Puppies & Camping (campervan)

[JW1989]

Hi all,

We are due to pick up our show cocker pup in May and are looking forward to our new life with him, taking him on all sorts of adventures with us.

We have a camper van and from here on in our holidays are likely to be more UK focussed and when he is a little older Europe in the van.

Does anyone have experience of how old their cocker pup was when they introduced them to staying away in a campervan (or tent). My thoughts are keeping it small and local to begin with. We live in Kendal so can stay in the Lake District and be 30mins from home, starting off with 1/2 nights and see how he gets on. If it all goes Pete Tong we can go home no issues.

[ejp]

Close to home for the first trip is a good plan.  Never travelled with a pup, but did with full grown dogs.  Our last girl loved her crate, and we didn't have room for it, so we took a pop-up/foldable fabric one.  She liked her own space and would snooze in it, while we were sat outside.  Honestly, you won't know until you try. In my experience, they sleep like a log, and hopefully you do too.

[sophie.ivy]

We started taking our wcs in the campervan when she was 9 months - we waited until she was out of the chewing everything in sight phase as it's my parents camper (and pride and joy!) We were really worried about it as she was a pretty intense puppy and we didn't think she would settle at all, BUT she was amazingly calm and content to just lie on a mat in the sun and watch the world go by. She has really taken to van life and I think part of that is she's a naturally confident girl and we did quite a bit in the way of socialising her to different dogs/people/environments. We were also worried about her not wanting to sleep in her crate at home after sleeping with us on the bed in the van, but no issues there at all.

For the first few trips, we stayed fairly local and took our car with us too so we could use her boot crate - which was a bit of a lifesaver when we needed to set up/pack. We've been camping recently without the crate and use a long line attached to a seat belt lead connector and that helps with peace of mind (and stopping her running off to greet everyone who walks past and/or to find the nearest bbq!)

I think doing a few trial nights is the way to go and only taking pup when she's showing signs of confidence with other dogs and people, especially children on bikes!

Have fun on your adventures with your new pup

[Finvarra]

Our dear old Milo loved our van. When we lost him and got a new pup, we went for a trial weekend just up the road. Used a crate, but it is a bit of a pain due to size and having to erect and dismantle it. He was fine that weekend so we started going further. We ditched the crate. We use a car harness that we attached to a strong strap going through the bar on the back of the passenger seat. He has a soft pad between the two seats to,lie on, and is fine and safe there. We also made a cloth shade for the summer to keep the sun off him from the windscreen. We’ve been to France with him, no problem. Dylan absolutely adores going away in the van. We changed our big moho for a smaller campervan that is now our only vehicle, so he's in it all time.
Hope you all have a great time in your van.
Lesley and Dylan

[JW1989]

So we've had wee Henry a couple of months now and he's taken to camping trips in the van like a cocker to water. He absolutely loves the van - probably in part because he gets to sleep about 30cm away from us. He currently sleeps in a crate on the passenger seat but when he's a bit older ill just lay a blanket on there for him, which im sure he will settle on for all of 30 seconds before diffusing via osmosis on to the bed 

His little rosette is from a fun dog show at a festival.

[Finvarra]

Glad it's all worked out for you, and Harry is loving it. He's a sweetie!
Lesley and Dylan

[ejp]

Wonderful  obviously taken to camping like a cocker to water!  Wishing you many more happy adventures.

[JulieR]

We took our little pup away in our motorhome when she was 15 weeks old, it wasn’t really planned but we had sites booked for a 2 week Cornish road trip before we got her and decided to go for it rather than lose our deposits thinking we would head for home if she was unsettled.

She was a little star and definitely took to van life, she travelled and slept in a fabric crate secured in the van, I had a long lead and torch for night time toilet breaks and a baby sling type doggie carrier for when she got tired.

We tended to let her rest in the mornings and took her out for just a couple of hours in the afternoon so she didn’t get over tired, we used buses to visit local towns, she met other doggies, lots of people and visited coffee shops, the odd pub, had short walks in woodland and beaches, she was fine and took it all in her stride, we clocked up over 750 miles in total but made sure we had plenty of long stops and planned our routes accordingly.

Can’t wait for our next trip!