Six Important Tips for Successful Car Travel with Your Dog

Nothing is quite as fun as packing up and heading out of town for a weekend or a longer trip. A change of scenery from time to time is important to recharge your battery. This is true for your dog as well. Most dogs love to travel and to be exposed to new places just like you do. But there are a few things that you need to do to make the trip a positive experience for everyone.

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Make sure that you take with you items that your dog is fond of on the trip. Being ripped away from their routine and surroundings can be traumatic for your dog. If your pet has a favorite toy or blanket, be sure to take it along with you in the car. For more comforts of home, you can also bring their food and water dishes from home to use when you arrive at your destination. Also pack a good supply of paper towels and blankets for cleaning up dog hair, dirty paws and the like. Read more »

Jack Russells benefit from a regular routine

It is so easy to get distracted when working in your own home environment and as I work full-time from home running my own business, it was important that I settle my puppy into a daily routine from an early age.

I got my latest dog Zoe as a 7 week old puppy and to ensure that she got the attention and exercise that she needed and I was able to carry on with my own work with minimal disruption, I felt it was important to start the puppy training and get her into a routine at an early age. Read more »

Leaving Your Pet In A Parked Car Can Be A Deadly Mistake

With the summer months upon us, it’s time for a reminder about the dangers of leaving your pet in a parked car. Whether you’re parking in the shade, just running into the store, or leaving the windows cracked, it is still not ok to leave your pet in a parked car.

The temperature inside a car can skyrocket after just a few minutes. Parking in the shade or leaving the windows cracked does very little to alleviate this pressure cooker.

On a warm, sunny day try turning your car off, cracking your windows and sitting there. It will only be a few short minutes before it becomes unbearable. Imagine how your helpless pet will feel. On an 85-degree day, for example, the temperature inside a car with the windows cracked can reach 102 degrees within only ten minutes. After 30 minutes, the temperature will reach 120 degrees. At 110 degrees, pets are in danger of heatstroke. On hot and humid days, the temperature in a car parked in direct sunlight can rise more than 30 degrees per minute, and quickly become lethal.

Stanford University School of Medicine conducted a study to measure the temperature rise inside a parked car on sunny days with highs ranging from 72 to 96 degrees F. Their results showed that a car’s interior can heat up by an average of 40 degrees F within an hour, regardless of ambient temperature. Ambient temperature doesn’t matter – it’s whether it’s sunny out. Eighty percent of the temperature rise occurred within the first half hour. Even on a relatively cool day, the temperature inside a parked car can quickly spike to life-threatening levels if the sun is out.

Further, the researchers noted that much like the sun warms a greenhouse in winter; it also warms a parked car on cool days. In both cases, the sun heats up a mass of air trapped under glass. Precautions such as cracking a window or running the air conditioner prior to parking the car were found to be inadequate.

Pets are very susceptible to overheating as they are much less efficient at cooling themselves than people are. The solution is simple – leave your pets at home if the place you are going does not allow pets. Read more »

The weather has finally got really hot over here, which gives us the problem of how to keep cool when we are driving, and also when the car is parked. You have to be really careful if you are going to leave a dog in a parked car and Mum has bought all sorts of accessories to make sure the car does not overheat if she has to leave me there for a few minutes. First she ordered a sun visor which goes across the front windscreen. These help keep temperatures down inside the car, and they also protect against uv damage, which could fade the dashboard and leather seats. Second, we now have a gadget that fits inside the open rear window so that it can be left open but secure and nobody can get inside the car but plenty of fresh air can flow. With two of these on the back windows there is a good flow of air through the car, and we always park in the shade if I need to stay in the vehicle. Mum got all these things from http://www.corvetteguys.com/corvette-accessories.html – you know how she loves to shop online! Apparently by shopping from home she does not need to take me to the shops so much, and I get more time to lounge around in the house!

It may sound silly but Mum wanted a car with remote locking so that when she gets me out with shopping bags to carry, she can lock the car safely, and make sure I don’t go into the traffic. Sometimes when she need sto get stuff out of the car she secures my lead over the wing mirror – very undignified! She decided that a Toyota Yaris or Kia Picanto would suit us, but she wanted five doors cos sometimes I skip over into the back of the car and she needs to get me out. So why were we walking the streets so much? Well she decided to leave notes on all the nice looking cars asking if they were for sale!
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