Canine Camping

Clinton CG
Clinton, CT

One of the advantages to traveling in a motor home is that you can bring your pets with you. It isn’t always an advantage: if your pet is like mine, you will become his personal travel companion, his plush and comfy luxury seat, your lap a First Class accommodation, with the assumption that you will be more than happy to scratch from end of the country to the other. You will see the scenery along the way as if you were seated in a theatre behind a lady with a very large hat, craning your neck to see around his eager, panting (and oh, let’s not discuss the breath) and constantly moving silhouette.

My favorite moment comes when he changes positions, and before he settles in, he sniffs the place on my lap where his butt has just been. Oh spare me, please.

Which reminds me to mention that most of my fellow travelers seem to bring dogs. I haven’t seen one single cat since we started. Maybe RVers are genetically fond of dogs. Of course, I haven’t been in any other motor homes, so maybe the cats hide. Then again, maybe cat people are house people by nature, and only take vacations reluctantly. And when they do go away, they can leave their babies at home, happily peeing where they shouldn’t, as in my friend Jane’s case. Her cat Thalassa used to use the bathtub if left alone. It always made for a really fragrant return home.

Dogs, on the other hand, are easily spotted in campgrounds. They lounge, dusty and panting, outside each camper with their toys, their water and if they’re lucky, their big puffy bed, arfing, woofing and grring at anybody who might deign to trespass on their 12 feet of frontage. They are big, sloppy things, hulky, happy dogs who are good with kids, and who sport names like Thunder, Joe and Moose. Our dog has a big-dog name, Zeus, and he thinks he’s a Rottweiler, but he’s really a skinny Jack Russell and a major tail-wagger. He just wants friends, attention and food, not necessarily in that order.

But there are other kinds of animal-lovers in this world. What about the gerbil people? The rabbit fanciers? The Teddy Bear Hamster crowd? Do their owners tote little cages and exercise wheels as they travel? Do they keep these pets in the camper – or heaven forbid, down below in storage? Do rodents take to travel or do they get carsick? How would you know?

“Oh honey, let’s stop for a while. Priscilla and Rodney are looking a little green around the whiskers.”

These days, people give their kids monikers like Apple and Butterscotch, and their pets get real names, which tends to really throw you when the pets die at, say, age 8 and they mention this fact at a party, for instance. “We buried dear Carl today. He was 7½ . We’ll miss him so much.” And you’re at a party? Ooooh, cold.

But right now, Zeus is panting his fetid breath at my knee and making the squeakiest of noises, which indicates his need to be walked. So I’ll grab a plastic baggie, hook him up to the leash and take on yet another of my favorite chores: poop scooper.

Betty