him we wouldn't miss him but neither Thelma or I would give him up. He has brought so much pleasure in our camping and home life and he adjusted well to camping.

[DarMar]

We travel with 2 great dogs Amie & Heidi and wouldn't have it any other way. We do admire the courage of Al & Carol to travel with 4, not sure if we'd be up to the task! Al lot of people don't seem to understand the love and loyalty our dogs give us day in and day out!!!

[Chuck and Carol]

We are now traveling (not full time but longer stretches) with two dogs and one cat. Did have two cats, but had to put one down when we were in Virginia. Our little dog is 12, blind and diabetic. I take extra food, extra needles and an extra bottle of insulin for him. I carry all the records for all the animals. He can not go down stairs so we carry him down and he goes for his walk nicely and goes up the steps. They love camping. Have had to find vets but that hasn't been a problem yet. Of course they aren't "our" vets. Costs have been fair. No vet is cheap.

Carol

[Montana_2005]

If you watch papers and such, at times you will find vaccination clinics and etc for free or very little cost...
aS for me... we have two dogs and a kitten... they all love it though they just started three weeks ago. They loved being at the sister in laws and getting to be farm critters.... and they now love it here in NC...
Kitten has even started going out on her own and making herself known to the other Workampers here....
We have had to have some re-alignmnt of thinking sice getting here... dogs are supposed to be tied if they are in the campground.... our neighbor has a deaf springer that they let run loose.... Maddy the moose did NOT appreciate this stranger in HER yard.. and around her trailer...
Pete is about 14.. (more possible.. I rescued him and have no real idea of his age... but he was fully mature in 1993 when I found him... at least 2.5 according to the vet...) We have thier treatment records with us... and when the need arises, we will use them.

[CountryGuy]

ronstan,

Eli has to be one of the cutest little things we have ever seen, he has so much personality his little body will not hold it all in. Just don't make pups any cuter that Eli!

DarMar,

Courage?? HAHA, that is one word for it! I have others! And, they are my dogs! HA HA HA

[tollmann]

We wouldn't consider traveling without our "Teddy Bear" Candy. Any campground that won't except pets won't get my business. I agree the vet can be a problem but when we needed one the people at the CG recommended one. I guess what I am trying to say that our dog is part of our family.

[bob n pam]

We fulltimed with our poodle, Cindy, for 5 1/2 years until her death at age 18 last January. Until the last year of her life she enjoyed the traveling and sniffing new places and meeting new people. She always traveled wearing a seat belt and always was leashed when outside. We carried all of her records with us, especially her lab results, and had annual checkups and necessary vaccinations wherever we were. She was an important part of our family and we always considered her welfare in anything we did. It does cause you to make different decisions about how long you'll be gone during the day and where you will travel; i.e., some Florida state parks will not allow dogs because of the gators.

[jrgwdenner]

Greta has been a delight on our 3 1/2 month trip to Alaska and back. And we are comforted by her presence as she is an extra pair of ears and eyes to warn us of any intruders. We didn't have any bear encounters but we knew that she would let us know if we were in any damage. And even if we weren't! She loves to travel and enjoys seeing all the other dogs in the neighborhood, especially if she's the BIG dog. If she seems a big lab or German shepherd, she makes herself as unnoticeable as she can and walks on the far side of the road.

Our biggest problem with Greta after 3+ months on the road is that she wants to go EVERYDAY. She gets very bored when we're parked for a day or more. She sleeps in the backseat in her seat belt on her doggie pillow most of the day and sometimes sits between us in the front if the traffic is light, always wearing her seatbelt.

Just today I saw a lady who had a narrow ramp into her motorhome for her older lab, who was reluctant to use it, but it looked like a great solution for a disabled large dog.

[timbuktu78]

i have been fulltiming for about 3 months and have traveled about 6,000 miles with my two 9 1/2 month old jrt's, lucy and cooper (littermates). we had a stick home in slc, utah w/ a small backyard. now, they have a huge field to play in and beach at naval air station corpus christi and previously we were at nas pensacola where they had a leashless beach. they seem to absolutely love the freedom. my "kids" have done fantasically well on the road. like me, they have adjusted to life of FTing...plus they get to see the country and meet all sorts of new people. the only downfall i can think of about having them is i can't be gone for an extended amount of time, but well worth it since they provide so much love and happiness to my life! good luck!!!

[patodonn]

Our semi-little guy, Scooter, (17 lbs terrier "mix") is a delight to have with us. Great company, great alarm system, makes us laugh every day.

Now, the drawbacks...he needs to be walked three times a day. That really impacts on our day-to-day activities. We can ignore one of those walks on any given day if we are gone, but we know he has a 12 hour bladder, so we can't be gone more than that. There can't be any "overnighters" without him.

If we decide to fly from wherever to some "event" (Christening, graduation, family gathering) we have the problem of finding an adequate kennel, and the expense associated. He is just a bit too big to carry in the cabin of an airliner, and we won't ship him in the belly. He is a bit too "hyper" and, secondly, I used to be in the airlines.

Life can be real difficult if he is a "barker". We are very fortunate in that our guy doesn't whine or bark unless there is a stranger too close to the rig. That really limits your activities away from the rig. It is just not fair to subject your neighbors to his noise all day, esp in the sometimes too "close" RV park or camping area parking. We have a case like that right now where we are. A neighbor, three spaces away, works all day and his dog starts barking about 2-3 PM, about an hour or two before "Dad" comes home. No problem for us, but a new next door neighbor had enough after two days and justifiably complained. The owner ended up having to get a noise activated electronic training collar that "zaps" him if it detects a whine or bark and putting it on the little guy. I'm sure it wasn't pleasant for him for a couple of days, but, in the long run, seems to have worked.

Vet stuff isn't a problem. Be sure to keep his shots up, and you may need a Certif of Health for him for various reasons now and then. Definitely, if there is any chanced that you will fly with him.

Since licensing varies from State to State, we just have his old tag on him...never had a problem. We did get him "chipped", and have his collar embroidered with our cell phone number. He has three tags; his old license, a regular tag (name and phone #), and a tag identifying his "chip" circumstance.

All that being said....if we had it all to do over, from just a practical standpoint, we wouldn't have him with us. But, as we all know, it isn't that simple. We delight in having him with us, and work around the problems associated. He is part of "us". However, if and when he is no longer able to be with us, we won't get a "replacement".

Hope that helps in the process...best regards,

[Chaser]

We are traveling with 2 Eskies and 2 cats - cats are in kennels when traveling and we have the back seat in our Dodge folded up with cushions for the dogs, so they are protected from a direct blow (they don't do seat belts - they tasted good though) - so far all travel together well (most of the time) - the "girls" (cats) ride for quite a spell without a break, but all have gotten used to the "other" house and have their beds, toys, food dishes in either place - we do spend extra time with each of them, but think it assures us more than them, that all is ok. We didn't plan to have 4 pets to travel with but since we are going to one place for several months - figure we will continue to survive them, and them - us - now if the humans could just ride and be nice (Just kidding)

Evy Orlob (MOC #2310)

[Montana Sky]

I have a 7 month old Shi-tzu and she is truly something else. She is so funny there are days I find myself with tears running down my face from laughing at her. And then there are the other days I find myself screaming mad, like two weeks ago when I left in the coach and was gone from 45mins. In that time little miss Dakota managed to tear into two of my sofa coushins and nest in them. So next week when the coach goes in for winterization I am having dealership ordering two replacements. This one replaced a 14yr old Lasa apso(sp?) and he was the exact opposite. He did not really like strangers and was happy as could be just laying in his bed doing his thing. Was a barker when folks got to close to the coach, otherwise he was silent. Little Miss Dakota is for the most part silent and now lives in her kennel when I leave the coach, found it works better for her and myself. I said when the last one died I would not be replacing him, and sure enough less than a year later I have another. The nicest part about her is she has stopped growing and is 7.5 lbs and pretty small overall. =) I will say it now but I have at least 12 more years to re-think this one, but when she goes, THERE WILL NOT BE A THIRD REPLACEMENT.

[firetrucker]

We have travelled with four dogs (two Shih Tzus and two Siberians until we lost one of our Sibes in January). That was one of the reasons we ended up with the big red Volvo as our tow vehicle. It's really hard to leave the kids behind.

We have a folding plastic ramp that all the dogs use for the trailer and the Sibe uses for the truck. I clamp it to one side of the steps on the 3400 so we can all get in and out with a minimum of hassle.

Hadn't thought about kenneling them in the truck, but they're all on the floor. Should probably consider at least hooking up their harnesses, which they always wear.

Afternoon is their nap time, so any scouting around is typically done during that 3 to 4 hour time frame unless they go with us. The Shih Tzus are watch dogs, but nap time usually supersedes that responsibility. The Sibe is kennel trained, so that keeps the little ones from becoming mcnuggets (they get along just fine when were all together, but why take a chance). With the television on, it makes it more like home, so there's less concern about what going on outside. Two years ago we got into Great Falls, MT during a violent lightning storm, and, after doing the quickest setup on record, we settled down inside with the TV turned up and had no problems. Familiarity helps.

The Sibe is the most demanding as far as wanting to get out and explore, and I probably hike between 3 to 5 miles a day. Works for both of us, though. More comfortable than setting up a pen outdoors, which we've done in the past, cleaner, and more secure.

All the dogs are "chipped", in harness, and the big puppy wears a collar with limited information attached. We use the retractible leashes, which give them a little more freedom. They hang nicely inside the entry closet for quick access. An LED or incandescent headlamp completes the outfit at night.

Kennel training is probably the most important thing you can do for your dogs. It becomes their den, safe haven, as long as it isn't used for punishment. They can retreat to it when they feel insecure, and, since the door isn't normally closed, they don't feel confined. It's a great way to control most any situation.

Bob