Travel Tips

Thanksgiving is one of the most traveled holidays — transportation experts say the Wednesday before is the most traveled day of the year — and this means families and their pets hit the road. I should be advising how to keep your pet safe in the car while traveling, either buckled in a seat harness or more securely in a crate that will keep your pet contained during a crash. I should also be warning pet owners to tape on the crate an emergency contact information card (name, cellphone and e-mail) of someone to collect your pets if you are in an accident, become unconscious and your pets need care while you are whisked away in ambulance. This is especially true if you drive alone with your pets. I should finally remind you that if you travel more than three hours plan to make regularly scheduled stops to let your pets stretch their legs, relieve themselves, get some fresh water, and enjoy the sights and smells of a change of scenery.

And while all these are important safety tips to keep pets happy and stress-free on the way to a friend or relative’s house, it is once you arrive at your destination that the biggest threat to your pet’s life begins. As a breeder I’ve received numerous letters from new owners over the years who carefully took home that bundle of puppy joy. They loved to report back on the happiness that puppy has given them at holidays, at family milestones, at personal canine accomplishments. But none so firmly etched in my memory as one I got a few weeks after Thanksgiving. The family had a male Norwegian elkhound that I placed with them after a previous owner’s divorce and relocation forced her to return a very young dog to me. He was only 6 months old when he went to live with his new family. The letter began with how much they loved the young pup and what happiness he had brought the family in the last two months.

I was beaming with “breeder pride” that a puppy I had lovingly planned for, whelped, and raised had finally found a home full of love, companionship, and family to care for him for his entire life. Then as I read the next paragraph my smile melted into a frown, my brows furrowed, and my tears dripped onto the blue ink causing it to run down the notebook paper, obviously pulled from a student’s three ring binder, as if a homework assignment hastily written. She was explaining how the family had traveled to a relative’s house, a home that had no dogs. The residents knew nothing about dogs. She painfully detailed how someone had left a front door open and that the puppy who was playing happily inside was suddenly outside the house with no collar, no leash, and no control. This happy puppy blissfully ran toward the street where his short life ended during his first encounter with a speeding motor vehicle.