RV'ing with a Dog

Questions for Thom...

 I recently received an email from a reader asking (and I paraphrase)... "Thom, why don't you ever write about your dog?"

Well, that's an easy one... we don't have a dog. But I dare say the questioner's assumption that we have one is understandable. Most RV'ers, by far the majority, have a dog, often more than one.

Some RV'er pet-owners have pets that are not dogs... we've seen cats, exotic birds, ferrets, and we did run across one fellow who thought he had a snake... hadn't seen it for a couple weeks, but thought it was "still in there somewhere". But all the "other" pets combined are just a small sliver of the pet pie. The vast majority are dog owners.

We were out for an evening stroll around an RV park late last year, just the two of us, when this woman comes up to us and demands "Where's your dog?" For a moment I feared that maybe this RV park had a rule about it... maybe you must have a dog to get in. But no, not a rule... just an assumption.. and perhaps a little fear of some new campers with questionable credentials -- "They're not like us... they might be people who don't like dogs!"

But Dar and I absolutely LOVE dogs. We do! We have a few "grand-dogs" in the extended family and always enjoy scratching their ears, playing catch, going for walks, picking up their poop. We're just at the point in our lives where we love them a lot more when they belong to someone else. We're at that same point in our lives when it comes to kids too. But I don't think that makes us bad people, does it?

Seriously, we've made a conscious decision that, for us, having a dog along would really complicate things when we're exploring, traveling, and trying to live in just 300 square feet. But I want to make it clear that this decision was for us... we realize and understand that others simply can't be alone and can't live without these furry members of the family -- and that's OK. We love scratching your dog's ears as much as any.

Thom