Critter Geek

We’re back from our first vacation with our dog, so I’m going to ease back into the blogging habit by noting some of the things we learned along the way.

• Traveling with a dog can help you do some good things: stop for frequent rest and exercise, plan your meals and pack healthy eats instead of depending on road food, get regular sleep on yur normal schedule. But it doesn’t insure any of these things!

• DogFriendly.com is a wonderful resource! We printed out information on dog parks and dog-friendly motels along our route. The dog park information was particularly helpful, but we should have drilled down to the details of each park (it turns out that not all dog parks are fenced in!)

• Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land is very dog-friendly. Not only are dogs allowed on trails, but they’re allowed off-leash if under voice command. Most National Park trails are off-limits to dogs, but roads are usually ok. At Arches National Park we found a 4×4 road that was ok for dogs and just as good as any trail for us.

• Traveling with a dog can be a bit like traveling with a celebrity. Wherever we went, people asked to say hello to Laika and even to have their pictures taken with her!

• Strange places can bring out new behavior in your pet. Laika became more of a watch dog at our camp sites, barking at people who walked by or strange noises during a thunderstorm in the tent.