Family Travel Must Haves: #3 Traveling with Families Best Friend

In many families dogs are considered to be family members, and accompany families on trips, when possible. But not all trips are pet friendly, and it's common for dogs to be boarded or left with friends or family on vacation. 

If your considering taking a Route 66 trip, I might be able to help you find ways of bringing your dog (or even cat) with so you can enjoy your trip without worrying about the family member left behind. 

Where to Stay?

The first thing a lot of people worry about is finding a place to stay with their pet. True, not all hotels and motels will allow you to bring a dog in with you, but many establishments are pet friendly, some even friendlier if you pay a little extra. 

One easy way to find a pet friendly hotel or motel is the Pet Friendly app available for iPhones. 

This app allows you to search for hotels and motels that accept dogs of certain weights, and allows you to search by town name or zip code. On the road you will find this app is a great tool for helping you find places that will take your pets, without have to search individual motel website or make phone calls. 

This app is one of was the first if it kind, but there are many others out there now as too. Also if your in doubt as to whether a hotel or motel takes pets it always helps to call ahead and find out. 

Packing for Doggy (or Kitty)

Luckily there are a lot of people traveling with their pets now days, which means there are a lot of pet travel products out now days. One of that best items out there for travel is the collapsible pet bowl set. 

The set as you can see above is in the set up position. In holds about 2 cups of food and water, which depending on the size of your dog may be a full days food, or just part of a days food. 

The bowls collapse, and the legs fold down, and can easily fit in a backpack. Also if you put messy soft food in the bowls easily pop out so you can clean them individually, without cleaning the whole set. 

As far as carrying food and water many pet owners keep a special bottle of water set aside for doggy. A regular bottle of water is often more the enough to keep doggy hydrated at a meal time, or after a long walk. As for dry food one great method is to put aside an empty 28 oz plastic peanut butter jar, after cleaning it out it can hold a serving or two of dog food, plus the lingering peanut butter smell will really keep doggy happy. The jar may not be enough to keep doggy fed for the whole trip but it will allow you to control daily food more easily.  

The bowl set and food and water storage methods listed here will work for kitty too.

 Walking with Doggy

There are lots of leashes and pick up bags out there. But when walking with doggy there is another cool gadget out there you should know about. 

This is a special harness your dog can wear. This allows you to have doggy carry some of the stuff they need to support themselves, on the trail, or just on walks around the park. Plus it doubles as doggy's suitcase for your trip.