we just finished a six day 3100 mile move from boston to portland with a 70 pound boxer and a 13 year old shih tzu, so here is the recommendation writeup i couldnt find when i needed it, the 380 dollar crash tested crate that earned its price in one panic stop outside toledo, the hotel chain that actually means it when they say pet friendly, the cerenia conversation to have before you leave, and the cooler of home water that saved us from day two diarrhea

my wife got relocated in april and we spent a month reading threads about flying dogs versus driving them before deciding to drive, Moose is our 5 year old boxer, 70lb of enthusiasm and motion sickness, and Pearl is a 13 year old shih tzu with arthritis and strong opinions. i could not find one single post that had the whole picture in it, so now that we are unpacked and both dogs are asleep in a house they have decided was always theirs, here is everything that actually mattered, with prices, because the pet travel internet is allergic to numbers.

restraint first because its the one where i learned something that scared me. i assumed any crate in the trunk was safe and it turns out most of what gets sold as a travel crate does nothing in a real crash, theres an independent group that actually crash tests this stuff and the failure videos changed my shopping list in one evening. we bought a heavy duty plastic kennel that passed their testing, $380, and strapped it to the cargo anchors, which matters just as much because an unanchored crate is a 30 pound projectile with your dog inside it. Pearl rode in a $75 small kennel seatbelted on the back seat. day two outside toledo a pickup cut across two lanes and i braked hard enough that everything loose in the car ended up in the footwells, and the crate did not move an inch. i stood at a rest stop ten minutes later doing the math on what a loose 70 pound dog does at 75mph and i will never road trip a dog uncrated again. the cheap fabric harness we almost bought instead was one of the ones that snapped in testing.

logistics, rapid fire. la quinta was our chain the whole way, most locations take two dogs no fee, we called every hotel directly anyway because the booking sites lie about pet policies, total pet fees for five nights, zero dollars. first thing in every room, before the dogs come in, one of us sweeps the floor line under the beds and furniture, our vet tech friend begged us to do this and she was right to beg, night three i found somebodys dropped pill under the nightstand, one pill, right at shih tzu head height. we hauled seven gallons of boston tap water in a cooler because Pearl has a princess stomach, both dogs drank home water the whole trip, zero GI incidents, the day two diarrhea in the title belongs to a 2019 trip where we learned this lesson the hard way. drive day meals were two thirds normal portions, vet approved, motion sick dogs do better lighter. and cerenia, we did a one hour test drive two weeks out, Moose drooled through his chin rest the entire time, our vet took one look at the video and wrote the script, $45 for the trip, he rode 3100 miles like a retired greyhound. stops every two and a half to three hours whether anyone asked or not.

the two rules that ran the whole trip. rule one, a dog is never alone in the car, ever, we tag teamed every gas station and every bathroom, april sun through glass does not negotiate. rule two, long days early, we front loaded two 650 mile days while everyone was fresh and kept day five and six short for Pearls sake, she was stiffest on morning three and the schedule gave her room to be. total damage for the dog side of the move, right around $600 including a car ramp Pearl refused on principle until day four. both dogs were fine. the humans needed a week. happy to answer anything, this forum answered enough of my dumb questions during the planning month that i owe it a writeup