Question For Those Who Bring Dogs On Their Truck

I recently rescued an abandoned blue pitbull puppy. (Her name is Atlas or "Attie" for short) She's a bit young to come on the road right now, but once she get her shots and gets fully potty trained, she'll be coming out with me.

My question is, what do you do at the shipper / receiver when they take forever to load / unload you and your dog has to go ? Some of the places I've been to have a "no pets out of the truck" policy.

I have absolutely no problem with following my dog with a bag and bagging up the poop for proper disposal.

I recently rescued an abandoned blue pitbull puppy. (Her name is Atlas or "Attie" for short) She's a bit young to come on the road right now, but once she get her shots and gets fully potty trained, she'll be coming out with me.

My question is, what do you do at the shipper / receiver when they take forever to load / unload you and your dog has to go ? Some of the places I've been to have a "no pets out of the truck" policy.

I have absolutely no problem with following my dog with a bag and bagging up the poop for proper disposal.

Many Carriers have size/ breed restrictions. Unfortunately a Pit Bull may violate both. As the Owner of a 14 year old Female Pit, I have felt the "Breed" restriction more than once over the last 14 years. I do not want this thread to become a vicious/ non vicious breed debate. SO PLEASE EVERYBODY, DON'T! Just trying to give you a fair heads up. BTW. My dog is not on my truck with me. Swift has a no pets policy. Plus, she is getting to old to travel anyways.

Pitbulls are the loveliest animals out there. Have owned or been friends with many through the years. No bad doggies - only bad doggie parents.

A friend of mine uses the "Jedi Mind Trick" - his dog Buddy is actually a "Portuguese Water Dog", according to the letter from his sympathetic veterinarian.

But your pup will likely exceed the max weight requirement (which is usually 25 lbs) pretty soon as she grows up.

That being said...

Ask security when you're going in, if it's cool to walk your dog and assure them you scoop. ANY RESPONSIBLE PET OWNER nowadays - bags their dogs business - in many areas it's the law now.

Even so - it's a policy that some places might have, due to years of folks leaving their dogs gifts all over the place - AND - potential liability issues. As in "nice doggie" - dog bites - company gets sued - easier to ban dogs.

All that being said - if a place has a "no dogs out of the truck" policy - and you KNOW THIS - pull off BEFORE you get there to allow Attie to do her thing. OR - if you're stuck there for awhile - you may have to CARRY HER off the property (of ask if you can drop and bobtail off).

Dogs, despite being the best thing since women (or maybe even better) are a lot of responsibility on a truck - way more than cats. Sometimes you have to balance whether or not it's really worth it. ESPECIALLY when you make a decision to get a NEW ONE - after you're already in a truck and don't know if you're going to be able to bring them along.

My last dog passed some 10 years ago. After 13 years of constant companionship, I'm still too heartbroken to replace him. But the larger factor is my housing/career situation. A dog - especially a large breed - is as much of an anchor as wife/kids when it comes to making decisions about career & housing.

I had my last one, 2X longer than all 3 ex-wives put together. Maxwells Silver hammer - 125 lbs of slobbery Rottweiler love. The last one (wife) told me "you love the dog more than me" - I had to respond, "he's been here 9 years, you just got here. But if you play your cards right - you'll outlive him, and you got a good shot at getting ahead". I guess you can see why I have dogs, longer than wives.

Rick

I have a 70 pound pit riding with me. I love her to death and i couldn't drive without her companionship.

As far as slow shippers and receivers I've never had any problems. There was only one time where i was there for 5 hours and the worst part is they didn't have any grass on their property and my dog won't pee without grass.

Like people said get it all handled before you go in our ask. If you can get her off the property then i wouldn't even ask.

The main problem i have with my dog is getting her care in the road. We have a petsmart plan which is nice but half the petsmarts don't have a vet and some of them are hard to fit the truck in. That plus you can't really make appointments so i call them explained my situation and about 90% of the time they can fit me in between others and we are really appreciative That they will do that for us.

But like last week my dog got into something and started getting an allergic reaction and swelling up really bad at midnight and we were in the middle of nowhere. I had to Google 24 hour animal emergency care in every town we were driving by and thankfully found somewhere in flagstaff,az that was open with a place i could fit the truck into. It was really stressful.

Good luck with the dog. It's a lot of work but definitely worth it. :)

Thank you everyone for the replies. I never event considered bringing a dog with me. But as I was pulling out of the truck stop, I saw Attie wandering around the drive way. I stopped and moved her out of the way, and that was it. She claimed me as hers. I called my girlfriend up and she came and got her. We both agree that she (Attie) would be good for me while I'm on the road.

She was very skinny, and still wobbly on her feet. We're thinking she's barely 7 weeks old. So for now she's at the house getting socialized with our border collie, "Jack" and they are both driving my gf nuts.

they are both driving my gf nuts.

Puppies SPECIALIZE in that!

I've wanted to get a dog, bit I'm just not sure I could do it. I've heard they are a lot of work and require an a lot of attention.

Aside from figuring out how to keep the dog current with shots and other medical care, I've wondered how riding in a truck for 10 hours a day is for the mental health of the dog. Being stuck in such a small space for that long, not being able to move around and run and play except for an hour or two each day. Just wonder if a dog will be affected by that.

Also, the fact that a truck driver has no set schedule, driving at night sometimes and days at other times. I'm assuming the dog isn't going to be affected by that and will just sleep when it wants to, bit I'm not sure, so I thought I'd ask.

Also, how do you feed a dog on a truck? Since your schedule has so much variance, do you just leave food and water out all the time?

I've heard that with dogs, you have to feed them a lot like humans. You set out food in the morning, let them eat, then put the food up so the dog isn't eating all day. You can leave water out all day though. Is this correct?

The issue I see with that is, if you feed them at irregular intervals, how healthy is that? And if you leave food out so they can eat whenever they want, but you schedule has you sleeping when they need to do their business, then you have little gifts waiting for you when you wake up.

How do you work around these things?

I have had 2 dogs a old mutt and now. Pit. the thing to remember is to get them out before hand and walk them. The old mutt was trained that if he could not hold it any longer, to poop, or pee on a pad I had set up on the passenger side floor. I carry a six months supply of all the meds my dog needs, as for food I do that when I do Walmart runs. My pit is still a puppy so still working on training her. But she is a great watch dog that will love you to death. Finding health care on the road for your dog can be hard. Just try to have all you need.

Sambo my dog gets feed once a day at the same time. She gets taken out when we stop and she knows that she need to go to the bathroom. She spends all the time driving sleeping and then is up sitting in my seat all the time I am sleeping. She has her toys and we go on walks. She has made the truck her home and it's here safe place so she dose just fine in it.

Sasha feeds in the morning and the evening. I have to pay attention to the time zones to keep her schedule normal but it's not really that tough. Like others mentioned, she sleeps a lot and has her toys. I stop every so often to get her out for a good run which keeps her from getting fussy and she will sit on the passenger floor staring at the door handle to let me know it's time to go out. With dogs, everything is repetition, so if you keep to a normal schedule, it's really easy to manage. Plus, after a rough day, there's nothing like having a dog give puppeh kisses and cuddle up next to you. You forget everything and realize that your dog loves you no matter what.