Continuing on from our blog posts for #Doggy Travels, we now need to sort our provisions out for the mammoth journey of 1423 miles, from the East of England to the South of Spain. One of the most important things is to carry plenty of water. We have filled their H2O4K9 water bottles up but also have extra bottles on standby for refills and emergencies. The H2O4K9 water bottle is a great essential to carry. The screw top lid has been made to accommodate the dogs natural drinking style so they can drink straight from this, no additional bowls are required, which is great for a quick stop and go in our situation. Also the main body of the flask is made from food grade stainless steel & it has a silicone gasket so we don't need worry about any leaks.
Next are the Kurgo Collapsible Bowl, which we use for their food. It does as the name suggests, collapses when not in use and therefore it uses less space in the car. Which is good news because we need every centimetre of space possible on this kind of trip, we take more kit for the dogs than us! We then need to make sure we take plenty of food. I know that a lot of people feed their dogs raw food these days but I find when you travel a fair amount, it is a lot easier and cleaner to use kibble. I weigh the kibble out into separate bags, each bag being one meal portion. I can then just grab a bag for each dog and quickly place in their bowls at each meal time, as we stop along the way. The kibble that we use is actually our own brand of dog food, it is made for us in the UK by a high quality dog food producer. It is extruded dog food with a high meat content, providing a natural balanced complete food with no additives or preservatives - a good healthy alternative to feeding raw and a lot easier while on the move.
We also make sure that we take plenty of Cocoa and Luca's durable fleece tug toys, always handy to keep them entertained and obviously plenty of balls for Cocoa. Their Hi-K9 beds are already there as we have duplicate ones over there, I just find them so handy as they are easy to keep clean, it's so worth having spare ones! Next are the numerous leads, their hiking equipment and lifejackets, so they are prepared for a hike, bike or messing around on the water - oh hang on it's February so perhaps not messing around in the water! It will be -5ºC when we arrive and a good sprinkling of Snow, for those that thought it would be nice and warm in Spain, I’m afraid you were mistaken, when you live in the mountains at 1200 mtrs above Sea level it gets pretty cold in the Winter.
I think we are now all organised and the dogs are ready to go. Lee and I are far easier to organise, one small suitcase between the two of us (that's all that will fit in the car now!) we are also good to go.
Bon voyage or buen viaje as they say in Spain!