10 Essential Things To Bring When RVing Or Camping With Your Dog

10 Essential Things to Bring When RVing or Camping with Your Dog

1) A Color Photo of Your Dog: This is from the “Expect the best…prepare for the worst” way of thinking. If your dog gets lost while traveling, you can take the photo down to the nearest Kinko’s and get “lost dog” posters made. If you don’t have a photo on hand, you’ll be losing valuable time.

2) Pet ID Tags: Go to the nearest Petco or Pet Smart and get a pet identification tag made up that includes your dog’s name and your current phone number. If you have a cell phone, use that number since you may be on the road. This way, if someone finds your dog, they can give you a call.

3) Your Dog’s Regular Food: It’s very important to keep feeding your dog their regular food while traveling. During one RVing trip, we fed our two German Shepard dogs a different variety of the dog food that we usually give them. Boy - was that a mistake. They both had diarrhea for days, even though we slowly introduced it to them in their regular food. After a $200 veterinary bill, I swore that I would always bring plenty of their regular dog food on every trip.

4) Plenty of Bottled Water: This is even more important than food. Keep in mind, water quality varies in different parts of the country. To prevent possible stomach upsets, diarrhea, and water-borne microbes, try to give your dogs bottled water whenever you’re on the road.

5) Sturdy Leashes: Make sure you bring a strong leash with you. During travel, dogs often get lost or killed at highway rest areas. Thus, ALWAYS leash your dog before you open the car door. It always breaks my heart to see people looking for lost dogs at a rest area. Your dog is in a new place with strange people and animals all around. In this scenario, you can’t predict their behavior. They could get spooked at the slightest thing. So, be safe and keep them on a sturdy leash.

6) Dog Bed: Even if you’re staying at a pet-friendly hotel; a pet-friendly campground; or your relative’s house; always bring your dogs bed. If they don’t have a bed, get them one. This way, your dog can feel more comfortable and secure. If you have the room in your vehicle, put their bed down so they can sleep during the trip. In our RV, our dogs sleep during the entire trip on their beds.

7) Medication: If your dog takes any kind of medication, make sure that you bring extra for the trip. You may have difficulty on the road finding a vet who is willing to prescribe the same medication (without an examination).

8) Their Toys: Just as with children, toys can help to keep your dog occupied during the trip and while at your destination. It works especially well to buy a new toy just for the trip. With our last two dogs, we didn’t realize, until they were three years old, that all dogs love toys. We always thought they liked toys as puppies, but didn’t really need them as adults. Boy, were we wrong, Our two adult dogs now have an entire box full of toys. Every night, they each go to the box and rummage through it to find a toy for the evening!

9) Treats: Sometimes dogs can get bored or over-excited on a trip and start to misbehave. If you bring along some special treats, it can help. However, just as with food and water, don’t try a new treat while on a trip. You want to keep everything that goes into their mouth the same as always. This will help to prevent an upset stomach and intestinal disorders while on the road.

10) Pet Friendly Directories: There are many pet-friendly directories for traveling with dogs, (including one that we wrote for pet-friendly campgrounds). Make sure that you bring one with you. It just makes your life so much easier to know, ahead of time, that a motel, bed and breakfast, or campground welcomes your dog. However, even though a place might be listed in a directory, always call ahead to double check that they accept your dog.

About The Author: Jack and Julee Meltzer have traveled more than 150,000 miles with dogs across the United States. They presently live fulltime in a Class A motorhome with two large dogs and three cats. They have written three books for the RV Market including: “Camping and RVing with Dogs”, “The RV Makeover Bible”, and “The Smart RVers Guide to Saving Money”. They are experienced writers and photojournalists working on an upcoming book on RV Accessories. Available through RVBookstore.com, woodalls.com and Amazon.com website: http://www.desertwindspress.com