Yesterday, as my family was driving back home from a weekend in Oklahoma, I couldn’t get this Taylor Swift song out of my head:
“We are never, ever, ever, getting back together road tripping with dogs again.”
We had good intentions. My son, who is a freshman in college, really misses our dogs (one in particular). I decided it would be no big deal to bring the dogs along on our road trip. We rented a house on airbnb that accepted dogs. I got some pills from the vet to help calm the dogs in the car. Should be easy, right?
One of our dogs took the medication with ease (she eats anything and everything). She was pretty chill.
Our other dog outsmarted us every time we tried a new way to get her to take the medication. Peanut butter, cheese, pill pockets….nope, she spit out the medication every time. But somehow, we finally got her to ingest the medication, and off we went.
Our rental house was fine, and our dogs enjoyed the big backyard. But, our weekend activities had to revolve around the dogs. We crated them inside the rental house just in case they decided to tear stuff up. We couldn’t just spend the entire day on campus (30-40 minutes away) because we had to come back to the house and let the dogs out. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t terrible.
But, what really made up my mind about not taking the dogs on a road trip was the ride home. Since one of our dogs wouldn’t even bite the outside of a pill pocket anymore, my husband got the idea to mix the pill with part of a sausage patty from McDonalds. That did the trick, and both dogs gobbled down their sausage with a side of calming medicine.
Unfortunately, the medicine did not seem to work as well as it did the first time. The dogs were jumping all over our laps. My son’s legs look like he got in a fight with Edward Scissorhands.
But wait, it gets worse. Apparently, that sausage patty gave my dogs some major gas. About every 15 minutes, it smelled like a fart bomb went off in the car. We had to open the windows for a few minutes each time. We were literally gagging.
Just when we thought the gas bomb phase was over and we breathed a sigh of relief, our dog let another bomb go. It lasted the entire trip home.
I’m sure we will laugh about this trip someday. All 5 of us agreed: No more road tripping with our dogs! My college son even agreed. If my dogs could talk, I bet they would agree too. They are much more comfortable with a dog sitter inside our own house.
So, lesson learned. Do any of you have success traveling with your dogs?
Author: Nancy
Nancy lives near Dallas, Texas, with her husband and three kids. Her favorite vacations include the beach, cruising and everything Disney.
We took one of our dogs (we have 3 now ) for a night in the city. We thought walking around and eating outside, staying in a hotel would be fun But come nighttime he was barking at every little noise and our hotel had alot of foot traffic so we got no sleep!
@Boonie Oh no! That doesn’t sound like a good night.
“I’m sure we will laugh about this trip someday.”
Well, I’m laughing reading this! It reminded me of a time when I was a kid; We took the family dog to my grandparents house. My grandmother made a turkey and gave the dog the giblets. That drive home was the longest hour of our lives. Bombs? My word that dog was dropping some nukes!
@reflectiveshadow So you can relate! Funny how you still remember that trip home with your dog from your childhood. 🙂
I don’t understand people who take their dogs on trips. That would NOT be relaxing for me. On the flip side boarding is super expensive – it’s often our highest out of pocket cost for a trip and when you travel as much as we do it really adds up!
Correct, not relaxing at all! Boarding and pet sitting are both expensive, especially when we’re gone for 2 weeks.
Dogs are amazing, but not so conducive to traveling, are they?!. I think of that every time we have to pay someone to watch them.
Thanks for the humor this morning. You painted the picture really well. I couldn’t stop laughing!
@Mark Glad you could find the humor in it. I’m almost ready to laugh about it myself. 🙂