Comprehensive List to Keep Pets Safe

[benandjen]

I let my parents dogsit in 2005 and they left my dog in their car and it died.

I will never let something like that happen again.

My wife and I researching our first RV purchase and I want to make a comprehensive list of everything we can do to keep our dog safe in the RV:

1) The safest choice: pet daycare. If you're going to be away from your fur babies for the day a pet daycare is the safest choice. These are often $15 per day per pet.

2) Travel to, and stay in, cool areas. That way if the AC goes out on your RV, it may get warm inside the RV, but definitely not hot enough to harm your babies.

3) Park in a shady area if possible.

4) Use fans. Small highspeed fans can be effective in a cool climate if your AC goes out. However in a hot climate, the fans will not save your pets.

5) Install Fan-tastic, or similar fans to remove heat from inside the RV. However in a hot climate, such fans will not save your pets.

6) You can install thermostats, or other remote temperature monitoring systems, that will notify you if the temperature in your RV goes above a specified threshold. These notifications are sent to your phone. In a hot climate however, you may not be able to return to your pets in time if the temperature rapidly increases.

7) You can leave emergency contact info on your RV, in combination with a key, perhaps hidden on your RV, so that if your temperature alarms go off, someone at the campsite can open the RV and save your pets. This is risky however, because pets can die quickly in hot climates.

8) You can use, or setup, a backup generator. If your campsite loses power your backup system will keep the AC running. But this won't protect against AC failure in hot climates.

I would like to expand this list with some tips from experienced RV owners. So if you have a great tip please let me know! But it seems like a cool climate OR pet daycare, is the only way to be 100% safe.

Thanks!

[GaryMaryanne]

We have asked friends to dog sit for us. We will also tell our neighbors (if they are nice and most are) to keep on eye on things. I know people use Rover to find people to pet sit. But ideally we try to take our fur baby with us as much as we can because he is just as much a part of this journey as we are. We knew that having a dog would limit some of the things we can do but wouldn’t trade him for anything

[turk123]

My wife and I (and Maddie) are very aware of the dangers of heat in a trailer. We have put together some safeguards to help when we leave Maddie inside the trailer.

We bought a Tempstick for our trailer and our truck. They are about $150 and by far the best wifi temperature and humidity monitor I've found. It is very reliable. You need to pair it with a hotspot for your trailer. Please do not rely on the campground wifi. It is not reliable enough.

The Tempstick can report on intervals the time, temp and humidity inside the trailer. We usually set it for every 15 minutes. If the temp goes above or below a preset number (say 78 and 45), we have it programmed to text us every 5 minutes. If you don't get a text, its time to call or return to the trailer. So all along we get 15-minute texts and then 5 minutes if the temp hits an alarm setting.

When Maddie comes with us in the f-250 diesel, and she is staying in the truck for a short time (less than 20 minutes, we leave the truck running (make sure you shut off the auto stop that is set for 25 minutes). We bring the temp stick and hotspot and have it send us info every 5 minutes. We check on the truck also by physically going to visit Maddie for a treat.

Be very careful with your animals! Spend some money on good tools to help monitor the situation when you just have no choice but to leave your friend.

https://tempstick.com/

[Searching_Ut]

Another thing to keep in mind when traveling by RV is disruptions to routine can lead to less than dog proofed situations in the RV. On our last trip which ended a little over a week or so ago, the trash bag got left out of the cupboard as we were cleaning up/prepping to leave, and 1 of our two little dogs got into the trash while I was outside and the wife was in the bedroom. We didn't think much of it as we didn't think there was anything in there that would cause her any real harm and she only had a minute or two to carouse. Turns out she managed to break off and swallow a small chunk of corn cob which the vet had to finally remove surgically. Fortunately, she's doing well, and will get rid of the staples in a couple more days, and the more troublesome to her collar shortly after that.


Besides making us feel really guilty for letting harm come to our poor little furbaby, it was a quite costly opps.

[vsheetz]

Should our four kids get away... Chipped. Collars with embroidered phone numbers. Bluetooth locator tags on the collars.