Anutta Blog

Life With Poodles

Traveling with dogs- Part 1

by | Jul 27, 2015 | Uncategorized | 5 comments

This is a topic near and dear to my heart.  I take my dogs everywhere, no matter the distance or time of year.  Being a military family, I have never had the luxury of simply letting a family member ‘pet sit’ the pups while we travel.  Oh I have used pet sitters in the past and if I must do it, I will.  However, I have found taking them with us is both rewarding and more relaxing, and here is why.  If you bring the dog, you are forced to have a lighter schedule.  Dogs cannot go 12 hours without some sort of mental or physical break, which in turn makes you become more aware of how much time you are spending in a specific activity.

So, how do I make traveling with my crew as pain free as possible?  Well generally when we travel, we rent a house or condo off VRBO.com or HomeAway.com  Those are sister sites run by the same company and I have been using both for about 15 years.  I’ve had nothing but good experiences, but I believe it is because I take a few precautions.

1.  I never rent from anyone who doesn’t have a list of recent reviews on the company website.   If they sent you to an outside website with glowing reviews, but nothing listed on the Home Away site, I would NOT use that person.  It could be a scam or weighted reviews from staff.   You can’t post a review on the Home Away unless you use that site.  The owner of the property must pay a fee to have their property listed, which might translate to a slightly higher rental cost, but in my mind the knowledge that I am dealing with a real person, with real reviews from recent real renters is worth a few extra dollars.  There is saving money and there is being stupid.

2.  I am totally honest about the number of dogs, sizes, and ages of my dogs.  I don’t want their to be any surprises to the rental company or owner, whoever might be handling the transaction.  I am clear that these are Standard Poodles, but also they are well trained, will be crated and kept off the furniture and out of the pool.  I’ve been turned down once or twice due to size restrictions of the condo’s HOA, which is totally out of the control of the owner or rental company.

3.  I purchase insurance from Home Away or VRBO just in case there are any damages.  I haven’t had any, but honestly with multiple dogs and 2 kids… it could happen.  It makes the owners feel comfortable renting to me and makes me feel safer knowing we are covered.  Plus it insures the property is exactly as described, which is important.

July 12th we left for a surprise one week trip to Disney World.  When planning a vacation you should always consider all the options.  With this trip I had 3 good choices to consider.

Option 1:  Drive to Arkansas so my sister could watch the dogs (which I have done many times), then fly out of AR.  My sister is awesome and watches the dogs for a bag of dog food and a souvenir or two.  This makes boarding almost free, but we would need to fly and flying is never cheap.

Option 2: Hire a pet sitter or board the dogs with a good friend who does boarding here in Huntsville.  This was a good option, I have friends I trust and it wouldn’t be out of the question to have someone watch the pups while we were gone.

Option 3.  Take the dogs with us.

Each time I travel, I have to weigh these same three questions.  It really depends on what I can find for accommodations.  We did Disney about 3 years ago and took the dogs then, so I knew the routine and if I wanted to deal with having them with us.  Mainly it came down to “Do we want to stay at a Disney Resort OR do we want to bring the dogs and stay in a single family home”.  You can stay at the Disney Fort Wilderness campgrounds with animals, but the pet loop (they only have one section for travelers with pets) was booked solid the week we wanted to go.  By the time I factored in the cost of boarding / pet sitting for the dogs, the cost of a nice Disney resort, possible need for a flight if I took them to AR for Lisa to watch… I landed on renting a home.  For our trip to Hawaii, I had to take the kids to Arkansas to stay with my mother-in-law so it was an easy choice to take the dogs as well and leave them at their favorite Aunt’s home.   Be flexible and go with what will work best for each trip.

Nine times out of ten, the most cost affective trip will be the one you take the dogs with you on, and not just because you are saving money on pet sitting or boarding.  Here was an average day for us at Disney World.  Wake up, eat breakfast in our rental home, gather our gear and snacks, then go to the park for about 4 hours.  Return back to the house to take care of the dogs and let them have some ‘out of crate time’.  While we are home, eat lunch, resupply with snacks and frozen waters to keep cool, and relax for an hour or two (NAPS!!!).  Then head back to the park from about 5pm until closing.  If you are doing Disney in the summer, you miss the heat of the day.  Seriously… it was the only way to do Disney in July.  We purchased a few snacks at the park like ice cream or smoothies to keep cool, and sprung for a nice dinner at the park to close the day.  I’m guessing we saved between 60-100$ a day in meals/snacks alone, all because we HAD to go back home to take care of the dogs.  We couldn’t just grab some park food and keep going.  Yes, we were tired after 7 days of fun in the sun, but we were not exhausted.

The cost to rent this pet friendly home was $800 for the week, which included the cleaning fee and she didn’t take a pet deposit because I was opting for the Home Away insurance.  We are talking a 4 bedroom, 3 bath home with a pool, spa, and garage converted to a game room with air hockey and other games.  Keith’s parents came down from Monday to Friday and there was plenty of room for everyone.  With insurance added we were still under $1000 for the week.

But Becky, sometimes there are days where I must stay out longer!  Remember, if you are going to do something that requires a long day, you can always do a one day ‘doggy daycare’ at a local facility.  Disney World has an amazing kennel / doggy daycare.  Use it if you need it.  Keith’s mom texted me that Kennedy Space Center was doing a launch on Wednesday the week we were going to be in Florida.  I’ve never seen a launch.  It was one of those bucket list items for me, so we HAD to make this work.   I checked distance and travel time and found it was a 1.5 hour drive from our rental home in Orlando to the Cocoa area of Florida.  If I left the dogs at home, that would mean a travel time of 3 hours, leaving only a few hours to see the launch and visit the space center before we had to be back to relieve the pups.  I knew that wasn’t an option, so I pop up Google Maps and did a search for Doggy Daycare in the Cocoa area.  Kennedy Space Center had a kennel, but I’ve had experience with places like that before and didn’t want them shoved in some tiny little cell like you see at a vet in some off the path air conditioned ‘kennel’ with little to no staff.  I wanted them to have room and be placed together, with people who watch dogs for a living.  After reading reviews of about 10 different places, I landed on Barkingham Palace for a few reasons.  1.  They had decent reviews.  2.  They were competitively priced.  3.  They had the layout I wanted with large rooms where the dogs had beds and could be kept as a group.  4.  The owners show Golden Retrievers in AKC.   Number four was a bonus, but a nice one.   The cost was $50 for the day and worth every penny.  The dogs were not stressed when I picked them up that afternoon, which was ideal.  We were able to spend the day at Kennedy and the dogs were safe not 10 miles from our location.  It was a win / win.  One of their groomers came out as we were leaving to let me know she had enjoyed playing with my crew while they were there.  She was an experienced Std Poodle owner and lover, and lost her last one a few months prior to old age.   You never know when you are going to run into someone who loves these guys as much as you do!  Hopefully Jazz and River gave her a bit of nostalgia and a warm poodle smile or two.  I have no doubt there was forced cuddle time involved, I know my dogs to well.  If a hand is present and not scratching them, something is dreadfully wrong.

I think this is enough for one day.  Tomorrow I will talk logistic.  What should you pack?  How to drive with a crew of pups in the car.  What your dogs should know and how you can teach them before you travel with them to someone’s home or stay in a hotel.

Here are a few photos from our trip.  These were all taken with my phone.  I haven’t even downloaded the photos from my fancy camera.  I know I am a slacker.

Oh no, Bruce ate my kids!!  Kids are friends, not food!

 

Animal Kingdom.  It is my favorite park (big surprise, right?)

Our trip to Kennedy Space Center with Keith’s parents.

Our private pool with spa at the rental house.

 

So many princesses, so little time!