How To: Road Tripping with Your Four Legged Best Friend

Road Tripping With Man’s (or Woman’s) Best Friend

I recently decided to do a long “Spring Break” road trip through Arizona and Utah, and decided to make my furry canine best friend, Kita, as my traveling companion.
When traveling with your furry best friend, there are certainly lots of considerations to take into account before planning the trip. Here are some tips on what I learned on my adventure with Kita.

1. Make sure your dog is safe and easily travels in the car. Many dogs don’t sit still and get rambunctious in the car while many others get carsick. Many dogs do better riding in their crates or using a harness seatbelt. While these are recommended, I haven’t found one that yet that will allow Kita to lay down on her bed in the car. Most of the seatbelts require the dog to sit up the whole time. I am lucky in that Kita doesn’t get carsick and likes to stay in the backseat curled up on her bed from home.

2.Plan your route or routes carefully. I have heard some of the rest stops on certain freeways and particular states don’t allow dogs or certain breeds of dogs. I did not find this to be the case on my routes. I actually found several rest stops which had signs leading to designated “Pet Exercise Areas” which were usually located away from the entrance. But make sure you know there are and that they exist because pulling over on the side of the road is not safe for you or your dog.

3.Make sure to pack carefully for your dog. Dogs typically want to be with their owners and go where they go, but you can make them more comfortable away from home if you bring some aspect of home with you. I made sure to pack Kita’s bed and favorite blanket from home. They smell like her, me and our house. I also pack her “bear,” her favorite toy from home, in addition to enough food for the time away, bowls, and treats.

4.Make sure he or she drinks enough water, especially in hot, dry weather. Since we were traveling through the desert, I wanted to make sure she didn’t get overheated or dehydrated. Normally, she is great at drinking water when she needs it, but when in the car for long periods of time, I can’t leave water out in the car as it spills easily over everything. At every stop, I got her out of the car and drinking water.

5.Make sure all vaccinations, licenses and other identification are up to date and carry the copies with you. This will ensure your pet’s health if he or she comes into contact with a disease carrying animal or creature (such as fleas and ticks) that may not be prevalent in your home area. Or worse, if your dog does bite or scratch another animal or person, you can show proof that your dog is vaccinated. These also may be required if you need to use a boarding or daycare facility along the way.

6.Carry photos of your dog. This is just in case the worst happens and your dog gets lost, you have photos of your dog to make for flyers and to post around the area.

7.Locate pet friendly lodging on your route, book early, and be sure to understand the pet policies. Do they charge an additional fee? Can they be left unattended? Are their breed restrictions? Sneaking your dog into the hotel or motel might cause problems if you are caught and have to leave suddenly. Many hotel and motel chains now accept pets, but many have additional fees, and/or breed and size restrictions. Kita and I recommend the Motel 6 chain which advertises on their web site that they are pet friendly. They charge no additional fees and they only restriction is one well behaved pet per room. They list on their policies that pets are not allowed to be unattended, but this can be different on a hotel by hotel basis. Some of our individual motel managers said it was okay to leave the pet in the room as long as it was understood the room wasn’t going to be cleaned, and that the pet didn’t do any damage to the room. I did bring my anti-bark device with me so that I could keep Kita’s noise down to a minimum.

8.Research places along your route where your dog can and cannot go. Our trip included a visit to Grand Canyon National Park. Every national park and national monument has its own website and I found that most of them listed the pet policy on it. At the Canyon, dogs are allowed on trails and areas above the rim, but not below. I was not planning on going below the rim. However, upon further research, there were some places in the Grand Canyon Village such as the El Tovar Hotel, Hopi House, and all the visitor’s centers where dogs could not go. In addition, there is a shuttle bus that runs to points in the park where no vehicles can go. These are not dog friendly either unless you have a service dog. Since this was my first visit to the park, I left Kita in a kennel in Williams, Arizona where we stayed to explore these. On the second day in the park, Kita and I were able to drive down the East Rim Drive and stop at all the viewpoints along the way, all of which were dog friendly.

I had also researched on pet friendly web sites ahead of time what restaurants in each location were dog friendly. Typically nowadays all the restaurant requires is an outdoor seating area in order to allow dogs. But you need to always ask the manager just to be sure. You also need to make sure you dog is well behaved and doesn’t try to beg, bark or otherwise disturb other patrons. I have found that all you have to do is ask.

9.Know your dog’s limitations and fears. If your dog is older and has trouble moving, then they might not be the best candidate for traveling to begin with. But if you must do it, make sure you do not ask too much of him or her. If they have a fear of heights, children, or other animals, make sure you don’t take them to a place that will compound those fears.

10.Have fun with your dog. This was my first experiencing traveling with a pet, and it was a joyful and entertaining one. Since I had no other human companionship, it was great to have Kita with me to experience it, even if my experiences were more visual and hers were all about smells. She is a very cute, well behaved and happy dog, so she garnered a lot of attention wherever we went. People who were on vacation without their dogs wanted to pet her. People who were amazed a dog could behave so well wanted to let me know it. I don’t have any human children, so this was the equivalent for me getting praise on my well behaved children. And most importantly, your dog, like mine, just wants to be with you, go where you go, and never complains or asks “How much longer until we get there?”

My road trip with Kita was enjoyable and eventful. I felt no limitations on having her with me, in fact, I was pleasantly surprised to find how pet friendly most of the country is and can be just by asking. It seems as if the travel and hospitality industry has come around to how much people treat their pets like family and they want to honor that commitment by allowing you to actually enjoy your vacation with your pet, instead of having it be a hindrance or a nuisance. I will do more road trips in the future with my woman’s best friend, Kita. Maybe we will come out with our own stories called “Travels with Kita.”