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Roadtripping with Dogs: Part 3 – Exercise and National Parks

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In this post we will discuss how mental and physical exercise are a critical component to happy and healthy dogs on your road trip. We will discuss accommodating exercise wherever you happen to be. We will also talk about how to schedule your time when the humans are planning on spending time in the national parks.

 

Mental and Physical Exercise:
  • Make stops to take long walks and stretch your dogs’ legs: we like to power through when we drive long distances but we always make a point to stop at intervals to take a good 30-45 minute walk so the dogs can get a stretch. We do take short potty breaks every few hours, but we also stop every 6-7 hours for long-line walks.
  • Bring a long-line: Maybe your dog is great off-leash but there are a lot of places where leashes are required by law. When that is the case, I love to take out my 30-foot line and allow my dogs to stretch their legs and roam a bit. I have an awesome biothane one that never gets dirty or wet! I love it!
  • Bring LOTS of chewing projects to keep your dogs occupied. Before going on our trip I ordered enough bully sticks for each dog to have one a day if needed, along with one trachea a day. I also brought kongs that I could fill and freeze in the hotel freezers, along with their typical food dispensing toys. With working for their food, having plenty of appropriate things to chew on, and stopping at a bunch of new places, they weathered the 8000 miles of driving very well!
  • Travel Hack: Fill a Kong with peanut butter from the continental breakfast mixed with kibble and place in the hotel freezer to give when you have to leave your dog behind in the hotel and you forgot something to re-fill the kong with!
  • If you plan on leaving your dog alone in the room, or just generally want them to behave well on your trip, exercise is crucial! We like to get up early and take care of the dogs needs before we head out on our own, especially in National Parks that tend not to be dog friendly. Take a couple mile stroll through your new surroundings or find a local park where you can play ball and burn off some energy to start the day. There wasn’t much in the way of places to walk in Wall, SD but we did find an awesome field to let the dogs run and play in. You have to be flexible and creative!
  • Sometimes it’s too hot to exercise your dog in the middle of the day (like in Arches when it was 104 mid-day!). That’s when you can get creative in your hotel room. Over the years I have taught many tricks in a hotel room including get me a tissue, put away the trash, turn lights on and off, put down the toilet seat, open and close doors, etc. You can even play hide and seek with your dog in a small hotel room. Your dog will burn energy when you call him and you’re hiding behind the bed or behind the shower curtain. There are a lot of fun games you can make up to do in small spaces so your dog can get mental exercise!

Schedule for National Parks:
  • What worked really well for us, especially in the summer heat, was to wake up early and exercise the dogs. At that point we would head into the park. Six to eight hours later we would come home to let the dogs out. This allowed us to do longer eight mile or so hikes while still being able to accommodate the dogs. After some play and exercise with the dogs we would head back to the park for another couple hours. This also gave us a nice break during the day as we were doing a marathon of different parks and this allowed us to not burn out.
  • Check with the park about where dogs are allowed. Most allow them 100 feet from paved roads and in campgrounds. Some parks have dog friendly trails or sections like Zion National Park. Take advantage of those areas when you can.
  • Our dogs are used to hanging in the car (they come to work with me on days when its not hot out) so in the places where temps were in the 50s all day, taking them was even easier as we just left them in the car for our shorter hikes and then they were able to sit outside and have dinner with us in the park and have a walk around.
  • Tip: Check out the parking situation before you go into the park. We didn’t know there wasn’t enough parking at Zion and we would have to take a bus into the park to take another bus to the hike we wanted to do. This would add time to our planned time away from the dogs who were hanging out in the hotel room. Luckily when we went into the park in the morning to walk the dogs we found out and were able to make adjustments to our schedule and plans. Be flexible and try to gather as much information beforehand as possible
  • Have fun and relax! The point of going on these fabulous trips is to enjoy this country with your best friend by your side. So plan ahead as much as possible and then sit back, relax, and take in the gorgeous country that we get to call home.

 

I hope these posts have given you some ideas to consider when preparing for a road trip with your dog. Yes, it’s a little extra work to bring Fido, but it’s totally doable with a little extra planning! Happy Roadtripping!

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Roadtripping with your Dog: Part 2 – Food and Lodging

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Choosing where to stay can be critical for having a successful trip. Overall, for never having been to any of these locations, we planned our accommodations well. However, we stayed in a couple of places that were just a bit too far from the park to make driving in and out easy. If I did it again I would stay as close to the park as possible (we were only a few minutes drive into Zion and Arches vs. 30 minutes from the entrance to Glacier and Yellowstone). An option we will likely explore next year will be staying in the parks in a camper van to cut our travel times. Read on to learn more about picking a location, along with food considerations for your pup.
Food and packing can either cause frustration or be something you don’t even have to worry about on the trip. Here are some tips on dealing with diet and packing.

Food:

  • Make any food switches beforehand: I feed a diet made up of half raw food and half kibble. I knew I didn’t want to deal with feeding raw on the road so I started switching them over to a dehydrated raw two months before the trip. This way there was no digestive upset from an abrupt change when traveling.
  • Bring enough food for emergencies where you may have to spend extra days in a location. While some dog foods are available everywhere, I have been in many towns that don’t have a good selection and abrupt food changes can be hard on your dog.
  • Store your food, treats, and chews in a large plastic bin so your dog can’t get to them, a
    nd other items can easily be stacked on top. It’s nice to have everything dog related in one place in the car so you can feel organized.
  • Make sure you bring any flea/tick or heartworm medication if you are going to be on an extended trip. Set an alarm on your cell phone since you likely wont be near a calendar to check their medication schedule.

Hotel and Location: For this trip we chose to stay in hotels and rented houses. We chose this option because we were traveling to many national parks and most are not particularly dog friendly. We also knew it would be summer and leaving them in the car would not be an option. Getting hotels and houses to stay in ensured we would have a safe and cool place to leave the dogs when we went to a human-only activity.

  • First, a note on animals: Know the types of animals you may encounter in a given location. There is a reason dogs are not allowed in certain parts of national parks and it mostly has to do with the animals. Those animals don’t just stay within the park boundaries. They are often in the nearby National Forests that you may be hiking your
    dogs in. Bring bear spray for grizzly country and be watching out for any animals that may be dangerous to you and your dog.
  • Seek out dog friendly locations: Check ahead of time for restaurants that have dog-friendly patio seating, or National Forests that often allow you to hike with your dog right outside the National Parks. When we stayed in Island Park, ID outside of Yellowstone we found an awesome National Forest with a river walk where we could take the dogs and even let them swim before we headed off to Yellowstone.
  • I have traveled all over the country with dogs for many years and I have had a lot of success staying at La Quinta hotels. They are all dog friendly and very rarely have any
    restrictions or fees associated with bringing a pet! Depending on location and time of year, you can typically get a pretty good deal. Many have nice features like the one we stayed in at Arches that had a fenced in dirt yard we could let them run and stretch their legs in.
  • Another great option is dog friendly VRBOs or Air BandBs. We stayed at a mix of the two while on this road trip. I highly recommend bringing your own old sheets to cover the furniture if you allow your dogs on it. This is respectful to the owner of the house and makes clean up a breeze!
  • If you stay in a hotel, I always ask for a room on the first floor by the door. This makes it easy to takes dogs out when necessary and also if they are running around, nobody is below you to complain.
  • White Noise: If you have a pup that’s a bit anxious about the new environment, leaving the TV
    on or bringing a radio or white noise machine can help drown out unfamiliar noises. We do both when we leave.
  • Bring extra dog towels. I like to have extras so you have some to dry your dog off, use as a bed or mat and also to put down on the floor if your dog is eating a marrow bone or something messy.
  • Security Camera: I brought my Canary home monitoring system with us on the road to keep tabs on the dogs. If you are renting a private home/apartment with wi-fi this can work really well as an extra set of eyes on your dogs while you are away.
  • Travel Hack: If you forget your water bowl in the car, you can always use the ice bucket as a temporary water dish.

Next week we will discuss how to how to exercise your dog on the road and how to schedule your time in the National Parks to accommodate your dogs

 

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Training Tips

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Last month was National Train Your Dog Month.  As part of the effort to educate others on positive reinforcement I was asked to write an article for VitaBone on helpful tips to get started training your dog. You can find that article HERE. The winter is a great time to start training your dog because better weather is right around the corner. Show off your dogs skills this spring by starting training today! It only takes a few minutes a day to get a better behaved dog!

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