Being retired means I’m traveling more with my dogs. We’ve taken some pretty major road trips and since they are still young, we’ve been staying in hotels or vacation rentals. By trial and error, I’ve figured out a way to minimize our impact on the room with some simple preparation steps. Puppy proofing the hotel room makes for a happy stay for both humans and doggies!
Checking In
First, I leave the dogs in the car while I check in to a hotel. The pups are getting better at sitting still when told but all those new smells in the lobby can be quite tempting. Sometimes it is just too hot outside but waiting in the car is the optimal situation.
I ALWAYS make sure to potty them before entering the hotel. This might mean that we stop at a dog park before getting to the hotel, or we head to one immediately after I’ve checked-in. A good 20-30 minutes of running, chasing the ball, pooping, and peeing makes for a much better stay. If a dog park is not possible, I take the time to walk with them so they can sniff and do their business outside. With a boy dog in particular, but young dogs in general, I want to make sure their bladders are empty before entering the lobby!
In the Room: Dog Hair Patrol
Once they have taken care of business, it is time to prepare the room. Ideally, I leave them in the car while I head to the room with all our stuff. Puppy proofing the hotel room doesn’t take long but it does require “a thing or two”. On a typical road trip, I bring a king size bed cover, a canvas tote bag of toys and chews, and food bowls. I have my small duffel bag and the ice chest.
The first thing I do when I get to the room is remove the pillows and cover the bed with my comforter. If the room has two beds, I have two covers. Now I don’t have to worry about paw prints from dirty paws or more likely, dog hair on the bed.
I don’t know if I was living under a rock, but I really had no idea Labradors shed so much. I have a yellow and a chocolate and the amount of hair that comes off them is remarkable. And it is short, impossible to remove hair. It covers my car, my clothes, my house. Eliminating dog hair is a constant struggle. It also seems to gravitate and imbed in sheets, however brief the encounter with the sheet.
My bed covers are king size, cotton quilted comforters I bought at Walmart. They are light weight but thick enough to withstand paws and claws. The hair doesn’t imbed and, after use, shakes off easily. I have two that I travel with. Typically, one goes on the bed and the other is folded up on the floor as a bed for the pups. In the strange new room, the cover smells familiar, and they will cuddle up on it at bedtime.
The Food Station
After the bed is secured, I set up their food station. I keep the large bag of food in the car, bringing only their food for the night and morning into the hotel. I have two travel bowls with lids that I fill from the car each day. The lids allow me to throw the bowls in the canvas tote bag with their toys and not have the food spill. For water, I put the ice chest food in the hotel room fridge and fill the ice chest with water. A lot of times if the sink is too small, I can usually manage to fill the ice chest in the bathtub/shower. I’ve also used the hotel ice bucket in a pinch, but the ice chest works better with two dogs because it holds more water.
Depending on the layout of the room, I’ll put the food and water on any non-carpeted area. Sometimes this is in the bathroom, sometimes in the entry. I put down a towel to collect drips.
Distraction, distraction, distraction
It takes the dogs a bit of time to get used to the sounds and smells of this new room that will be our home for the next 10 – 12 hours. Luckily, they aren’t constant barkers. They will hear a noise, bark once, and then move on. However, to eliminate any barking, I’ve used the TV or radio to mute the outside elevator or hallway noises. Distraction is also a very useful ploy.
Super-duper chews are a great way to engage the dogs and distract from any outside noises. Bully sticks and compressed raw hide seem to work best with my dogs. I also have balls, stuffed animals, and nylabones to keep them occupied. I have to remember that while I’ve been driving, they’ve been sleeping. They aren’t always ready for bedtime as soon as I am.
Check-out time
Having a routine has helped them settle into a new hotel room each night. Packing up is just as easy as it was to set up the room. First, I dismantle the food station, empty the ice chest of water and refill with my food, repack the dog bowls, pick up the dog toys and put it all in the canvas tote. I pre-count the toys and balls when we arrived to make sure I’m finding them all when we leave. Traveling with a lint roller is essential!
I do a quick swipe of the roller over pillows, chairs, and anything else that might have picked up dog hair. I have found that I am a big transferrer of dog hair. Their hair gets on me, I sit in the office chair and now the office chair has dog hair. The roller eliminates the odd strand of dog hair that might show up.
I take the dogs out for a quick potty and load them into the car first. Back in the room, I finish un-puppy proofing the hotel room, fast and easy. I fold up the bed covers and grab the rest of our stuff. Before I put the bed covers into the car, I shake them out to remove any loose dog hair. I’m careful to always fold the cover the same way to keep hair contamination on the other side of the cover to a minimum!
After check-out, it is time to head to a dog park for exploration and bit of ball chasing before we hit the road again.
