Bringing my dog OTR: What to bring/What to expect?

Sounds like you hijacked your own thread by concentrating on the one negative post over the dozens of positive helpful posts made. Sometimes it is best not to respond to posters like that at all. Notice how all the other posters just went on giving advice like the post was never made.

This is a public forum and you cannot control what others options are or what they will say. You will always get at least one post like that no matter what question you ask. You need to grow a thicker skin to handle those types of replays or you might as well not post here anymore.

 

Lol I loved that as a kid. I can still remember "sit ubu sit, good dog!"

 

Favorite 10 seconds after Family Ties.

...Good dog!

 

I don't understand what you're reading in his posts to make you say something like that? Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

 

Go to walmart they have collapsible, mesh kennels that you can put your pooch in and put in the bunk, close the curtains, and nobody knows the difference. I have one and a shipper that frowns on pooches has no idea she's back there. Screw em! What they don't know won't hurt them.

 

I do OTR and I'm very picky how clean my truck is, and I have no problems. I have a 20lb mini golden doodle who loves the road. The odd time the wife is home from work and wants me to leave her home she spends the week looking out the window and whining. She gets lots of runs everyday, we play fetch, gets me out of th truck and my head in a better place for a few minutes. I did it for years without and the last 2 with her have been far and away the best.

 

It works perfect and it folds up into a circle and goes away. The big one fits on the bed and gives her lots of room to move and she is quite content to stay there. When she was a pup I put her in there if I was out of the truck for too long so nothing got chewed or the garbage was investigated.... Enjoy, best thing I did was bring her along, the naysayers have no idea!

 

don't know if you're checking back still, but I would recommend a spill proof water bowl. We used one with a lid that comes off, but the opening for drinking was kind of small. We switched to this one, and it has worked great for 8 years.
When our dog was young, she was pretty playful. DH and her would play fetch and tug with a toy on the bunk every night. Granted, it was a really short distance game of fetch, but she had fun.

I would also recommend you have him micro-chipped, and make sure to update the record with your cell phone #.
We also had additional dog tags made that said "Trucker dog - carrier name (name on truck identifiable to public), what color truck and truck # and cell phone #.
A long leash can come in handy - there are many back corners of rest areas where you an get some good play exercise.

6 years old is a good age for trucking, all the puppy energy is long gone. You'll find lots of truck stops bordering residential areas where you can get some good long walks in. If you have a smart phone, there is an app called "map my dog walk" and "map my run" that will be a great help in finding areas where you can walk around where you're parked. It's basically an mapping/tracking app.

ETA: link for dog bowl, I think we found it at Petco. http://www.gundogsupply.com/premier-spill-less-smart-bowl.html