Taking care of your canine while traveling
Diane Spitaliere of Alexandria, Va., in her car with her dog Izzie on Nov. 2, 2012. Credit: AP / Manuel Balce Ceneta
If you’re hitting your favorite hotel on the beach for the weekend or traveling to the mountains for a week, chances are you might not need to worry too much about dealing with your dog’s health or behavioral confusion. Hit the road with them full time like we have for the past four months however, and things are bound to come up that you never could have predicted.
Hygiene: I thought I understood just how stinky the inside of a car could get after having taken our pooch on numerous long weekend getaways and a couple of cross-country trips. After a few straight weeks of daily excursions however, she had truly set a new gold standard. Wet fur, gassy bowels and seriously heinous dog breath had combined to produce an aroma that was rapidly becoming intolerable.
I found a solution in Arm & Hammer’s refrigerator filter. For less than $4, this baking-soda-filled disc with suction cups has clung to our rear Jeep window absorbing excess odors for some time now. Purchasing a replacement has proved a bit challenging at our last few grocery stops, so it may be time to schedule a mail-order delivery to one of our upcoming hotels.
Self-serve washing facilities for dogs are becoming a somewhat frequent offering throughout the country, although you certainly can’t count on having access to one wherever you go. Such was our dilemma recently when a less experienced staff member at a doggy daycare we were using decided it was a good idea to let a Labrador play outside in the mud all day. Since this particular daycare didn’t offer bathing services and we had just given the vehicle its first top-to-bottom interior cleaning since we hit the road in June, we were less than amused to say the least.
We arrived back at the hotel with the added problem of navigating to our room and channeling said pooch immediately into the tiled bathroom without touching any bed linens, painted walls or ironed outfits for that evening’s activities. From there we were left with the challenge of determining the best method to get her clean with no hand-held shower head to aid our efforts. The only tool at our disposal? A foam coffee cup that was part of our room’s amenity collection. Suffice it to say, our dinner schedule was delayed and the process was far from pretty. That said, she did eventually get clean and we learned the valuable lesson of how necessary it is to let care providers know if we are staying in a hotel with limited dog bathing options.
Documentation: If frequent doggy daycare in new destinations is as much a part of your travel strategy as it is ours, having the proper paperwork is a large piece of that puzzle. Having scanned copies of shot records from your vet helps you handle last-minute care access without having to wait until the next day to request forwarding of the records. This can come up frequently if you travel in an area that is several time zones behind where your vet’s office is located. Rather than needing to have your vet constantly send the records, you can print them out from your cloud storage account or thumb drive at the hotel business center. Some daycare facilities will even let you forward your electronic copy to their office. This reduces time demands on the veterinary support staff, and maintains goodwill for when you need to call from the road with a last-minute request.
Routine: Just like children, dogs benefit from the structure of routine when it comes to feeling secure. While things are certainly in flux from day to day as far as destinations and activities go, we do try to maintain a predictable routine for Maggie when it comes to certain procedures and times of day. For example, she always gets a bowl of water and food immediately after her first outdoor potty break in the morning. These are the first three things that happen when she gets up, and if we happen to sleep through the tag-jingling behavior she uses to gain our attention, she will come and nudge us until one parent or the other is vertical and attaching her leash.
Another routine she has come to rely on is one of her service humans putting tiny snacks into her spot in the back of the Jeep before she gets inside. This way, she has a small reward for letting us assist her with a harness when we need to hit the road for the day. She can also typically smell when there’s a hotel breakfast offering, and has come to expect one of us bringing her back at least a link sausage as we take turns getting food while one of us stays with her in the room. Her goodnight routine has remained exactly the same as it was at home, along with the way her medications are administered.
Coordinating your pet’s care needs on the road long term may not be as simple as it is for shorter getaways, but it can be accomplished. If full-time travel with your dog is something you’re considering, be advised that systemic routines, regular use of support services and a good relationship with your family veterinarian will be critical pieces of your travel puzzle.
