During a trip to Maine one weekend, in addition to accumulating many hours of driving, we acquired important knowledge ideas about traveling with our dogs:
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1. The term “dog walking“At highway rest areas, that means a strip of ground too disgusting for anyone’s feet or paws. Be careful of glass, trash and other debris, and bring your own poop bags.
2. “Low balance” on two consecutive occasions EZ Pass tolls will mean “No Cigar” at the third toll.
3. Try to find a hotel room on the first floor. Frequent potty breaks on the 3rd floor with an elderly terrier gets old pretty fast.
4. Bringing your dogs’ beds is a waste of valuable cargo spacesince a dog will invariably sleep under your bed and the other will sleep on he.
5. To prevent barking, rearrange hotel room furniture so that it minimize dog access to windows.
6. Search for restaurants with outdoor seats, or resign yourself to spending a lot of time eating takeout in your car or hotel room.
7. The number of days spent in a hotel room is proportional to the chances of a accident on hotel carpetwhich leads to #8.
8. Bring bottled water or dogs’ delicate digestive systems will rebel, which leads to number 9.
9. Stay well stocked with pre-moistened wipes. And check they don’t dry out, which they tend to do when you need them most.
10. Don’t feel guilty about eating Fritos, ice cream cones and M&Ms in front of your dogs while traveling. Okay, they can each have a fry. And some vanilla frozen yogurt. Hey, it’s their vacation too.
11. To eliminate any possibility of misunderstanding, arrange a meeting place in advance when one person looks after the dogs while the other goes shopping.
12. Resist Buying Organic Dog Biscuits. My dogs insisted I add it to the list.
13. Keep a Close Eye on Dogs because the ocean looks suspiciously like a very large Adirondack lake, but unfortunately it doesn’t taste like one.
14. Enjoy seeing the sights through your dog’s eyes, ears and paws!