A Year of Pets on the Road

Our new Pets on the Road column, launched in our July print issue, turned out to be one of the most joyful things Wildsam took on this year. From issue to issue, we hear from free-range pet owners about their non-human road companions, with insight on how these creatures adapt to life on the highway and what their mysterious spirits lend to the journey. These are some of our all-stars so far:

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Napoleon & Jasper
Cat & dog

“Napoleon is 18 now, and I got Jasper, a husky-shepherd mix, 10 years later, so he’s 8. For me, there’s a joy to traveling with them, and I’ve absolutely changed how I travel to accommodate them. I’d have a different rig, for one, probably a van. But Jasper’s scared of everything—hates driving, hates the sound of things rattling around. So I have a truck camper, a Lance 845. He has his own custom mattress in the back of the truck cab, gets some CBD treats, and that’s his travel pod. Then the camper is his safe zone—in his mind, it never moves. Years ago, when I was towing an Airstream Basecamp, Napoleon had his own passenger-seat booster that buckled in. As he’s gotten older, though, he wants to be as close to me as possible. And this may sound terrible, but he's lived a really long life, so I let him sit in my lap when I drive. He just curls in, and I can't tell he’s there.” — Cass Beach, @tailsofwanderlust

Fave doggy destination: Yosemite National Park, surprisingly. “In Yosemite Valley, there’s a dog-friendly paved path from the campgrounds to Lower Yosemite Falls to the village. So I can take Jasper on a 5-mile walk every day.”

Scout
Bearded dragon

“Scout is six. He’s about 2.2 pounds and just shy of two feet long—a bearded dragon who’s part German giant. We launched our RV life when he was just a baby, so living life on the road is all he’s ever known. Bearded dragons reach maturity in one year, so he had free range of the RV early on. He spends most of his time on the back of the couch where the back window is. We hung heat and UV lamps from the top of the cabinets for him up there. It’s amazing how quickly he learned that was his space. It was like a cat with a litter box. At night, he sleeps in his habitat, which is the equivalent of a 65-gallon tank. We would keep him in there just in case there was an emergency in the middle of the night. When he’s ready to come out in the morning, he just taps on the plexiglass with his nose. When we’re driving, he sits in a soft-sided pet carrier with a little heat lamp. We put him on a stool so he can see out the windows. Everywhere we’ve gone, he’s been a hit. He has a leash, a stroller, and an outside playpen—and when we want to get a good walk, we just put him in the stroller. He loves grass, dandelions, and caterpillars. He wasn’t going to disrupt the lifestyle we wanted to live.”  — Dustin & Leslie Waggoner

Dietary note: “He used to eat crickets, but he gave up on those. He was too lazy to catch them. Now he mostly eats salads.” 

Marley
Dog

“Marley is seven years old—we got her before we started traveling. We were looking for a pup that could get up and go with us and do lots of crazy adventures, but then at the same time, be small enough for our lifestyle. She's a West Highland Terrier, also known as a Westie. We’ve been living in our 2019 Airstream—we picked it up as a first-year model in 2018—for five and a half years now. She has a life jacket, she's got hiking boots and she has a bed inside the truck for travel; she has a fancy Airstream dog bed that zips up and stores away nicely. She's like every dog: she’s lazy and naps, but as soon as she has the opportunity to adventure—we work full-time and my daughter does school full-time, so our weekdays are usually pretty busy with that—she's straight into the truck, she jumps in there and is ready to go. We position ourselves in places, often in mountains or desert, where we can just get out and play either after work or on the weekends.” —Karen Blue, @cedarandsilver 

Clutch piece of gear: Marley’s luxe bed is the Airstream Travel Pet Bed, which folds and zips up into a portable clamshell. 

Zoe
Dog

“Zoe is a 9-year-old chocolate lab retriever. She’s an energetic dog—she still acts like she’s 4 or 5 years old. God forbid you hold a tennis ball: You’re trapped. Last summer, we noticed she was drinking an awful lot of water, so we took her to a vet where we were traveling and found out she had diabetes. She’s receiving 40 units of insulin a day now, which can be a challenge on the road. She’s also lost her eyesight because of this, but she’s no less a happy girl. She still plays fetch—the sniffer works!—but she doesn’t play for two hours straight like she used to. She doesn’t swim like she used to, because she always wants to know where the shore is. But the tail is still always wagging and her energy level is high. She’s a phenomenal traveler. She’s still able to hop up in the truck no problem and climb into the fifth wheel and maneuver around. You’d honestly never know she was blind because she has a routine she can stick to. It’s absolutely amazing.” —Marc and Patricia Guido,  @GrandAdventure 

Dexter
Cat

“Dexter is a 9-year-old chocolate Siamese. For being a traveling cat, he can be kind of a skittish indoor cat. A lot of people, when they picture a traveling cat, picture a kitty on a paddle board or on a hike. But our door could be open and he just wants to stay and be inside. We have taken him outside when we’re dispersed camping or boondocking. At first he’s skittish but then he’s cool with it. We got him before we had an RV, and then we all jumped into the RV lifestyle together. It was a little touch-and-go, learning his schedule. Before we take off for the day, we do a thing called: ‘No napping allowed.’ We’ll let him play, and we won't let him go off and sleep. We keep him active, walking around. That sets him up for the best success when traveling. He’ll be tired and you don’t even hear a peep when we’re moving. We have a crate that folds down for storage, and he has a space in there. He doesn’t really like looking out the window, and he doesn’t like truck stops. Underneath our bathroom sink there’s a deep cavity. It was just excess space. There used to be a cabinet door, so we put in a tension rod with a curtain; he hangs in there a lot when we’re parked. We joke that we bought the RV for him. He owns whatever piece of furniture in here that he wants, especially the office swivel chair. People who follow our channel will recognize us and show up with gifts, and a lot of people bring stuff for Dexter. He doesn’t even realize he’s famous.” —Kyle and Renee Hanks, @HappilyEverHanks

Keeping it lively: “What's great about moving locations so frequently: Dexter gets new wildlife to look at each time. He never gets bored with the bird and squirrel activity.”