Traveling With Your Dog - Part 2
Petra, Kate and I, and our significant others, all enjoy traveling with our dogs. Granted, we also travel without them once in a while. But when you bring your dog with you, it adds a different perspective to things. You may notice things you wouldn’t have otherwise seen. In addition, it’s fun to watch the dog’s reactions to new situations. However, traveling with a dog requires some preparation. This show will help you make sure you and your dog are ready to take off together.
Transcript
[intro music: “Pet Life Radio!”]
Female Announcer: You’re listening to PetLifeRadio.com.
Male Announcer: It’s a big world out there, and you’re just looking for a pat on the back – or head! You run around the city, searching for a place to bark, working your tail off with your nose to the ground, sniffing for a few scraps, hoping someone will throw you a bone. You take each lead, collar after collar, hoping one day to take a bite out of success and become… the Top Dog!
Fortunately, you come home each day to open arms, open cans, a drink waiting for you, and a comfortable place in front of the T.V. set. You know you’ve got it good. Really good. Because after all, it’s a Doggy Dog World out there!
Pet Life Radio presents “It’s a Doggy Dog World,” with your host, pet expert, and award-winning author Liz Palika, and this week’s co-hosts, Kate Abbott and Petra Burke.
Liz Palika: Welcome to “It’s a Doggy Dog World.” I’m your host, Liz Palika. With me today for the show are my good friends, Petra Burke and Kate Abbott, from the Kindred Spirits Canine Education Center in Vista, California.
Petra Burke: Hello.
Kate Abbott: Hello.
[laughter]
Liz Palika: Oh, it’s going to be one of those shows, I can tell already. Today’s show we’re going to be talking again about traveling with dogs. Last week’s show we started on our vacation, and I told you some of our adventures, some of the things we’ve been doing with the dogs, including the dogs running on the beach and getting wet and sandy and playing with the seaweed and so forth. We’re going to continue those adventures with today’s show, including some hints and tips on how to make traveling with your dog as easy as possible. But before we get into that, we need to take a break for our sponsors, so hold on, we’ll be back in just a minute.
[music]
Male Announcer: Sit! Stay! “It’s a Doggy Dog World” will be back after a short pause. Well, four to be exact.
[commercial break]
Male Announcer: We know you’re begging for more, so back to “It’s a Doggy Dog World” with your fetching host, Liz Palika, and this week’s co-hosts, Kate Abbott and Petra Burke.
Liz Palika: Welcome back to “It’s a Doggy Dog World.” I’m your host Liz Palika, and with me today are my friends Petra Burke and Kate Abbott. Today’s show is all about traveling with dogs. My husband and I, for years, have had our dogs with us on vacations and trips across the country, although we do take a few vacations without the dogs. To Las Vegas, for example; that’s not a fun place to take dogs, for the most part. Much too hot, too many casinos with slot machines where dogs aren’t allowed. But, for the most part, we enjoy having our dogs with us. We like to travel with them. Our German Shepherds, years ago, we liked to brag that those dogs had played in the Pacific Ocean, the Mississippi River, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico. Now how many dogs can claim that?
[laughter]
They’ve gone camping, they’ve stayed in hotels and motels, they’ve been all over the country. Our dogs today are not quite as well traveled, but they still travel quite a bit with us.
So today we’ll talk about some stories about how to make traveling easier, we’ll share some of our experiences, and hopefully then you can put these to work and have fun traveling with your dogs.
Petra Burke: I guess one of the things you need to remember is don’t assume your dog is house-trained when you keep moving around. I mean, when you’re traveling you’re going from hotel to hotel. Some dogs may be uncomfortable and may have an accident. I’m not saying they’re no longer house-trained, but it’s like moving into a new place. You –
Kate Abbott: You’re on a different schedule when you’re traveling –
Petra Burke: Different smells –
Kate Abbott: The dogs may get confused. Most hotels have rooms that they keep for dogs. Dogs only. Dogs visiting. Well, maybe another dog had an accident there and it wasn’t properly cleaned up. Your dog smells it, “Mmm… okay, I’ll mark it too!”
Liz Palika: That’s a good reason to carry some cleaning supplies along with you. A bottle of Nature’s Miracle or vinegar, a scrub brush, a roll of paper towels, some rags. Make sure you’re all set to clean up after an accident.
Kate Abbott: Of course, sometimes your dogs can get blamed when they haven’t done anything.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: Yeah, share that story, Liz.
Kate Abbott: I think we should make Liz tell that story.
Petra Burke: I think so.
Liz Palika: Okay, this was, let’s see. We were in a Motel 6 in Buellton. We were going to be visiting Solvang. This night Kate and I and my dog Bashir and her dog Walter were sharing a room. I think we decided Petra and her dog Keely deserved their own room that night.
[laughter]
So Kate and I and our dogs were sharing a room. Must have been about 2:30 in the morning, I came wide awake and heard the tinkling of liquid. And sat up straight in bed, grabbed my glasses because I’m blind without them, and hit the light. Kate was buried in her pillow, so I don’t think she even woke up, and I’m looking around for who had an accident. I’m walking barefooted all over the hotel room, scuffling my feet trying to find the wet spot. My dog Bashir was sound asleep on the floor, looked at me with bleary eyes like “why did you wake me up?” Kate’s dog Walter was snuggled up with her. I don’t think he even looked at me. And I couldn’t even find a wet spot anywhere.
Then I realized that the bottle of water I had put on the bedside table had tipped over and was still going “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.”
[laughter]
The wet spot was my bottle of water. So the dogs were getting blamed and they didn’t even do it.
Kate Abbott: I think it also proves how pet owners get attuned to different sounds. The sound of “tinkle, tinkle, tinkle.”
Liz Palika: Out of a sound sleep.
[laughter]
So, yeah, with house-training just be aware that your dog might have an accident. I have to say that in the week we were gone, none of our three dogs did have an accident. They were all very, very good. But because you’re changing your schedule, you’re traveling, you’re changing rooms, it is a possibility. And, of course, crate training is always a good idea.
Petra Burke: And make extra effort to take your dog out maybe a little bit more than normal. Go for little walks, get their bowels stimulated to go, anything.
Kate Abbott: Remember back when you were first house-training your puppy, and praise them when they do go where you want them to go. And use a consistent word when you want them to go in the right place.
Liz Palika: I’m sure all three of us out in the Motel 6 exercise yard for pets, which Motel 6 is usually very nice about having a little spot for pets, I’m sure non-dog-owners think we’re nuts as we stand out there going “Good to go potty!”
[laughter]
Three grown-up women talking baby talk to their dog. “Good dog to go potty!”
Petra Burke: And how excited we get when they do!
Liz Palika: But, hey, it works.
Kate Abbott: Along with cleaning, and then keeping your own towels with you for muddy paws, much less house-cleaning accidents.
Liz Palika: Or should it rain while you’re on vacation.
Petra Burke: Yeah, we ran into that problem.
Kate Abbott: Not just keeping the hotel room clean, but the van, your car clean; and, in our case, the tent trailer. Trying to keep most of the mud on the outside. It was nice to have towels set aside just for dog paws and dog bodies.
Petra Burke: Also another thing to watch is watch your dogs for the signs of stress, or cranky. I always complain when Keely gets a little, I don’t know, cranky. She’s obviously tired, or, with her little legs, she’s like five steps to one of Bashir’s’, so she got cranky quickly!
Liz Palika: But stress can also be mental as well as physical. You know, where as Keely needs to take five steps for every one of Bashir’s’, there can also be mental stress. If the dog’s never traveled before, they’re not quite sure what’s going on. On this last trip we took, Bashir and Walter had both traveled before, but Keely hadn’t. This was her first big trip, and so that’s part of the reason why she got a little cranky sometimes. She didn’t know what was going on! You figure in seven days we stayed in six different places, and we went to three different beaches, and we went to the Redwood Forests, and we went to Solvang and we went to all these different places, so she did get a little stressed. There was some mental stress there.
When your dog gets stressed, give them time to relax, give them some more reassurance from you, let them spend a little extra time snuggling maybe. Give them a chance also to exercise because exercise works out all kinds of stress.
Petra Burke: One stress reducer for Keely is playing ball. So, well, first she found that lovely tennis ball, and then we also bought her a new one. So we played ball to reduce her stress, or just sit and watching T.V., just to give us a break, and have her snuggle and relax. And a massage helps, massaging your dog.
Kate Abbott: The two boys fell a little more quickly into the pattern of “get in the van and go to sleep,” but it took Keely a couple of days to get used to traveling, and having her daytime naps that she was so used to at home –
Petra Burke: Yep –
Kate Abbott: Being able to catch them in the van. I knew she’d finally become a traveler when she’d find that spot in the van to go curl up and just, just crash.
Liz Palika: Oh, yeah, the one on top of the suitcases.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: And then also you don’t need to bring your dog to all of the attractions. I mean, we stopped and watched the sea lions and took pictures, but we left the dogs in the van.
Kate Abbott: Yeah, the mind boggles at the thought of our three trying to bark at the thousand-pound sea lions.
Liz Palika: Yeah.
Kate Abbott: To scare them off.
Liz Palika: I’m sure the park ranger wouldn’t have been happy about that, either.
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: Or the dogs.
Liz Palika: One other thing to keep in mind is that while you’re traveling you need to find some place where your dog can exercise, especially if he’s not in a situation where there’s going to be a yard, like your friend’s yard or a training yard or something like that. Walking on a leash is fine, but most dogs are used to having a chance to run and play. If you can find a safe place, like the last motel we stayed at before we headed home, we found a nice little vacant lot in-between two businesses that actually was fenced in! And it was not posted “no trespassing,” so we took advantage of it. Let the dogs run and play, and chase, and look for critters, and chase the squirrels, and do everything dogs love to do. That relieves stress, and it gives them a chance to exercise their bodies. So that’s important.
Petra Burke: And make sure they have a reliable “come.” That’s always extremely important.
Liz Palika: Before you do that, yes.
Petra Burke: Yes.
Kate Abbott: You may want to take along twenty or thirty feet of light cord with a clip tied on to the end, so that you can give them at least that much room to run, and yet still have control over them. Keep them out of freeways and street areas.
Liz Palika: Definitely. And, of course, as we said in the last show: training, training, training, training before you take this trip is vitally important.
Something else that you might want to consider when you’re packing for the trip is toys. We all brought some of our dogs’ favorite toys with us. Quiet toys, not the really loud ones that might annoy the people in the next motel room.
Petra Burke: So no squeaky toys.
Kate Abbott: Or take the squeaker out of the toy.
Liz Palika: And then we also, of course, as good dog owners, had to hit every pet store we found on the trip and bought a couple new toys. One or two that were hits, and one or two that never made it past their approval. But have some toys for your dogs. And have some things for them to chew on, safe things to chew on, so that if you want to relax in a motel room in the evening, or if you’ve got a nice shady spot where you can park the car and the dog can remain in the car, give them the chewy in the car. Keep them occupied.
Kate Abbott: Pizzles were a big hit.
Liz Palika: Yes, the bull pizzles were a big hit.
Kate Abbott: For a long time.
Liz Palika: And we’re not going to explain to our listening audience what they are. If you don’t know what a bull pizzle is, go check out your local pet store.
[laughter]
I’m not going to get into that kind of trouble on the air.
Petra Burke: But your dog will love it.
Liz Palika: When you’re in a motel, there are some things that you ought to keep in mind too, as far as the people in the rooms near you. They may not be considerate of you, but since we’re dog owners we need to be considerate for them.
Kate Abbott: Extra-considerate, actually, so that we still have that privilege of being able to take our dogs to hotels and motels.
Petra Burke: Which, the number one rule is to keep your dog quiet.
Kate Abbott: Yes.
Petra Burke: Which, traveling in a hotel, every little noise, door closing, footstep, people above you –
Kate Abbott: People arriving in the middle of the night, people leaving in the middle of the night –
Petra Burke: All that can get your dog to bark. So I think for a while there when Kate and I were sharing a room, I haven’t seen two people who can wake up from a dead sleep when our dogs even made the littlest noise!
Kate Abbott: Woof! Woof! We’d be on them.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: So quick they couldn’t even finish their thought.
Kate Abbott: With a good “quiet” command and a closing of the muzzle to remind them what quiet means, telling them to settle down.
Petra Burke: And then took them and cuddled them all nice into the bed and went back to sleep!
Liz Palika: Cuddled into the bed, or smothered into the bed?
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: Depending on how tired we were. I did take a citronella collar, because I know that my Walter, aka “The Busy Dog,” is very reactive. He tends to bark before he thinks, and most of the time when he’s wearing the citronella collar, the weight of it alone reminds him to think twice before he speaks.
Petra Burke: And then one of the things we also did was turn on the fan, well, first for air circulation with dog breath – whoo! gets a little hot in the room! – but just for white noise, so it kind of drowns out some of the walking and doors closing. Where there’s air conditioner or fan –
Liz Palika: And I’ll say it before Kate does: my snoring, too. Yes, I snore and I admit it in public.
Petra Burke: That drowns out a lot of noise.
Liz Palika: My –
Kate Abbott: It turned out to be a wonderful white noise for Walter!
Liz Palika: Or blue noise, or whatever. Yes, when we were sharing a room, Walter didn’t bark at all!
Kate Abbott: No, he couldn’t hear anything else on the outside, and it worked beautifully to keep him quiet. You could also keep the T.V. on very low, it’s often a reassuring sound that the dogs are familiar with, particularly if you can find a talk show with people talking. That’s a noise that they’re used to. Keep it low enough not to bother your neighbors, but just loud enough to block out most of the external noise in the room.
Petra Burke: And when you’re doing all this, make sure you’re with your dog. Don’t just leave the dog in the hotel room.
Kate Abbott: At least in California, it’s illegal to leave your dog unattended in the hotel room. I’m not sure about other states, but check when you’re traveling about the rules and regulations of that area. A lot of the nicer hotels that really cater to dogs offer dog sitting, dog pet sitting services, where they’ll come to your room, sit with your dog if you want to go out for the evening, or they’ll have references to local boarding kennels that allow you to do the same thing.
Liz Palika: Staying at those hotels was a little above our budget, at least for this trip.
[laughter]
So we just chose to make sure that our dogs were with us.
One last thing, before we take a break for our sponsors. A pet peeve of all three of ours is: Pick up after your dog!
Kate Abbott: Arrr, arr, arr, arr, arr!
Liz Palika: In several of the motels we stayed at, we went to take our dogs to the dog potty area, and there were dog feces all over the place. And I have to admit it, a couple of them, when I dug out the plastic bag to pick up after Bashir, I picked up three or four other piles at the same time.
I like traveling with my dog. I don’t want to lose the ability to do that. If we continue to, we as dog owners, continue to leave these piles for other people, pretty soon we’re not going to be able to bring our dogs with us. Other people don’t want to pick up after dogs, and I don’t like to pick up after other people’s dogs. So, please. It’s easy enough. Get a roll of those doggy pooper-scooper bags, throw one in your pocket every time you leave the car or leave the hotel room, and pick up after your dog.
Kate Abbott: And as annoying as it is to pick up after dogs that aren’t your own, go ahead and do it when you’re out, just to help all of us that are trying to be responsible dog owners. It only takes one person stepping in it and carrying it home to think “All dogs should never be allowed out!”
Petra Burke: You know what happens when you’re in the middle of the night, dog has to go to the bathroom, you’ve got your flip-flops on and not your glasses or contacts in.
Kate Abbott: Well, at least you weren’t barefoot.
Petra Burke: Thank goodness, but still.
[laughter]
Liz Palika: And then one last comment about picking up after your dogs: Once you pick it up in that plastic bag, put a knot in it!
[laughter]
When you throw it in the trashcan, especially if the sun’s shining, if you haven’t put a knot in it, that’s going to be ugly for other people. So pick up after your dog, put a knot in the plastic bag, and toss it in the trashcan. It’s easy to do, it’s not difficult, you just take that plastic bag, invert it over your hand, pick it up, pull the bag back down over, put a knot in it, and throw it away. I mean, you can’t get much easier than that.
All right. Right now, I’d like to take a break, so that you can think about everything we’ve said. We need to give our sponsors a minute or two, so don’t go away. Hold on, we’ll be right back.
[music]
Male Announcer: Sit! Stay! “It’s a Doggy Dog World” will be back after a short pause. Well, four to be exact.
[commercial break]
Male Announcer: We know you’re begging for more, so back to “It’s a Doggy Dog World” with your fetching host, Liz Palika, and this week’s co-hosts, Kate Abbott and Petra Burke.
Liz Palika: Welcome back to “It’s a Doggy Dog World.” I’m your host Liz Palika, and with me today is Petra Burke and Kate Abbott, and today we’re going to share some of our stories about traveling with dogs. We gave you some ideas in Part One, last week; the first half of this show we talked a little more about some hints about traveling with dogs, now let’s come down to some of the stories. We’ve had some good times traveling with our dogs.
Kate Abbott: Well, we got to see a lot of shops in Solvang, which was wonderful. One of my favorite signs, I almost asked them if the sign itself was for sale, was a sign at the entrance to the store that said “Dogs welcome, owners allowed if well-behaved.”
[laughter]
And they were very welcoming to the dogs. Other places had bowls of water outside, which was nice to see.
Petra Burke: Yes, a lot of places did.
Liz Palika: That shop was very welcoming to Walter.
[laughter]
As I walked by with Bashir, she said “Oh, what’s the dog’s name?” As I turned around to answer, I realized she was staring at Walter, so Bashir and I kept on going.
Kate Abbott: There’s something about the way Walter wags his tail, you know he’s just irresistible.
Petra Burke: And then, oh I don’t know, hiking. I’d say I enjoyed that hike we took to that abandoned campground. The campground was so much fun, God, the trees, everything was absolutely gorgeous, I think the dogs were just, their little noses, oh, were just going absolutely crazy.
Liz Palika: And of course Walter is the leg-lifter. To be able to lift his leg on a coastal redwood tree that was six feet around and three hundred foot high, I guess that’s a leg-lifter’s dream.
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: That’s a trophy mark.
Petra Burke: But he ran out of juice!
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: I got a kick out of the two boys challenging each other. “Here’s a big rock, who can get to the highest point of it?” “Here’s a fallen tree, who can get the farthest out to the end?”
Petra Burke: I think all the agility training we did with these guys, they took advantage of it on these hikes. They’d be walking across, what, dead trees, and that wide branch where we got them all to be at least, what, four feet, five feet off the ground, they turned around, walked back down it. Climbing rocks, jumping over things.
Kate Abbott: Even Keely.
Petra Burke: Oh my gosh, they had so much fun.
Liz Palika: And then, of course, when we left home, Bashir was very good about when he found water, to just put his paws in it. Didn’t bother me a whole lot that he didn’t like water, because Riker, my middle Aussie, does fine. Riker gets into every mud puddle and water puddle there is. But about ten minutes into their first visit to the beach at – where was our first trip to the beach? San Simeon?
Petra Burke: San Simeon.
Liz Palika: Walter, who is a water dog, had Bashir in the water, up to his belly, getting soaking wet, so that took care of that.
Kate Abbott: Kind of like “Follow me, guy, this is fun!”
[laughter]
Liz Palika: And pretty soon Bashir did, and for the rest of the trip he was in the water.
Kate Abbott: Big Sur River –
Liz Palika: Morrow Bay beach, Carmel beach, Carmel has a beautiful beach by the way if you get a chance to visit in Carmel. It’s a beautiful white sands beach, and dogs are allowed. They do need to stay on leash there.
Kate Abbott: And you do have to watch out for that scary hedge monster.
Liz Palika: Hedge monster? What hedge monster?
Kate Abbott: Yeah, as we were walking down the beach, the dogs were all just staring intently at that –
[laughter]
Petra Burke: Oh, the landscaper.
Liz Palika: The landscaper trimming the bushes, yes.
Kate Abbott: But he was so far into the bushes you couldn’t see there was a person. It was just the hedge rustling.
Liz Palika: Yes, yes.
Kate Abbott: That was very worrisome. It had to be stared at for a long time, before they figured out what was going on.
Liz Palika: Morrow Bay also had a very nice beach that the dogs were allowed, although I think Petra was having some panic attacks on the fact that I think Morrow Rock is a volcanic dome.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: Yeah, we were right there. Yeah, weird feeling.
Kate Abbott: Rumble rumble rumble.
Liz Palika: I think if we’d have had an earthquake, Petra would have been the first one back to the van.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: Grabbing your keys on the way!
Kate Abbott: Well, until the time that Keely found a tennis ball and you got her a more appropriate-sized one for the princess, I was getting such a kick out of watching her playing with the kelp bladders.
Petra Burke: Oh, she is so much fun.
Kate Abbott: The little sea-made tennis balls, if you will.
[laughter]
They were so much fun to run and chase, and then you puncture them, and then eew!
Petra Burke: Yeah!
Kate Abbott: Eew!
Petra Burke: Salt water!
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: Icky, icky, oh but there’s another one! The beach was just full of little balls to play with!
Liz Palika: We’ve all traveled with dogs previously, too. Last year the three of us went to Arizona, and we made a big circle around Arizona starting at the –
Petra Burke: Grand Canyon.
Liz Palika: Grand Canyon, which, of course, was fun because Petra’s afraid of heights.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: Fun for them, not for me.
Kate Abbott: You did very well.
Petra Burke: Thank you.
Liz Palika: She was very good about staying on the path.
Petra Burke: Oh, you betcha. I follow signs very strictly.
Liz Palika: But we walked the dogs up around the south rim of the Grand Canyon, on leash of course, saw some elk, and again having well-behaved dogs is very nice, because we told the dogs to “leave it,” which is a wonderful command, by the way, and “leave it” in our training terminology means “whatever you’re looking at when we say it, ignore it.” So when the dogs were staring at the elk, and we said “leave it,” that means “ignore the elk!” And we put that to use a lot.
Kate Abbott: When we found the dead seagull at Morrow Bay beach.
Liz Palika: Leave it!
Kate Abbott: We said “leave it.” That was very, very tempting, but they did keep on walking around it.
Liz Palika: At least tempting for Walter and Bashir; I think Keely kind of turned her nose up at it.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: Not the princess!
Liz Palika: Also in Arizona we did a lot of walking around and sightseeing. We walked around the city of Sedona, which is a beautiful, interesting little city in the big red rock country of Arizona. The dogs didn’t go in the stores there, but we took turns. One of us would stay outside with the dogs in a “sit” or a “down-stay” while the others of us went shopping, and that worked out just fine. We went to the forests around Payson, Arizona; the big pine forests, evergreen forests, and again the dogs got to run and play.
The year before that trip, Petra and I had gone out there and the dogs had found a partial skeleton.
Petra Burke: Oh, that’s right.
Liz Palika: Which was quite interesting, and lots of bear tracks, which made us look over our shoulders at every little twitch and twig crackling.
Kate Abbott: That’s why you guys were so nervous.
[laughter]
Liz Palika: When you travel with dogs in the woods you find all kinds of things that you might not ordinarily find.
Kate Abbott: Even around the hotel grounds, that trip.
Liz Palika: Right.
Kate Abbott: Was when we had found – well, they had been putting up poison for the ground squirrels.
Petra Burke: Oh, that’s right.
Liz Palika: Yeah. And a dying squirrel.
Kate Abbott: And on our early morning potty walk we found a squirrel that was dying.
Liz Palika: Unfortunately, which was very sad, but the dogs were immediately attracted to it.
Kate Abbott: Well, it sounded just like a squeaky toy!
Petra Burke: Yes, it was moving.
Kate Abbott: Laying on its side, kicking its legs, you know, it was just calling to the dogs to come play with it.
Liz Palika: And again, that “leave it” command was wonderful.
Kate Abbott: Didn’t have to fight, try to grab a carcass out of a dog’s mouth or have the dogs fight over it, they just said “oh, gosh darn,” and kept moving.
Liz Palika: Backed off. Yep.
Petra Burke: Yep. Oh – we walked around the pond in Payson, with all the ducks and the geese.
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: Oh, that’s right.
Liz Palika: Oh, yes.
Petra Burke: And our dogs are so used to herding geese and ducks, the “leave it” became very important.
Kate Abbott: “No, really, we could put them all at one end of the lake, we could, we could!”
Petra Burke: They really wanted to.
[laughter]
That was fun!
Liz Palika: Another thing that was fun on several of our trips, and again this is with trained dogs, and one of the benefits of trained dogs, is if you go to a restaurant with outdoor tables. Have the dog lay down underneath one of the tables, and you can enjoy, well, in Solvang, the Danish pastries.
Petra Burke: Oh, yum.
Liz Palika: Which were just absolutely wonderful.
Petra Burke: Hot coffee, huh Kate. Hot coffee and Danish, yeah.
[laughter]
What was impressive: we’d walk away and people would go “Didn’t know there was dogs here! Didn’t even hear them!”
Liz Palika: And especially with three dogs under the table, the fact that people didn’t even notice they were there.
Petra Burke: You’d notice the children running around everywhere, but didn’t notice there were dogs!
[laughter]
Liz Palika: And the dogs enjoyed that too. Granted, when we had the Danish pastries, we didn’t share any with the dogs, or at least I didn’t.
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: They may have gotten some croissant crumbs, but…
Petra Burke: Yeah, no fair.
Liz Palika: But I think the dogs were ever hopeful that, perhaps, if we’re eating on the table above them, something might fall down.
Kate Abbott: Well, they did get clam chowder a few days before.
Liz Palika: Ah, true!
[laughter]
Up in Monterey! Fisherman’s –
Petra Burke: Isn’t there something about a chowder head?
Kate Abbott: Well, yeah…
Petra Burke: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Kate made Walter and Keely chowder heads after she dumped her bowl of chowder, clam chowder on them.
Liz Palika: We were on Fisherman’s Wharf in Monterey, and stopped. They had clam chowder, I of course found something that wasn’t fishy.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: It was so good, huh Kate.
Kate Abbott: It was wonderful. Served in that nice thick crusty sourdough bread bowl.
Liz Palika: Luckily Bashir was out of her target range.
[laughter]
But Kate spilled it down the front her, on top of Walter, on top of Keely; Keely of course was extremely annoyed. Bashir then tried to lick it off Walter and lick it off Keely, much to their chagrin.
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: Did keep them all busy for a while.
Petra Burke: It did, very true.
Liz Palika: Yeah.
[laughter]
In that instance the dogs were noticeable.
[laughter]
Kate Abbott: And they were rewarded for laying right under the table and being good.
[laughter]
Petra Burke: A big reward there, Kate!
Liz Palika: Anyway, those are some of our stories about traveling. Lots of good information for you, I hope. If nothing else, just think about traveling with your dogs in the future, although I don’t have a problem with you and your significant other taking off on your own. We do it once in a while. But traveling with your dogs adds a whole new adventure.
Kate Abbott: To the travel.
Liz Palika: Yeah, a whole new dimension to traveling. You see things that you might not ordinarily see, you’re probably going to get out and walk more than you might ordinarily do. When you’re traveling it’s too easy just to sit in the car and drive and look out the window. With your dog, you’re going to get out and walk. You’re going to take some hikes around the campgrounds, you’re going to walk around the city, you’re going to look for places where your dog can exercise, and it will give you a whole new dimension on the travel.
Kate Abbott: Triple-A tells you, when driving long distances, get out every couple of hours and walk around for your own health. Well, when you’re traveling with a dog, you don’t have any choice.
Liz Palika: You’re going to do that!
[laughter]
Petra Burke: No choice, just do it.
Liz Palika: So. Big things to remember: keep your dog on leash, do some training ahead of time, think safety; and then, of course, be considerate for other travelers. Make sure that they don’t regret that you’ve brought your dog with you.
Petra Burke: Be a responsible dog owner.
Kate Abbott: One last story from me is when we were in Sedona we stayed at the same hotel I’d stayed at with my previous dogs, a couple of years prior to that trip. And on that trip I had gotten up in the early morning hours to walk the dogs, and they had done their business, and as I was bending over with my plastic bag over my hand, a woman appeared out of the misty fog and rushed over to me and gave me a great big hug! And said “Thank you, thank you, thank you for picking up after!” And once I kind of woke up a little bit –
[laughter]
I was still in my robe!
Liz Palika: After you’d been attacked by this unknown woman!
Kate Abbott: She explained that she was the manager of the hotel.
Liz Palika: Aahh!
Kate Abbott: And the hotel was near a residential area, and a lot of people hadn’t been picking up after their dogs, and the residents in the homes had been complaining. And they were worried that they were going to have to change their policy at the hotel to “no more dogs” because of that. But she was so delighted.
Liz Palika: But luckily they have not changed, because we enjoyed a night there.
Petra Burke: Yes.
Kate Abbott: She was so delighted that she was like “Would you like a whole bag of Roll-A-Baggies, here you go!” But just spread the word. I don’t like to see it at home, I don’t like to see it when traveling. Pick up after your dog!
Petra Burke: Yes, because I don’t want to step in it when I’m half asleep, thank you.
[laughter]
Liz Palika: Well, that’s it for the show, for “It’s a Doggy Dog World.” Our next show ought to be kind of interesting, so check back with us. We’re going to talk about all those “oodle dogs and doodle dogs” and –
Petra Burke: Oodles of doodles!
Liz Palika: Oodles of doodles!
Kate Abbott: Run, Walter, run!
[laughter]
Liz Palika: Oodles of doodles and cockapoos and sharshans and rottidoodles –
Kate Abbott: Puggles!
[laughter]
Liz Palika: And puggles and all those. We’re going to talk about what a breed is, what’s a purebred, what’s a mixed breed, and what the story is with all these hybrids. So that ought to be an interesting show. So thanks again for listening.
This is Liz Palika with Petra Burke, Kate Abbott of Kindred Spirits Canine Education Center in Vista, California. Thanks for listening to “It’s a Doggy Dog World.”
Kate Abbott: Bye-bye!
Petra Burke: Bye-bye!
[music]
Male Announcer: Having a rough day? Longing for the dog days of summer? Think your fun, furry friend lives a dog’s life? Well, find out everything you’re begging to know as Pet Life Radio presents “It’s a Doggy Dog World” with pet expert and award-winning author Liz Palika. Every dog has his day, and you’ll find out how to make your dog’s day fun and rewarding! Every week, on demand, only on PetLifeRadio.com.