Traveling with your dog abroad

Many people travel when on holiday with their pets, whether this be abroad or at home. There is lots of things you need to be aware of whenever you are going to be travelling anywhere with your dog. If you are going to be travelling abroad, your dog may need a pet passport. It is not just a matter of getting hold of the passport from your vet's. There is a series of vaccinations that the dog has to have beforehand. If you are going to be travelling abroad with your dog, you need to consult your vet now, well before you need to go because there is minimum times between travel. When you travel with your pet abroad, you need to make sure of any local rules or regulations regarding dogs, or cats, or any other animal, you are taking, what they are. You also need to make sure of what the veterinary provision is.

When you go abroad with your pet, you gotta make sure you carry a first aid kit. Now the first aid kit could just give you those vital extra minutes before getting to a vet. Contact vets locally where you are going to. Find out if there is any special problems within the area you are travelling to. For example, in certain regions of Spain, there are caterpillars that live in the trees. They will make a nest and while they are developing within this nest, they are fairly safe, but as soon as they drop out of the trees, they will then make their way across to other trees. What you will see is this little trail of caterpillars on the floor. If a dog comes into contact with the caterpillars, or maybe just the hairs off of the caterpillars, this can cause a very serious allergic reaction, respiratory problems and even death. It is one of those examples where you want to carry antihistamine. This can actually... Just give a small tablet to the dog and then hopefully, it gives you that vital extra time to get them to a vet.

Whenever you travel with your pets in the car, you need to make sure they are safe at all times. Put them into a proper travelling cage, behind a grill, or put a dog seat belt on. The harnesses with seat belts would just fit tightly onto the dog and they will come in different sizes and they just secure into the normal fastening where the normal seat belt goes. In some countries, it is a legal requirement to actually have seat belts on dogs, or put them behind cages. You can find yourself prosecuted if you do not have a dog securely. If you can imagine someone like Deco, 30 kilos in weight. If you suddenly brake hard, that is quite a weight coming toward you. Not only is it going to hurt you, but more importantly, it is going to hurt the dog. So we need to make sure that they are kept safe at all times.

If you are taking a dog abroad, or at home and you are going on a boat or near water, or rivers, you may well want to consider maybe getting the dog a life jacket. Just keep it around, just give them a little bit more buoyancy. Now, dogs can naturally swim and not normally have a problem, but you want to make sure they are kept as safe as possible. And also, the life jacket, being quite bright, you can see the dog a lot easier, particularly at night. So take extreme care with your dog near water. Although they are good swimmers, generally, we need to be really careful and make sure we give them every possible help. If you are in any doubt at all whenever taking your dog on holiday, always consult your local vet. They will have all the information that you need. Also, they can find any extra information out, maybe special requirements of where you are going, or they might be able to help you just putting seat belts on dogs.

If you are travelling with your pet in the car, you need to make sure they keep safe. It is very easy for their temperature to rise if they have not got adequate ventilation. In this example here, in the back of the boot of a car, the sunlight is going to come through the back window very, very strongly. If that does, that dog is going to heat up. If you do have to take your dog with you, then make sure you get her out the car as soon as you arrive. Make sure you take plenty of fresh water with you and you never leave her at any type of risk at all. The most important thing when you are taking a pet on holiday is to have fun and keep them safe. Make sure you always keep on a lead at all times. Make sure you give them plenty of exercises, have fresh water the whole time, maybe even using bottled water rather than the local water just to avoid any possible upset stomachs. Make sure you take plenty of food with you, treats and any toys the dog wants to play with.