Taking dog with us on a cross country tour

Unfortunately the trend has been you can't leave your dog unattended, even inside the unit. What I'd do is sketch out where you are going to be staying overnight and check out a few campgrounds in the area. This may help you make the decision on whether or not to bring Fido or what campgrounds to stay at.

Not really fair to the dog or others in the campground if the dog starts to bark. Leave the dog home if you can.

It depends on the dog. A high energy, high strung dog who barks at the slightest outside noise would be a problem. A number of times we have been near an RV with a dog or dogs that would start barking as soon as the owners left and not stop until they returned.

Our dog (and previous dog) is an older Golden. And a slug. When we leave, she goes into the darkest corner of the bedroom, tucks her face under the bedspread, and sleeps. And that is where we find her when we return. Even in a noisy park.

My dog has traveled over 30,000 miles with me, and I haven't had any troubles. We've been to Alaska and back one and a half times, California and back, out east, down south, all over.

My dog is one of the main reasons I bought a trailer. I hate leaving him "at home", locked in a box at a kennel 23 hours a day. That's just CRUEL. Even the best kennels are still just a locked box. I wanted the dog for companionship, so he's my companion, and goes where I go. If someplace is not friendly to dogs (rare that I've experienced), they don't receive or deserve my patronage.

We've never had a problem leaving our dogs (either the current one or our previous two). They were all well used to being alone, no separation anxiety or anything like that. We always leave (left) them crated with the AC or fan and TV on for white noise.

In ten years of RV'ing we've encountered exactly one campground that when directly asked said no to leaving them alone. So we politely told them we'd find somewhere else to stay. Although many do have a rule that pets aren't to be left unattended, when we've asked about it (and we always do) except for that one campground we've always been told that it's fine to leave well behaved dogs.

One of the main reasons we bought an RV is so our dog(s) could travel with us.

Have had the MH for about 15 years, a travel trailer before that and tents even earlier. Have always had multiple dogs along with us. Now, its a given that with a tent things were different but with heating and air conditioning in an RV(and appropriate safety devices)...my dogs have traveled all over the US with us...never with any problem. My RV is my home on the road and I leave the doggies at the house when I leave so why not in the RV. Its a GIVEN that they don't bark while away and we make every effort to be Good neighbor and Good dog owner...with all that goes with that.

My traveling companions have been an Aussie, a Cattle Dog; and now two Aussie-poos. All high-energy dogs. The secret to leaving them in the RV with the A/C running, is a brisk, long walk beforehand; then we'd close the shades and turn on the TV (to drown out outside noises, just in case) In over 13 years of RVing, we never had a neighbor say our dogs barked (and we asked them).

We enjoyed the companionship of our dogs, and we feel they added a certain level of security. If someone HAD attempted to get into our RV, they would have been greeted by some serious growling. Any sensible thief would go try to break into a less-threatening RV, I'm sure?

I don't ever remember that we couldn't leave our dogs inside the RV for a while. Most rules say they can't be left unattended OUTDOORS. We also tried to stay at KOAs, who tend to be so dog-friendly that many offer nice fenced dog parks.

Our dog does the same thing in our motorhome as she does at home. She loves the motorhome because she gets to go on more walks, LOL. If it's a cool day we take her with us, it really depends on the weather because sometimes she's better off in the motorhome with the air on. Our dog doesn't do well with extreme heat. We do have Sensored Life incase of a power outage or the air conditioner goes off.

We installed a thermostat controlled Fantastic Fan for this exact reason. We have no problems leaving our dogs in their crates in the motorhome, with either ac or heat on. The fan is always open, and in summer time allows excessive heat to vent. It if 12v powered, and if shore power fails for any reason, the fan will run and draw out excessive heat. The inside temps may get as hot as the outside air, but the fan keeps it from getting excessive, and draws in fresh air from outside via some opening we always leave.

One other thing, if a campsite objects to our dogs, it is not the type of place we like to stay at, therefore we will find somewhere else that is more pet friendly. BTW, our dogs are crate trained, and do not bark, howl, or make noise when we leave them. UNLESS someone strange trys to come in, then we train them to make as much noise as possible.