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Photo Friday: Dog travel pictures wanted!

Happy New Year! Today’s photo is from a beloved metal/biker bar in Amsterdam called the Excalibur, and was taken in 2009 by Flickr photographer singingbeagle:

Please send me links to your favorite dog travel photos! Here’s how it works:

  1. Every Friday, I’ll put up a post like this one, sometime during the morning (Pacific time).
  2. On Friday you post a dog travel photo on your site. If you don’t have a site, post your photo to Flickr (or Facebook, Twitpic, etc.).
  3. If you’re writing a blog post, link back here to the current week’s “Photo Friday” post so that your readers can see other great dog travel photos.
  4. Enter a link to your page or your blog post in the form at the bottom of my post. That way, Dog Jaunt will link back to you. Please include a few words in the “Link Title” box describing where you took the photo.

Pet relief area at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (PHX)

PHX "Bone Yard"

What better way to celebrate New Year’s Eve than to find out about another airport’s pet relief area? Today it’s all about the pet relief areas at Phoenix Sky Harbor International. There are three, one each for Terminals 2, 3 and 4. We flew into Terminal 4, so I went in search of the “Bone Yard” (the other two areas are called the “Pet Patch” and the “Paw Yard”).

It’s on the west side of the baggage claim area, which is a pity, since you arrive on the east side of the baggage claim area. Walk to Door 1, exit the building and turn left. Walk along the sidewalk, and just past the outdoor smoking area is a large, fenced rectangular area with a wrought iron sign saying “The Bone Yard.”

The area is largely covered in crushed gravel, but the center portion is covered in finely-shredded bark set into a bone-shaped perimeter. There are poop bags and a trashcan, and there are a couple of sets of fountains, suitable for both humans and dogs. It’s a pleasant place. I noticed only a couple of negatives. The front door is currently stuck slightly open, and the handicapped-accessible door stays open for a long time once the access button is pushed, so keep your dog on her leash, even if you’re alone. Also, a bench would be very helpful, not only for weary humans, but for a clean-ish place to set a purse or carrier on.

The sidewalk continues well past the pet relief area, so you and your dog can stretch your legs a bit once your mission is accomplished.

This post is part of an ongoing series of reviews of airport pet relief areas we’ve visited. To see others, visit Dog Jaunt’s handy guide to airport pet relief areas.

Pet relief area at Port Columbus airport (CMH)

CMH pet relief area

CMH pet relief area

CMH kindly provides a map of its arrivals level, showing the location of the airport’s pet relief area, but it’s a bit hard to follow. Here’s what you do: Exit the baggage claim level through the doors across from Carousel 2, then turn left and walk to the end of the sidewalk. The pet relief area is a small, fenced enclosure lined in crushed stone. Poop bags and a trash can are provided, but the area was very dirty when we visited. A far better choice is to cross the airport road to an area whose pillars bear the signs “Pre-arranged vehicles.” Right next to them is a big patch of grass — much cleaner and more pleasant than the official relief area, but you’ll need to carry your own poop bags.

This post is part of an ongoing series of reviews of airport pet relief areas we’ve visited. To see others, visit Dog Jaunt’s handy guide to airport pet relief areas.

Pet relief area at Tampa International Airport (TPA)

According to the TPA website, “the relief areas for pets/service animals at the landside building are located in the ‘grassy areas’ across the vehicle drives of the arrival (baggage claim) and departure (ticketing) areas.” And indeed, when you leave the terminal, you will find walkways that lead you across the airport roadway to patches of grass.

Tampa's just coming out of a drought (6/1/12), so all the grassy bits are brown in this picture

This is one of your options, across from the exit doors near baggage claim Carousel 7. There are others across from the other exits. Bring your own poop bags, since none are provided — there are trash cans near the entrance to the parking garage, and on the side of the roadway I was standing on when I took this picture.

This post is part of an ongoing series of reviews of airport pet relief areas we’ve visited. To see others, visit Dog Jaunt’s handy guide to airport pet relief areas.

Giveaway: Outward Hound “Sling-Go Pet Carrier”

Last Thursday I reviewed Outward Hound’s “Sling-Go Pet Carrier,” and today I have the pleasure of offering it to a Dog Jaunt reader! Many thanks to The Kyjen Company for sponsoring this giveaway.

Photo by The Kyjen Company

How to enter

Using the form below, please tell me about a favorite dog-friendly place — a park, hotel, shop, or restaurant that you and your dog have enjoyed together. Choose wisely, because you only get one comment per giveaway!

If you subscribe to Dog Jaunt or follow @dogjaunt on Twitter, however, you will get additional chances to win. Subscribers, please insert the secret code at the bottom of each post and type it into the form. Twitter followers, please type in your Twitter name.

Please include your email address in the comment form (your email isn’t shared with anyone, and I will not send you email unless you win).

Deadlines

Please submit your comments before 11:59 pm (Eastern time) on Tuesday, Jan. 5. We will choose a winner randomly, and the results will be announced in a post here on Dog Jaunt on Wednesday, Jan. 6.

The fine print

To enter, you must be a U.S. resident, age 18 or older. Only one comment per person per giveaway post. Duplicate comments and anonymous comments will be discarded. Please make sure that the email address in your comment form is valid (email addresses are never public). Winners must claim their prize within three business days after the date of notification of such prize. A winner’s failure to respond to the prize notification within the specified three business days will be considered a forfeiture of the prize and an alternate winner may be selected from the pool of eligible entries. If an entrant is found to be ineligible, an alternate winner may also be selected from the pool of eligible entries. We will disqualify any entries that we believe are generated by scripts and other automated technology. Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state and local taxes on the value of their prize. Employees, partners and vendors of Dog Jaunt and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter.

[Form removed — giveaway is over!]

Chloe’s Clicks: Dog travel links we liked this week

Happy Boxing Day! Only a couple of links to share with you this week, but they’re both intriguing.

Norfolk news station EDP24 posted a story about the new dog-friendly rooms at Wells-next-the-Sea’s Globe Inn, and inaugural guests Angela Lonsdale (“Coronation Street”) and her black Lab, named Bo. That part of England is not for the faint of heart in winter, but it’s certainly quiet and restful — and in the summer it’s lovely. The Globe gets good reviews on TripAdvisor and elsewhere. I’m looking forward to checking it out, and I’m pleased to hear that the hotel was persuaded to add dog-friendly rooms after receiving so many requests for them.

Also from the U.K. comes an article from the Daily Mail about a woman who sold her home to fund a six-month around-the-world odyssey with her adorable mutt Oscar. Her goal was to highlight the plight of stray dogs around the world. The pictures alone, from places like Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal and Giza, are well worth the click.

Photo Friday: Dog travel pictures wanted!

Merry Christmas! Today’s picture is of a retail dog in a Venice shop window — love the ears (and the terrific Grand Canal playset over his head)!

Photo by bettyx1138

Please send me links to your favorite dog travel photos! Here’s how it works:

  1. Every Friday, I’ll put up a post like this one, sometime during the morning (Pacific time).
  2. On Friday you post a dog travel photo on your site. If you don’t have a site, post your photo to Flickr (or Facebook!).
  3. If you’re writing a blog post, link back here to the current week’s “Photo Friday” post so that your readers can see other great dog travel photos.
  4. Enter a link to your page or your blog post in the form at the bottom of my post. That way, Dog Jaunt will link back to you. Please include a few words in the “Link Title” box describing where you took the photo.

Review of Outward Hound “Sling-Go” dog carrier

Kyle Hansen of the Kyjen Company sent me three different Outward Hound carriers to try out and review. Kyjen has not paid for these reviews, and when I warned Kyle that they might not be love-fests, he said, essentially, “let ‘er rip.” Dog Jaunt’s review policy requires me to give away freebies valued at over $50, and Kyjen has agreed that the products will be given away to Dog Jaunt readers.

Here’s the first review, of Outward Hound’s Sling-Go Pet Sling. It will be given away to one lucky reader in a giveaway starting on Monday, December 28!

Outward Hound “Sling-Go Pet Sling”

Photo by Kyjen Company

I first saw this sling in action at our local dog park. A woman had carried her disabled dachshund to the small ‘n’ shy area, a place where he could meet other small dogs safely, and while we watched him shuffling curiously around Chloe I asked her about the sling. Both he and his owner were pleased with it, I learned — it was the dachshund’s main mode of transportation — and I was intrigued enough to ask for one, some months later, to review.

I gave it a test run on a day of chaos. The house was full of contractors, and the work they were doing required a good deal of input from me. Chloe needed exercise (which I couldn’t give her until the contractors left) and bitterly resented being behind dog gates in the kitchen. In desperation, I grabbed the sling, draped it across my chest, and dropped Chloe in. It worked like a charm.

The sling is made of a sturdy polyester twill fabric, elasticized along the open sides. The bottom is slightly padded, in case you need to set your pet down in it. It is surprisingly capacious — at 13 lbs., Chloe is a large small dog, and she fit in the sling comfortably. She chose not to lie down, but she could have. Instead, she sat upright (if sitting is what you can call it — it’s a sling, after all) and gazed at the contractors with interest.

There is a clip halfway along the open sides that can be closed to keep the sling from gaping open, but this is by no means a stealth bag. At very least, your dog’s fur is visible; more often, her head and shoulders will be visible too. There are also clips at each end, presumably to clip to your dog’s harness. The shoulder strap is broad (though not padded) and a large clasp allows you to fit the strap around you, if you prefer that to hoisting it over your head. The strap also includes a tiny built-in zippered pocket, big enough for a key or a couple of poop bags or treats.

The bag is well-designed and well-made. Although I tired of carrying Chloe around after a while, I lasted much longer with this sling than I ever have holding her in my arms, and it handled her weight with ease. It could handle dogs slightly larger than she is, I believe — say up to 20 lbs. — though heaven help your shoulders. Padding on the shoulder strap would be a nice addition, but I’m otherwise very pleased with this carrier.

Amazon link:
KYJEN SLING-GO PET CARRIER

Packing your dog’s gear for plane travel

While our dog travels in-cabin with us, all of her gear has to be packed for transport in the cargo area along with our own suitcases — and she has a lot of gear (see Dog Jaunt’s travel and packing checklist). Typically, I pack her collapsible travel crate, a couple of crate pads, her tote and her messenger bag in a 28″ suitcase. That works pretty well, and I’ll be writing a separate post about that approach. This time, though, I tried something different.

If Chloe’s not completely tired out when we put her in her crate, she’ll scrape at it disconsolately until she’s really sure that we’re not coming back. That’s hard on the (fabric) collapsible crate we carry, so I thought I’d try an approach I read about somewhere: Pack her normal (hard) crate with her stuff and check that as a suitcase. Brilliant! I thought. It’s got a handle on top, and all the stuff that normally goes in a suitcase will fit nicely inside.

So that’s what we did. We packed her medium-sized Sky Kennel crate with a couple of crate pads, her tote and her messenger bag, and we used a couple of cable ties in the provided slots for extra security. On the bright side, the Southwest ticketing agent didn’t flinch, nor did he charge us extra. On the negative side, although Petmate makes removable wheels for its crates, they’re very flimsy and we didn’t even bother to install ours. (Here is a well-considered criticism of the Petmate wheel kit.) We rented Smarte Cartes wherever we could, but there was a certain amount of unpleasant lifting.

And the result? Well, it was nice to have Chloe’s hard crate for those occasions when we really can’t bring her with us. However, right after we arrived at my in-laws’ house, the handle broke completely off the top of the crate. It was unwieldy enough with the handle; without, it’s a no-op. We’ve decided to leave it behind for future visits, and I’ve bought another 28″ suitcase for the next leg of our trip (happily, my parents own a hard kennel that we can use).

Still, this approach would probably have worked if we had packed less, or lighter, stuff in the crate. I might try it again, in future — especially if I anticipate that I’ll have to leave her behind a lot — but I’ll make sure the whole thing weighs no more than 25 lbs.

Get ready for holiday travel with your small dog

It’s that time of year again — time to pile into the car, or the plane, and go see the family for the holidays. This time you’re bringing your small dog with you, and Dog Jaunt is here to help! Take a look at this collection of Dog Jaunt posts  — each contains links to additional, more detailed posts, but I thought you might find it helpful to have our big overview articles in one place for easy reference.

Traveling by car?

The first thing to think about is how you’re going to keep your dog safe in the car. Once that’s settled, here’s an overview of how car travel with a small dog works.

Traveling by plane?

Start by determining whether your dog is the right size to travel in-cabin with you. If so, you’ll need to buy her a carrier that will fit under the seat in front of you. Refer to Dog Jaunt’s charts setting out the in-cabin pet policies of the major U.S. airlines and the major international airlines.

Once you have that in hand, here’s an overview of how plane travel with an in-cabin dog works. Depending on the airline, you may be able to pull her carrier out onto your lap during flight (though she has to remain completely inside). Schedule a long layover, if you’re changing planes, so you have time to get your dog out to a pet relief area and back. If you’re on a very long flight, here’s a tip for handling emergency bathroom breaks.

Other stuff

Here’s Dog Jaunt’s travel and packing checklist to get you started. However you decide to travel, keep your dog’s gear organized. If you’re staying at a hotel, be sure to dog-proof your hotel room as soon as you arrive.