10/06/2026
With fall break here and the holidays coming up, let’s talk about traveling with your dog.
Ranger travels with us all the time. Car rides? Amazing. New houses? Couldn’t care less. Crowded cities? He’ll do it, although he’d much rather be hiking through the woods like Snow White with all of her woodland friends following behind him.
Hotels?
Absolutely not. 😂
Ranger was a COVID puppy. For almost two years after we got him, we weren’t traveling, and hotels were one of the few environments I simply couldn’t expose him to.
And I knew it at the time.
I exposed him to everything I possibly could, but I knew hotels were a hole. Unfortunately, Ranger eventually confirmed my suspicions.
Footsteps in the hallway. Doors shutting. People talking outside the room. Random noises at 2:00 in the morning.
Completely unacceptable when you’re a giant Rottweiler trying to get your beauty sleep.
So we don’t stay in hotels with him. We rent houses or Airbnbs, he’s happy, we’re happy, and considering you can hear him snoring TWO FLOORS DOWN in our own house — and that is not an exaggeration — I’m fairly certain the other hotel guests are better off too.
But this is exactly why I tell my clients all the time: take them places while they’re young.
And don’t only expose your puppy to the things that are part of your everyday life right now. Think about what you may want to do with that dog five years from now.
Take the elevator. Walk through a parking garage. Go downtown. Let them hear luggage rolling, doors shutting, carts rattling, kids running and people coming and going. Travel with them when you can. Let them learn how to settle somewhere that doesn’t look, smell or sound like home.
And if you plan to travel with your dog, there are a few things I REALLY want them to know before you leave.
PLACE is a big one. Bring their bed or mat with you. When you get to a hotel, rental house or someone else’s home, they already understand, “This is my spot. I can settle here.” You’re giving them something familiar to do in an unfamiliar environment.
Crate training matters too, even if your dog isn’t normally crated at home. Some places require dogs to be crated if they’re left alone in the room. Travel is not the time to discover that your dog thinks a crate is a tiny prison designed specifically to ruin his vacation.
And please work on getting in and out of the car calmly.
Rest stops are a BIG one.
You’re tired. Cars are pulling in and out. People are walking dogs. Kids are running around. You open the door and the last thing you need is your dog launching out like he’s been selected for The Amazing Race.
The door opening should never mean GO.
Have your leash secured before that door opens, and teach your dog to wait until you release them. That one little piece of training matters every day, but it matters even more when you’re traveling.
Bring a regular leash and a long line too. A road trip through three states is probably not the appropriate time to find out exactly how committed your dog is to his recall when a squirrel appears at a rest area.
Most importantly, start all of this before you need it.
Good exposure isn’t about dragging a puppy through every possible situation in one weekend. It’s controlled, appropriate exposure that teaches them the world is full of weird noises, different surfaces, strange buildings and new places — and none of it needs to be a big deal.
You can’t predict everything your dog will encounter over the next 10 years, but you can give them a pretty big library of experiences to pull from.
And the next puppy that comes into this house?
Pandemic or not, we’re going to ALL the hotels. 😬
Ranger, meanwhile, will be at the Airbnb enjoying the peace and quiet while snoring loudly enough for the neighbors to hear him.
