Traveling With Your Pet
Traveling with your pet can be hassle-free with a little bit of planning. Below are some tips to help you with this.
Bring enough food to last the trip, you want to try and keep your pets diet consistent and avoid sudden changes. Diet changes, or access to rich or foreign foods is a common cause of diarrhoea and vomiting in some pets, and this is the last thing you want to have to deal with while you’re on holiday.
If your pet is on medication, bring plenty of it so you do not run out of it. If your pet has a chronic health condition take your Veterinarians contact details in case they need to be contacted while you are away. Make sure you have phone numbers and details for Veterinarians in the area you are travelling to, trying to find a Veterinarian in an unfamiliar place at time of emergency can be difficult and stressful.
Find out ahead of time that the hotel, caravan park, or home stay where you have reservations will accept pets. You don’t want to assume that it is a pet friendly hotel, only to be turned away for having a pet.
Make sure your pet wears a collar with tags, make sure your contact details on the tags are up to date so you can be easily contacted if your pet gets lost. Make sure your pet is microchipped and those details are up to date - the biggest Victorian data base for microchip details is Central Animal Records, you can check if your details are up to date online at http://www.car.com.au
Bring along your pet’s food dishes, bed or pillow and a couple of its favourite toys. Having familiar items along for the trip can help ease the stress of traveling and make the trip more enjoyable for both you and your animal companion.
Stop frequently for exercise and wee breaks, a well-exercised animal will be more content travelling in the car. Most highway rest stops have places to walk your dog, ensure to use a lead as they are more likely to stray in unfamiliar places. If you are holidays with cats, make sure the cage they are in is secure and big enough for them to stand up, stretch and move around in. When travelling for more than two hours, the cage will need to have space for food and water and a litter tray.