The Outdoors

By Scott Rall, Outdoors Columnist

Traveling with dogs is a special kind of effort. The more dogs you have the greater the level of special. I can say that over the course of a normal hunting season that runs from about Sept. 1 through the end of January, the conditions for traveling with dogs are only perfect about 10 percent of the time. If you have one dog and they ride in the passenger compartment of the vehicle then the actual travel is not all that bad. How about traveling with two, three or even four dogs at one time? What do you do with a dog or dogs when you want to meet your hunting buddies in a restaurant or bar and intend to be gone for an extended period? 

If it’s hot you can leave the windows down a little and then anyone with a little initiative can reach through the window and open the door. With the windows closed it might be too hot. Can all of your dogs be trusted to lay around in the car or truck cab without deciding to chew up the seat?

How do you handle a late season rooster chase when the low temperatures are near or below zero degrees? Many hunters will use an insulated cover over the kennel or kennels and leave the dogs in the pickup box under a topper. Way back in the day I tried this. A bad person took a screw driver and a hammer and separated the topper door at the hinge from the topper and stole some things from the back of my truck. Could have been my dogs if they had not been interrupted. This was 30 years ago. 

Security for my dogs is now a primary concern. When I see people driving down the highway at 65 miles per hour with a dog running loose in the back of the truck, I don’t think they have the same attention to security for their animals as I do mine.

In short, there is no way to use a regular car or truck, with a topper or not, and keep the dogs comfortable in all temperatures and safe and secure at the same time. I have been in parking lots where the owner had the dogs left out overnight in insulated kennels held down in the back of a truck bed with nothing but a few bungee straps. In the open for any one to either steal their dogs or injure them in some way. To each their own, but never in my world. My house is empty, and with no kids around to watch dogs when I am on the road, the only option is for me to travel with my dogs almost all the time. 

This takes some specialized equipment. I have a manufactured dog box that sits on the box trails of my truck much like a conventional topper. It is designed to hold four dogs. I also have a trailer made by the same company that holds six dogs in a specialized trailer. Each of these units has built in cooling fans with its own on-board battery and charging system. The truck charges the trailer battery, located in a tack box on the trailer, and a second battery under the hood of the truck which supplies power to the topper box. Each of these systems automatically disconnects when the truck is shut off so as not to allow the fans and external lights to drain the truck’s starting battery. Once the truck is started again the charging system charges all three batteries. This allows the dogs to be locked in, secure and protected from overheating. 100 degrees parked in the sun and the dogs are safe from bad folks and high temperatures. Needless to say, I would be checking on them often in these situation to insure no equipment has failed.

Each unit has an on-board heating system. This is either powered by a small generator or a plug-in at the motel. Each heat source, when set on low, keeps the temperatures inside the topper box and the trailer and a cozy 55 degrees. It keeps the two separate water tanks from freezing as well. 

This is the ultimate dog traveling operation. I am heading out with five other guys on a sharp tail grouse hunt in the near future, and between the six guys we are taking 13 dogs and this is not all of the dogs these six guys own. One other member of the party is pulling a specialty trailer as well.

I remember when you could buy a trained Labrador in the two-year-old range for about $2,000. That same dog today sells for north of $6,000 and many much higher. How much would you spend to keep them safe from harm and extreme temperatures? 

Each dog owner needs to make their own decisions on what is best for them from a cost/benefit point of view, but a dog that lives in the house all year is not suited to below zero temperatures with nothing but a vented plastic kennel to keep them safe and warm. Make wise decisions regarding your hunting companions.  Losing one to poor planning is not excusable.   

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If you have any questions, reach out to me at scottarall@gmail.com.