Is Full-Timing the Right Choice for Your Furry Family Members?

Sometimes not everyone is fit for a life on the road.

When Phil and I decided to become full-time RV'ers, we had two dogs and two cats in our family. We had a German shepherd, Voodoo; a pug, Willoughby; and our cats, Barnum and Bailey. As soon as we made our RV'ing decision, we started to take all our animals on short road trips to see how well they traveled. Quite frankly, only one of them traveled well - our pug. Our two cats hated to be in the truck, even for short trips. They mewled and yowled the entire time. But the good news about them is that they both fit in one small dog crate, so they could be together, and that made them feel a bit better. They still hate to travel, and I'll talk about that in another article, but it was doable with them.

As for our German shepherd, she was a rescue dog whose past was, for the most part, unknown. We knew that she had a tough time before we got her - she was tick-infested and emaciated to the point that her rescuers didn't know she was pregnant until they took her in to get spayed. (She had 8 puppies, and all survived!) She was a nervous dog and cowered quite a bit until she got used to people or situations. She was terribly afraid of thunderstorms. Loud noises bothered her as well. She couldn't be trusted off-leash, even after going to obedience school. She also hated other adult dogs. She fought with my sister's dog and another friend's dog to the point of drawing blood in both cases. (Again, this was after going to doggie school.) We never felt comfortable with her being around other dogs after those experiences. On the other hand, she was a loving and gentle dog to every person she met, especially kids. She got along great with our cats. And when we brought Willoughby home as a puppy, Voodoo was super patient with the pesky little pug.

• Knowing Voodoo's problems with certain aspects of every day life, Phil and I had reservations about how Voodoo would react to life in an RV. Some of the questions we were struggling with were:
• Voodoo wasn't much of a traveler. She liked consistency in her life. Would we be stressing her out every day we were on the road?
• She didn't like other adult dogs. We would be encountering other dogs all the time. Would we be putting other dogs in danger?
• If she got the chance, she would bolt. Would we be able to ensure that she couldn't get away from us and put herself in danger?
• A lot of RV parks don't allow certain dog breeds. German shepherd is one of the breeds that many parks don't allow. How would we deal with that?

What we decided was that she was a part of our family. There was no way we weren't going to take her with us. (We even picked out our RV with her size in mind. We wanted to get a big enough rig so that she, as a 60-pound dog, would have enough space to be comfortable inside.) We'd just have to see how she did on the road, and make adjustments as we went along. But then something happened that changed our minds.

We had sold our house very early, and had to rent a place until it was time to travel. We were going to rent a house from a friend of a friend, and part of the deal was that we would dog-sit for her while she was away. We wanted to get Voodoo and this other dog together to see if they could live with each other because Voodoo didn't have a good history with other big dogs. The meeting was a disaster. Voodoo became quite agressive, and attacked the other dog visciously. It was awful. There was no way we could have them live together, so we were going to find another place to rent. On the same day we had that meeting, we were heading to my mom's house for a post-Christmas visit. When we got there, I told my mom what happened between Voodoo and the other dog. My mom, ever wise and wonderful, told me that my sister Lynne had called after Christmas, literally crying because she had thought her husband was going to get her a dog for Christmas, and she didn't get one. Phil and I looked at each other, and we looked at Voodoo, and we started crying. We knew that maybe the best thing for everyone, including Voodoo, would be for my sister to give Voodoo a home. We called my sister and asked if her husband would be ok with the idea of meeting Voodoo, and seeing if she would be a good match for the family. My sister was estactic, so we drove Voodoo over to meet with her family. Voodoo walked into the house and planted herself on their couch. And that was that. It was to be a trial situation, just to see if Voodoo liked them and if they liked her, but after that weekend, we all knew things worked out the way they were supposed to. In fact, my sister was kind of steamed because Voodoo was supposed to be her dog, and she told me after that weekend, her husband and Voodoo were inseperable. And the icing on the cake was that my sister had a young son at home, so Voodoo was in dog heaven about that. And the really great thing is that Voodoo is still a part of our family, so checking up on her to see how she's doing is easy.

Even though our story had a happy ending, you have to decide what's best for you and your furry family member. We do not advocate getting rid of a pet just because having them around would make life inconvenient, but we also don't advocate making your pet live a lifestyle that is not good for them. Plenty of pets are full-time RV'ers and are loving it. To learn more about full-timing with pets, please read our other articles.