Well, we are off! Off on our summer adventure! Which means we won’t set foot back at our house or property for the next 6 weeks. We have packed up the kids and the goldens (who are really just two more of the kids) and loaded the truck and trailer for a grand adventure.
Maybe you have seen a couple of our recent posts about traveling with pets. All things that need to be thought through. Today we want to show you our set up and essentials we have found are a need for this trip and thanks to Amazon we were able to order a bunch of the necessities and not have to go out looking for items allowing us to focus on our trip preparation.
Let’s start with the basics. You need food, water and a place for them to sleep and travel. We have a unique set up where we had to get a little creative since Lady’s planned cycle is during part of our trip.
Food: Know how much your dog goes through in the length of time you plan on being gone and plan to take that much food with you. Yep! You want to take it with you. You don’t know if you will be able to find your brand of dog food on the road when you run out. If you aren’t able to take (in our case) 6 weeks worth of food with you, then do your research ahead of time and know where you can pick some up along the way and plan for a stop. We purchased these awesome collapsible bowls off of Amazon for them.
Water: This one is VERY important, especially during the summer months if you are traveling anywhere hot. In our case we will be hitting 90-100 degree weather so we had to put some extra thought into how we were going to make water available 24/7 to our pups and how we were going to make sure we carried extra along with us.
Sleep: This one is two fold for us. They need a place to be while traveling from place to place and a place to be while we are parked. In our case they have a nice bed next to the AC in the trailer and in the truck we have built a platform up against the truck window and sealed it so the AC flows from the cab to the back of the truck bed keeping them comfortable.
Healthcare: Another item that is essential for any traveling golden is a pet first aid kit. You can purchase a basic pet first aid kit like we did, but know that it is missing some key essentials that you will have to purchase separately.
Our first aid kit includes both preventative and emergency supplies.
Preventative Supplies: Every dog needs to have protection against heat. Dogs can’t sweat and therefore their 
temperature can rise much faster than ours does, which is why it is important to have a way in which they can cool themselves both inside and outside. We opted to install AC in our old trailer and pump the AC from our truck to the bed allowing them to stay cool. We also try and find as many watering holes as we can to keep them happy campers. Another important preventative measure is tick and flea treatment. This can be in the form of a pill or a simple essential oil spray. We opt for the essential oil spray which is topical and can be applied in areas where ticks and fleas are common. Bugs tend to bite around their eyes and faces and this can cause irritation.
Emergency Supplies: Emergency supplies are very important. Even if you don’t think that you will need them they 
are always good to have on hand in case you encounter an emergency situation. In addition to the First Aid Pet Kit, we chose to add a few items that we felt were critical to have in a first aid kit. We added vet wrap, syringe, and surgical clamps.
Look at your travel plans, look at the weather conditions, look at the terrain you are traveling and plan accordingly.
