Thanksgiving travel: leave the dog or bring the dog

Thanksgiving is the busiest travel week of the year, and for a lot of Houston families it is a long drive to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio or somewhere in Louisiana with a house full of relatives at the end of it. The dog either comes, or it does not. Our team gets the question every year in the second week of November, usually with the trip already booked. Here is how we help families decide.

Bring the dog if

• It rides calmly in a crate for an hour without whining, panting or pacing.
• It has held place in a room that is not yours, with people walking through.
• It is neutral to other dogs, because your cousin is bringing one too.
• Nobody at the destination is frightened of dogs, allergic, or under three years old, unless the dog has proven itself around all three.
• You are willing to walk it twice a day, on leash, in a neighborhood you do not know.

If any of those is a no, it is not a no forever. It is a training list. But the week of Thanksgiving is not the week to start it.

Leave the dog if

A dog with any reactivity, any guarding around food, or any history of snapping at children should not spend a four day weekend in a strange house with a turkey on the counter and a dozen people who do not know the rules. The dog is not being punished by staying home. It is being kept out of a situation it would fail, and a bite on Thanksgiving is a story a family tells for twenty years.

For returning clients, boarding with training refreshers is the simple answer: the dog stays in our trainer's home in Cypress, keeps its structure, and comes back sharper than it left. Thanksgiving week goes early, so call before the middle of the month.

If the dog is coming, do this in the ten days before

Run the car routine. Crate in the back, a short drive to the store, then a longer one to a park, then a full hour on 290 with a stop at the end and a structured walk before you get back in. Then run the strange room routine: take the place bed to a friend's house, set it down, send the dog, and sit there for twenty minutes while the household goes on around you. Two rehearsals of each are enough for a dog that already has the skills. Ten rehearsals will not be enough for a dog that does not.

Meals, doors and the counter

At the destination, the dog eats in the crate, not in the kitchen. It goes to place while dinner is served and stays there until the table is cleared, and if it cannot do that, the crate is where it rests during the meal. Every door in a strange house is a door the dog can bolt through, so the wait at the door travels with you. Nobody feeds it turkey skin. Say that out loud to the relatives on arrival, once, and then say it again to the one who was not listening.

If the dog is not there yet and you want it there by Christmas, Gold covers the crate, the door and place in two weeks for $2,500. Book the free consultation now and the dog is home before the tree goes up.

Written by

Best Dog University Team

Board and train trainers in Cypress, Houston. 16+ years, 900+ dogs. About our team