With more people choosing to include the family pet in the vacation plans every year, planning the trip becomes more involved. But it gets easier every year. The travel industry is responding to the public’s desire to bring the pet along, and more places of accommodation are accepting pets. For the most part, they are finding that people who travel with the dog (most of the time it is a dog) are quality guests who are conscious of others and cause no problems.

Before taking a dog on a trip, there are some things that should be done. See the vet to make the dog is current on all shots and get a copy of the shot record to bring along. If the dog has not been microchipped, now is the time to have one implanted. It is the surest way to get the dog back if it becomes lost. Be sure to have a sturdy collar with the dog’s license, rabies tag and an ID tag with your contact information on it. If you plan to stay in one place for the entire trip, have an additional ID tag made with that information on it, along with a cell phone number. It won’t help much if someone finds your dog and tries to call you in Atlanta when you are vacationing in Idaho. Make it easy for people to find you.

Planning a trip, with or without a pet, gets easier all the time thanks to the internet. Every hotel/motel chain has a website, and most planning can be done online. That’s great at home, but on the road a paper version of this information comes in handy. Two that we like are Traveling With Your Pet, the AAA PetBook and The Pet Travel and Fun Authority of the Best-of-State Places to Play, Stay and Have Fun Along the Way by M.E. Nelson. Both contain listings of thousands of pet-friendly places to stay, and you don’t have to waste time looking at a location that turns out to have a no pets policy.

There are websites that offer listings of only pet-friendly accommodations, and you can find some of them that we like in the travel section of our website. Most hotel/motel chains will send you a copy of the guidebook listing all of their locations and the policies of each. Contact information is on our website. They are handy and they are current.

Whether getting away to the mountains or the beach, many people prefer to rent a house, cabin or condo. There are plenty available, and many are pet-friendly. The internet is the place to look for this type of rental and there are plenty of sites that list them, including critterchatter.com. At this time we only have a few, but we plan to have more soon. Since we know these people and like them, and since they help support Critter Chatter, we hope you will give them a try. Pet Friendly Rentals