Dog-friendly travel can be super fun. You’re sharing experiences and making memories with your furry best friend. But without the right preparation, travel with a dog also has the potential to quickly become stressful. Follow these ten best tips for making travel with a pet as smooth as possible.
1. Start with preparation, not the journey
The most successful pet-friendly trips start way before you actually leave home. Start with essential research and be sure that you understand everything you’ll need in order to travel with your pet from vaccines to paperwork. Never rely on your veterinarian alone to help get you organized, and make a checklist of what you’ll need and when.
2. Get the basics packed (and easy to access)
Make sure that alongside the obvious essentials like food and water for your pet, you also pack things like an extra leash in cash your regular leash breaks, towels, treats, waste bags, and a well stocked pet first aid kit. Keep everything together and within easy reach. Consider purchasing a travel bag for your dog, as you don’t want everything scattered across multiple bags.
3. Prepare your dog for their travel day
It’s okay to break routine and feed your dog a couple of hours before setting off. If they eat too close to travel time, it can increase the possibility of motion sickness. It’s best to stick to hydration while only while traveling, especially if your dog is new to travel or gets motion sickness.
Also plan to take your pup on a long walk not only the morning of your trip, but take them on extra long walks and play some extra fetch for a few days leading up to your trip. This helps your pet to burn off some excess energy, and it also gives the chance to relieve themselves before a long leg of travel starts.
4. Make safety non-negotiable
It’s always best to properly restrain your dog in a moving vehicle, whether in an impact dog crate or using a seat belt harness and divider to keep your pup secure behind you. It can be tempting to let them roam freely, but it’s just too distracting for a driver and things like open windows can be a dangerous temptation. In some places, it can even be the law to have your dog properly secured in the vehicle.
5. Plan regular breaks
Just as people need to stop and stretch their legs, so does your pet. Long journeys can be uncomfortable for pups, so plan to stop every couple of hours to let them stretch, have potty breaks, get a drink of water, and have some fresh air.
6. Keep the environment calm
Dogs can be very sensitive to their owner’s mood, so try to keep the journey as calm as possible. This means lowering the volume of music and a steady driving style. Try to avoid a rushed departure so that you start the journey off on the best possible tone.
7. Prepare a dedicated walk kit
Walk kits are essential for smooth travel. Put together a bag of essentials like a leash, waste bags, treats and a collapsible water bowl. An instant kit that you can easily grab means you can take your pup on a much needed stroll when the opportunity arises without searching through your luggage.
8. Manage temperature carefully
Cars can heat up and cool down much more quickly than a house or apartment, so make sure that you maintain a comfortable temperature for your pup. Ventilation and shade are key to preventing overheating in the summer months. And it goes without saying, never leave your pet alone in a parked car.
9. Keep your dog secure, but comfortable
A secure dog is a safe dog, but this shouldn’t come at the expense of comfort. Make sure that with whatever crate or harness setup you have, your pup has enough space to be able to sit or lie down in a natural way. Add some soft bedding to make it feel even more comfortable and relaxing.
10. Stick to familiar routines
Dogs thrive on routine. Once you arrive at your destination, try to keep your pup’s routine as normal as possible. Stick to regular feeding times, walk times and rest periods and that will help them adjust to their new surroundings much quicker.
Ultimately, each dog reacts differently to being on the road, but keeping these ten tips in mind will give you a good foundation for figuring it out as you go and making sure that all human and animal travelers are as happy and relaxed as they can be.
