Traveling the US with Puppies
Have you ever seen those families that travel around the Country full time? I follow a few families like that on Instagram, and I've aways envied them. I thought to myself, if they can do it, why can't I? I got myself really excited about the idea of traveling around to the different National Parks in our country and photographing all the beauty the United States has to offer. I was researching locations and deep in my daydream, when I suddenly remembered two small roadblocks. I have four kids and own a dog breeding business. So, my plans of traveling around the country seemed like an impossibility. But, I was determined. I *really* wanted to show my kids that their world was bigger than little ol' Iowa, but I wasn't sure how we would travel with a litter of puppies. We started researching Rv's and motorhomes and must have toured a few dozen of them, but none of them would work for what we needed. We decided what we needed, would have to be custom built. So, we began our search for the perfect vehicle to transform into our home on wheels. A bus! We found a 55 passenger coach in California, and we bought it!
Over the course of the next 15 months, Andrew worked hard on transforming our bus into a home. He had to completely gut the inside of the bus, and it required a lot of mechanical work too. I was convinced at some parts during the transformation that it would never get done, but Andrew never wavered.
It was a long process, but the bus is nearing completion now. It boasts a large kitchen, a living room, a full bathroom complete with a normal tub, three bunks, a king sized bed, and also, a full room for our puppies and dogs.
It was a long, hard process, but a few weeks ago, we finally took off on our maiden voyage. We loaded up two dogs, 8 puppies and four kids, and we headed out to Wyoming!
The dogs and puppies did amazing on the trip out, the kids on the other hand, they were a little more difficult.
Every time I peeked in on Daisy's puppies, they were sound asleep. When we arrived at our destinations, we would put up an Xpen at our camp spot and let the puppies out to play. We were definitely the most popular campers at most of our stops!
We spent two weeks on the road and we visited 5 different states! Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, South Dakota and Minnesota. You can see some more of our travels on our facebook page, www.facebook.com/cedarbendlabradoodles We take socialization very serious at Cedar Bend, and I would say this particular litter got more socialization than any of our others! Some of our tips for traveling with dogs and puppies are: Always have multiple leashes! We had a handful of leashes in our bus as well as our van. We took the dogs out every time we stopped and we made sure to always have potty bags attached to the leash too. Which brings me to my next point: Pick up after your dogs and/or puppy. We made sure to clean up after our dogs at every stop and were respectful to the property we were on. Bring gallons of water: A lot of parasites and diseases live and travel in water. We were careful not to let our dogs drink any water from streams or puddles while we traveled. But further more, even drinking city water from new places can cause your dog to have an upset belly, so we brought along drinking water for our dogs to help minimize any upset bellies. No drinking the lake water!
Safety: Often times when we were visiting the National Parks we had to leave the dogs in the bus because they weren't allowed at the parks. We were traveling during the summer, so many days it was hot out. Although our bus was air conditioned, we worried about the possibility of the air turning off due to a mechanical failure..etc, or even the dogs getting upset about being in unfamiliar territories. Because of that, we installed four different cameras throughout the bus that we could watch from our phone and check in on the dogs and puppies while we were gone. You can find a link to the camera we used, as well as some of our other favorite products, here : Shop
We also had an app that monitored the temperature on our bus so we could make sure the dogs and puppies were comfortable at all times. All in all, we had a really amazing trip and we are excited about our next trip in two weeks to Colorado! This time we will be taking Briar's 9 puppies with us! Wish us luck! And if you have any questions about traveling with your pooch, let us know!
