Update Seeking Tips About Camping With A Dog

Our family will be adding a new blonde to the family, a beautiful golden retriever. He joins us in about a month and we are making plans for how our lives will change having a dog for the first time.

We love taking family trips in our 560. Where do we put the dog? Bunk? Side tent? Not too keen on sharing the bed.

What do y’all do?

 

Side tent or the TV at night.

 

We have added a second dog and it is tight. The 560 is great with 2 people and 1 dog or 1 person and 2 dogs but 2 dogs and 2 people does not work well. Our older dog does not want to share the couch with the new dog so the new one sleeps between us and I always worry I will roll on her legs. A golden will be fine on the couch if you do not mind sharing your pillow. Our older dog will sleep on the couch and put her head on my pillow - not always pleasant to wake up to a dog in your face. Our second dog is still technically a puppy so we are using the bunkbed configuration so we have a storage area away from her. At some point we will be back to one dog, the oldest is 10 years old and the young one is 11 months. Most of the time it is me and the young dog and she sleeps wherever she wants as long as it is not my space. The older dog is a retired search and rescue dog, diagnosed with glaucoma and had to have one eye removed and will probably go blind in the other eye. The young dog is in training and we camp when we travel for training. I would not feel comfortable with my dogs in a side tent or TV but I think that depends on the dog. When we are home young one sleeps in a crate in the bedroom and the older one has free range and sleeps in the living room or bedroom in a crate with the door open.

 

Camping with my pup is one of the joys of my life. Yup, we have trained her that the 560 couch is all hers. Although, she tends to sneak down between us before morning, not unwelcome on a cold night!! My advice for successful adventuring with a dog is strict recall training - I use a whistle. Nothing more important IMHO.

Randy

 

Our dogs are mostly inside with us. If we are not using the AC, we find they need to be positioned so they get the cross ventilation from the windows & the fan. Our Corgi especially will wake us up panting if he gets too hot. They usually sneak down after starting on the couch if we are using the AC. Due to some health issues with our Corgi, have him in the tent so he has access to water & get out for the bathroom. He has insipidus diabetes & doesn’t walk so good anymore so we only take him local trips.

If we sleep in the camper at home, one of cats gets in. Ginger prefers the couch. View attachment upload_2021-8-31_11-22-0.jpeg

 

2 dogs...a medium/large fatso size mix breed, and a smallish "schipperke". The larger dog could sleep on the couch, the other found space at the foot area.

The side tent worked as well, we just needed to be sure that it was secured all around...the "under the door" area was a point of egress for them if we werent't careful. We picked up a piece of plastic fencing and made it work as a baracade.

The real question is how quiet are they, and how well trained. A barker in a campground (state park?) is bad because every person who walks by is going to wake them...

I find old, deaf dogs are best

Goldens don't get their brains for a long time --- you may need to consider a folding kennel. Something like these Amazon.com: Folding Metal Dog Crate

Last think you need is the horrible situation of searching out a dog who's mission is life is to explore...

 

My solution was to get a Corgi. He walks around inside the CI including the foot area. He sleeps on the sofa and the legs don’t hangover. He has a different personality when camping, for the better.

 

We have a min pin. Sleeps under covers with us. Ours is well behaved and doesnt bark at people. I would make sure you socialize so they dont bark at everyone. We have collaspe bowls and added a place to tether if needed. We added a hook eye to bumper which we saw on site.

 

We have traveled with our golden extensively. We have a 560 and have only used the couch one time. We primarily use the bunks. We use the top bunk to store our clothing, we use cloth sided baskets. The the bottom bunk is all for Ellie our golden. She loves it there. At home she has been trained not to sleep on our bed or furniture and prefers she own space, and the bottom bunk provides than den type atmosphere that dogs love...R

 

This sounds great. Our 8 year old son is about to outgrow the bottom bunk.

Could you share any tips about how you protect your bedding, gear suggestions, or tips around the camper that a seasoned dog owner might take for granted but us newbies wound be helped to know?

Does the leash/tether become an issue with table legs?

Do you have to bathe the dog on trips?

 

I have an outdoor blanket that is water proof on one side and it has straps and hooks to hold it to a tent floor. I added a couple of loops to the floor at the foot of the bed to keep the bottom in place and tuck it in at the top of the bed. Works well until we are in bed and then if the dogs go out during the night we can get a little mud or sand in the bed. An outside rug at the door helps some. I never tie the dog near the table legs. I have a battery powered hand sprayer and a 3 gallon collapsible bucket for dogs baths.

 

That’s great stuff there. Keep it coming y’all!

 

We've got a 550, so you've already got more room than me. We acquired an (underfed) 55 Lbs rescue dog that has now stabilized at a (vet approved) 65-70 Lbs. Me + wife + puppy all sleep comfortably, with a personal trick. That trick is to get in, get covered up, then, once covered up to fully, then let the dog in, and let him sleep where ever he wants to. Why the emphasis on getting properly covered up? once you've got a 70 Lbs paper-weight on the covers, they aren't going to be moved or adjusted easily.

This might sounds like an inconvenience, but it really isn't. For lack of a better term, my wife is a bed-flounder who moves around a lot in her sleep. We mostly camp with our 550 in cooler weather, and although I'm repeating a complaint heard down thru the ages, its never any fun to wake up freezing in the wee-hours of the morning to find someone else has all the covers.

Things are better now that the dog is in charge and making all the decisions.

 

The bunk is the best bet when it is cool out - you don't want to get rid of the free fur furnace. On warm nights, the side tent offers a way to offload some of that extra heat.

The one thing we learned from four years of continuous teardropping with our dog is that table legs and squirrels don't mix. And table legs in general are a PITA. We posted on how to convert the side table leg to a strut (at least with the old-style struts) after it was collapsed a few times with our Dometic on it, and we no longer use our rear table. The latter didn't get used all that much - we mainly used it to stage dirty dishes while cleaning up after meals. Now we use a small folding table for that, which the rest of the time we can move around wherever it might be needed on our campsite.