Traveling with a dog can present some challenges but that multiplies when you take more than one dog. A lot of us want to bring our dog along on our vacations. Finding hotels or Air BNB’s or any type of accommodations can be really tough for just 1 dog, but add 2 or more? That gets even tougher.
Then, there are people like me who not only travel with my own 3 dogs, but also my friend and her 3 dogs! Folks thought we were crazy when we traveled with 5 dogs, but now we have 6 between us and that does present some challenges to say the least.
Our most recent trip was to the Outer Banks in North Carolina. We actually found a house that allowed all six dogs. Fortunately all of these dogs have traveled together with the exception of one new foster failure which Caren recently adopted.
The most obvious issue with traveling with multiple dogs is finding a place to stay with them. Hotels like the Kimpton don’t care how many dogs you have in a room. They welcome dogs and you are usually greeted with dog toys and bowls of water when you enter the hotel. But many dog friendly hotels have limits on how many you can bring.
The same issues go with the Air BNB’s or VRBO homes. My tactic of finding pet friendly homes which allow multiple dogs is kind of labor intensive, but works. Here are the steps:
- I search for all of the available pet friendly homes and open each house in a new tab.
- I write out a really brief question in a word document. The wording is something along the lines of: “Hi, I love your place and was wondering what your pet policy is for multiple dogs”.
- For each house that I’m interested in I cut/paste that sentence into the messages and send the owner a message.
- Often, if the owner is set on only 1 or 2 dogs, they will say they allow no more than 1 dog or whatever their limit is, so I just move on after thanking them for their time
- Sometimes folks will ask how many I am bringing or how big they are
- I always tell them the truth… but I also always refer them to my reviews and how good they are. Then I tell them a few things about each dog
- In my description, I’ll tell them that I’m traveling with 3 dogs – 1 large poodle and 2 border collies. I also add that I compete them in agility and other dog sports so they are very used to traveling. I will often crate at least the youngest border collie so I mention that as well. I then tell them about my friend’s dogs. I also tell them that we travel with lots of extra blankets and sheets to cover furniture.
- Typically, that will either freak the owners out or they will say yes!
- I have to do that for sometimes 20 – 30 houses before I hit one with a maybe or a yes!
We always make sure the house is super clean when we leave and try to leave no trace of dogs. We have been known to move rugs off the floor or move things that might break with wagging tales and always replace them to their spot when we leave. Its kind of funny that we moved the rug in one house… but Breeze was a puppy and I was afraid that if I fell asleep on the couch she would start nibbling on the rug ends… so moving the rug alleviated some stress.
5 of our dogs have traveled together for years, but this year my friend adopted a slightly fearful rescue dog. So, this trip, she crated her dog, Keeper or put her in a babygated area so she could see the other dogs but not get close to them. We gave Keeper time to see my dogs and get curious while she overcame her fear. We then took everyone outside for a walk together and watched them in the backyard. The extra step of distance worked and all the dogs got along really well. That’s also pretty amazing because all 6 dogs are girls!
Many people might think that traveling with their pet is not really a vacation because they still need to come home and walk the dog or get up early to walk them and feed them, but I find it a lot of fun. We do a lot of dog friendly activities which wears them out and frees us up for our own fun when we are ready.
And honestly, how can you leave a face like this at home when clearly they enjoy their noses and toes in the sand as much as you do?
