Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to park Landia, the production of My Heart Radio.
We packed up our lofts in Chicago, moved into an
r V, and now we're traveling the country full time,
visiting our country's national parks. Just us and our dog Fan. Hi.
I'm Matt and I'm Brad, and you're listening to park Landia.
(00:25):
Speaking of Finn. Today we were answering a question from
Lisa d one of our park Landia rangers, who shot
us a great question about r V living and dogs.
So today for our bonus episode, we're putting the spotlight
on fin and talking about what it's like to travel
and live in an RV with dogs. And I'll read
that question right now. Hi, I just started following you
(00:47):
guys and love your podcasts. My goal someday, sooner than later,
is to get a classy mobile and hit the road
with my dog. I know you travel with yours, and
I was wondering what you do with your pup when
you're out hiking like an episode seven, Have you had
any issues while traveling with them? It would just be
Mackenzie a beautiful cavalier, King Charles, But I'm partial and
myself traveling. Keep your wonderful adventures coming. They're so enjoyable.
(01:11):
It's such like a heartful, like like emoji filled message. UM.
And we really appreciate questions like these because they really
help us dig into these really important questions that we
get to answer for people. Absolutely, yeah, I think docs
are so important. Oh yeah, absolute family members, they are.
I mean, the first thing you want to do is
(01:32):
you want to make sure that their water bowls filled
always always, and that's just an always water Yeah. But
when we're on hikes, you can turn on your generator.
We have a built in generator. But if you are
traveling full time and you don't have a built in generator,
you definitely want to make sure that you get one
(01:53):
UM that you can put on the side or anything
like that for those instances, because you're gonna want to
make sure that they have the A C the correct
like temperatures because I think when we were in the
bad Lands, all right, that was episode seven, so yeah,
very susceptible to drastic weather yeah, and high heats and
(02:14):
so you know, you don't want to leave them baking.
The good thing about a Class C RV is the
temperatures don't like, it's not like a little car right,
if you have like a little black car that has
like four seats, it's gonna bake like real quick. Like
you can go into the grow store for like thirty
minutes and you're back in there. You know, like when
you touch that leather seat, you're like because it's so
(02:36):
hot and you're just like sticky and everything. Well, the RV,
because it's more spacious, it doesn't like heat up that quickly.
I mean it takes a long time. So um. But
to always be precautious, you want to make sure to
have that generator on too. Put that a c out
there for your animals when they're are traveling with them,
(02:58):
because you don't want to leave your windows open because
then you're now susceptible to theft and too, um like
your dog getting stolen um. You know, so you want
to make sure that like everything's locked up, and that's
why you want to have that generator in this instance. Yeah,
that's good. And also speaking of windows, whenever we're out,
(03:19):
make sure we make sure that we um how the
windows locked because Fan will jump up on the seats,
the front seats and he has several times in the
past rolled the windows down to himself he'll like put
his paws up and like hit the button and the
window will go down. He has never jumped out, fortunately,
but you know we've come back to the every we're like,
(03:40):
what's going on here? Yeah, well, and that's because like
when we turn off the ignition of the front and
you take out the keys, it stays on right because
you haven't opened your door yet. Well, I come out
back and I'll go out the side door, the the
main cabin door for the actual RV part, and I
won't open up those front doors. And then that's why
it doesn't like deactivate. So basically all the electronics work
(04:02):
and he can lock the doors, unlock the doors. He
can do all that fun stuff. So like, um, that's why.
So basically, now I know, turn off the key, open
the door, closed the door, locked the doors, and these
are the fun things that you get to like learn
on the road. Is like, oh, that's a weird glitch.
I guess it's like why would you have that? But
I get it, you know, yeah, like you forget to
(04:24):
bill up your window. I hate when I do that.
And then I'm like turn off the keys already and
I can't roll it up and I'm like no, but
because of that, I'm allowed to. But then I have
to open up the door and close it to actually
disconnect the power. Yeah, basically, Yeah, so that's important. The windows,
the temperature generator, and like yeah, like we said, like
if you're just at a gas station you're running into
(04:46):
like use the bathroom or get a copy or something,
you're just gonna come for a few minutes, you don't
need to turn the generator on for that because it'll
be fine. Just make sure it's properly locked and secured.
But yeah, generator is a lifesaver and really important and
crucial if you're when you're in a national park, especially
when you're hiking and you're gonna be gone for potentially
a little bit, to make sure that your dog is
(05:07):
comfortable and safe. Yes, and um, you know a couple
housekeeping things for dogs. We just wanted to talk about
things that you need to have when you're on the road. Um.
Leash is very important. Um. We have a harness for
Finny um and basically it goes around his chest versus
around his throat. Um. That's really important to us because
we don't want his him to choke himself because he
(05:29):
does he just runs. Yeah, and he'll just keep on going.
So I mean there's sometimes where I feel like he's
flying because he just runs so fast and he hits
the end of the leash and then he's like, yeah,
he got He does not have any patience when he
gets gets excited like that, and he just wonder who
gets that from? Yeah? Sorry, I mean we then and
(05:50):
I hike at the same pace. Yes, extreme excitement, extreme excitement,
that's the pace. And then for like most of our
V parks and things and national parks, they have to
be on a six foot leash or shorter, but you
want to bring your attractable one as well because sometimes
like you'll be at an rvypack where they have like
a big opening and you can go out there. But
(06:12):
if you and then you know, you can have your
dog run around while on that leash. But um, while traveling,
it's really important to leash up your pets. And it's
not even because of your pet, even if you trust
your pet, it's other pets. Um. You know, there's been
instances where there's dog fights at national parks because somebody
didn't leash up their dog and thought that they would
(06:33):
be fine. But so there's you know, there's there's definitely issues.
Be mindful, yes, please, and being mindful you have to
pick up your waists. Waist pickup beggs. Always have those
with you, yeah, like we do. Yeah, and that's because
you know, the feces can hurt other dogs if they're
not probably like they don't have like all their shots
(06:56):
that they need and everything like that, like those those things. Yeah,
I'm you really want to make sure that you're picking
up your way so it's not affecting another dog in
that way. Right. What are some other things that you
think we should bring some other things or that we
have brought. Yes, well these are more luxury atoms. But
he has assortment of toys which I think is good
(07:17):
dead toys. They're completely to start at this point, but
he's still he's still like choose them, and those are
good for when we're here. Um, it's just tracking in
front for him, but also like give them something to
do when we're gone as well. And here. Actually, this
is a really good challenge is if you think there's
a dog toy out there that Finn cannot destroy, reach
(07:40):
out to us on Twitter at park landya Pod, tweet
us and be like go to this Amazon and and
we want to know it because he is destroyed every
indestructible toy there is like that Finn cannot destroy. Um
and I was confident and I did my research and
I searched and search and nothing. So we want to
(08:02):
we want some ideas, So reach out to us. Yeah,
that'd be really good because all his toys are he
just like completely destroys them within minutes and now he
just has like rags that he had a scattered around
the RV. It's like a toy graveyard here. But you
know it makes them happy. So some other things are
(08:24):
items for cleanliness like a brush and um pet bath items,
shampoos and things like that for dogs obviously absolutely. Yeah,
and then we have a nice company traveling create for him. Yes,
that he's really gotten. There's restrictions by the f a
(08:45):
UM for that as well, so you have to make
sure that you're within their restrictions when you want to
fly with your pets. Um, because we're gonna be going
to a wedding here soon, and there's other times that well,
this will be our second trip with Finn on an
airplane since RV living. Yeah, so I'm not quite as
stressed out, but still very stressed out. I am, like,
(09:05):
I'm sure Finn is a little bit as well, because
it's a crazy environment for him. But he did really
well the last time, surprisingly well, and I'm optimistic and
hopeful that it'll just continue to be normal uncomfortable for him.
And that's a big part of that is just finding
the right crate size wise, but also just like comfort wise,
(09:27):
like what'll make your dog feel less anxiety. And our
crate is um he can like stick his head out
if we endzip it a little bit. I feel like
it's just like perfectly sized and he can see and
we can still like you know, make him feel like
we're right next to him the whole time, so it
doesn't feel too scared. It's it's good. Yeah, I know,
(09:49):
that's fantastic. And when traveling with your pets, you know,
again going to get your tags, their tags and their shots.
You want to make sure they have their appropriate tags
on especially you know, just case they get lost. You
want them to have your most recent phone number, so
you want to update that and um, you know, I've
even seen people put email addresses on there, so that's
a great idea as well. Um, but the shots, like
(10:12):
if you're traveling internationally with your dog, um, you know,
you want to get those shots checked out and make
sure that you know all the rules and regulations for that.
And then even Hawaii has different rules in regards to
the shots that are required versus the main lands. And
so you know, because we're trying to start looking at
different travels and different things like that, so as we
(10:35):
do our research, you know, we have to research for
Finny as well. So that's really important within this um
RV living and actually with any living, any traveling, is
that you want to make sure that you understand those
um and when we go into like long walks within
it's not really in relation to shots and tags, but um,
(10:59):
if we want to want to five to eight mile hike,
you know, we might take him for a mile or
two to get him out for that, but that's you know,
where Finny starts to get him self exhausted, and so
we have to like balance that right, and he's a
little dog, so he gets exhausted pretty quickly. I'm sure
other breeds, medium sized breeds, large breeds, UM, they probably
(11:21):
can do five to eight mile hikes and walks just fine.
Finn it's a combination of him being so small and
also just like that explosion of energy. He just drains
himself so quick. So we do, like we moderate and
see how he's feeling, and then like take him back
to the r V generator on and then we can
continue on our way. So yeah, we're that's Have you
(11:43):
kind of go on hikes and walks with Finn? Yeah,
I have been thinking about getting one of those like
baby cradlers on in front of you and you can
just put Finny in there and you cannot look. I
would love that. He'd probably just like no, let me
pro want to That'd be so cute, it really would be.
And oh and within our V living, I mean this
is just a general rule for anyone who has a dog,
(12:04):
but like you know, you have to clean your dog
bowls more frequently because like just so much dirt gets
mixed up and dust and everything like that, and so
you have to be cleaning all the time in your
r V, but your dog bowls there's just so much
gunk because every time you open up your RV door,
(12:25):
it's like a vacuum and it just sucks things in um.
And so you want to make sure that your dog
doesn't get sick because their dog bowl is dirty. Yes,
very true, because that stuff is on the floor obviously,
so it's more susceptible too, grime and dirt and stuff
from outdoors. So you have to just keep an eye
(12:47):
on that and clean out a regular basis, keep it
refreshing and clean. And then another thing we always stockpile
and have a regular collection of is dog treats. Um.
We usually have a few different varieties, but he loves
anything meat flavored, especially bacon flavored, and that he gets
(13:09):
from me. Yeah, I know, I have no interest in
anything bacon flavored really, but they, yeah, they go a
long way just giving if you want to like reward
them for good behavior or they're also just like kind
of it have the same effect as like an emotional
support blanket. So like if he's saying anxious or we're
(13:30):
leaving and he's still whining or something, I'll like give
him a little bit to calm him down, to make
him happy, and then he's fine. He gets distracted. And
speaking of stockpiling, we have to stockpile all that love
and extra attention always. Yeah, it's because it is a
smaller space and so by giving him that love when
we get home and just like sitting with him for
(13:52):
a couple of minutes and just like just giving him
that full focus, it really calms him down and makes
him happy. I mean, I know he's just excited for
us to be home and we're up for a long
days or long hikes. But um, he's just he's an
angel and he keeps us happy and loved and safe,
and he's our best friends. So we have to make
(14:14):
sure that we take care of him, and I would
say even I'm using air quotes right now, communicate with him,
Like we have to communicate with each other to fill
each other's love tanks and things like that. So that's
super important to ourv living with dogs and in our
case Finn. Yeah, he's the best and he's been loving
(14:35):
this adventure. It's adapted really well and it's been wonderful
to see experience with him. Did you see that petrified
forest photo of him? He was ready to take on
the world. Yes, I love it. Best time you've been
listening to Parklandia show about national parks Parklandia. It's a
(14:57):
production of Our Heart Radio created by Mac Carroll, Brad
Carola and Christopher hasiotis produced and edited by Mike Johns,
our executive Producer's Christopher. Hasiotis special thanks to Gabrielle Collins,
Krystal Waters, and the rest of the park Landia crew
and Hey listeners. If you're enjoying the show, leave us
a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps other people like
you find our show. You could keep up with us
(15:20):
on social media. Check out photos from our travels on
Instagram at park Landia Pod and join in on the
conversation in our Facebook group park Landia Rangers from our podcast.
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