Traveling with Dogs

When traveling with medium or large dogs, you almost always have to drive. (So living in a city without a car and with two pit bulls poses some problems.) Luckily my parents live in the suburbs and are always willing to lend a hand when we need to travel long distances.

Once the dogs are in the car however, they are usually less than perfect. The back of our Hyundai has two loops by the back door that we loop the dogs' leashes around to keep them from jumping into the back seat on trips. This works great for Winnie, she usually doesn't give us any trouble and sits or sleeps in the way-back without voicing her discontent.

But Bruno seems to think he is being abandoned back there- he starts by whining and slowly builds up to a full out scream. (Do any of your dogs do this? Its very strange, I'm going to try to capture it on video, but basically its a frantic high pitched yawn.)

Of course this drives Winnie nuts, and I imagine her saying "Why did you leave me back here with this crazy animal?"

"mom, I am mad at you..."

And the screaming isn't exactly the best sound-track for a 6-hour drive, so I usually jump in the back seat, un-hook his leash, and let him sit with me. Sometimes he calms down and sleeps on my lap (can you say, separation anxiety??), sometimes he jumps in the front seat, leaving me all alone, and curls up next to his dad and pretends to be his "co-pilot."

Sometimes, rather than let Bruno steal the front seat from me, I share it with him. He thinks he is 15 lbs (he is 52) so he cuddles up in my lap and sleeps.

One time he put his face on the ac-vent and slept there for a whole hour:

What do your dogs do on car-trips?