Dog’s preparations to travel the world..

This week we went to the vet with Dunya. We wanted to make sure that she is not too old to go touring with us and wanted to discuss what kind of precautions we should take for her. As we expected and hoped for, she is still in very good health and there should be no problem for to come with us on our journey. She should easily be able to make it for another two years.

We will take the following precautions:

Vaccinations

She has always had her yearly vaccination that every dog gets and that prevents dog illness and the parvovirus. Furthermore we always gave her the vaccination against rabies, which is very important if we want to take her abroad, because this is obligatory in all countries. Before we leave, we have to send a sample of her blood to a lab to get prove that the antibodies against rabies are really in her blood. That prove will be put in her passport with a stamp of our local vet and with that she is officially good to go!

Medication

Dunya starts to show signs of osteoarthritis in her legs and we now started her on medication. If that turns out to work well, we will take a year’s supply with us.

Ticks are very aggressive in some countries. We will try to follow the cooler seasons as much as possible but cannot prevent that in some countries we will have hot weather and then be confronted with ticks and maybe sandflies. Both of those insects can cause serious illnesses for dogs. We will bring several Scalibor protector collars, which prevent ticks to bite or if they do bite, prevents them from infecting the dog.

In case she does get infected by a tick or a sandfly, we will bring some doses of anti-biotics.

Dunya likes to eat a lot and we will not always be able to prevent her from eating from the street. Therefore we will bring at least a year’s supply of anti-worm medication.

Food

We will try to have always a large bag of dry food for her and mix that with a bit of our own food. That is what we do now as well, so we hope we will be able to find that almost everywhere. Fortunately she is not a picky eater, so even if we do not have any dry food for a while, I am sure we can find something else for her to eat. She also likes raw seafood and I guess that is always an option…

Comfort

After our try-out weekend away with a rental campervan, we know we need a little bit more space for ourselves and for Dunya. We will make sure she gets her own place in our new home so that she will feel comfortable.
For hotter area’s we will bring a cooling mat and bandana for her. These are filled with sillicon grains that can take up to at least 10x their volume in water and hold that water for several days which keeps the fabric cool and soft.
We will make sure the campervan has airconditioning so that it never gets too hot inside.

Should anything else pop up in the next five months, we will for sure update this post..