Road trip rule one. The car is not a party, the car is my office. Six episodes on travelling with a dog who works, filmed from Tahoe to Big Sur to Pioneertown.
Everyone photographs the dog with his head out the window. Almost nobody photographs the restraint, and the numbers on that are not close.
Sources: AAA state pet passenger surveys, August 2026, reported for Tennessee, Illinois and Michigan. Crash force figures from published AAA and Kurgo pet passenger safety material. Other reasons owners gave for skipping a restraint were not owning one, 26 percent, and feeling bad about the crate, 21 percent.
Six episodes, filmed across five years of real trips. Watch on YouTube and Instagram.
Buckled, settled, snout out the window only on breaks. Four hours to Tahoe is four hours of professional napping.
One sweep, every corner, then the mat goes down and that corner is mine. A good hotel dog is invisible.
The table has food, the floor has me, and those two things never meet. The hardest thing I do.
Pavement check with the back of a hand, water before I ask, and every shop floor is a new floor.
On trail the leash rules do not change and the recall does not change. Okay. Sometimes the lake is permission.
Ninety seconds of business. Relief on cue is the most unglamorous superpower a travel dog has.
The car setup, the bag, the gas station rule, hotel check in, and the restaurant down stay. One page, free, straight to your screen.
None of that is a road trip problem. It is a public access training problem, and it is solved at home before you spend money on a hotel that charges a pet fee.
Start with the training programs, or watch the series and work the skills in your own neighbourhood first.
A Goldendoodle dog actor and model based in Los Angeles, and a trained psychiatric service dog. See her full work or book her.