Adequate Exercise is essential to most dogs health and happiness.
Background on my dogs;
Working retrievers. 1 Lab 1 Chesapeake.
Both well trained working dogs.
Both quite social, they both like people and tolerate other dogs well.
Both are trained to be quiet.
Both require a large amount of exercise to keep fit for work afield.
Both are also family pets who live indoors with us at home and on the road.
Maintaining adequate exercise on the road can be difficult for such dogs. A couple of walks around the RV park is not gonna do it. The little dog areas in many RV parks are so small that my dogs can cross them in a couple of bounds.
What to do?
I try and find parks that are a bit more rural. Adjacent to places where I can run my dogs off leash. If I can run them both for 10 - 15 min retrieving training bumpers, they are pretty happy. I do this early in the morning, well away from RV sites as not to disturb other campers. Again, the dogs are trained to be quiet and do as they are told, again to prevent disturbing others. I certainly understand the need for leash rules at RV parks, without them it would be nuts and likely dangerous.
I have found that most RV parks are good with this, especially if you explain the situation in advance. If they say absolutely NO, I find another place to stay. I certainly understand the need for leash rules at RV parks, without them it would be nuts and likely dangerous.
Another possible solution is pulling off on a rural exit and getting the dogs some run time somewhere off the exit. Again,this works only with well trained dogs. Rest areas are usually a bad idea, unless you hit them at O'dark thirty when they are largely empty. Note; keep puppies away from these areas as they are often rife with parvovirus, your pup is NOT protected till the entire puppy vaccination series is COMPLETE.
I make sure that when I leave an RV park, that I let them know that we appreciate them accommodating us and our dogs needs and that we will remember them on future trips through the area.
We ALWAYS pick up our dogs feces, people who don't are, well, I won't post it here.
I think it would be a good idea, if in the campground rating, they divided pet accommodation into "pets tolerated" and "pet friendly".
Just a thought.
