Motorhome Travels with an Old or Ill Dog

Regular readers of this blog will know that we tour around in our motorhome with our pampered pooch Charlie, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. He’s been to 37 countries, from Nordkapp at the top of Norway to the Sahara Desert in both Morocco and Tunisia and quite a few places in between.

In the desert in Morocco in 2017

A while back Jay wrote about Travelling in a Motorhome with your Dog. Charlie is now 11 years old and has a few health issues which mean that travel with him is becoming increasingly difficult, so I thought I would let you know how we are managing on our motorhome travels with an old or ill dog.

At first I thought it was just old age catching up with Charlie, it happens to us all, but when we met another Cav who was two years Charlie’s senior and full of beans, happily jumping in and out of his motorhome, it dawned on me that Charlie wasn’t just getting old, he is ill. So what’s wrong with him?

Arthritis

On a pet passport visit to the vet in France a couple of years ago he was diagnosed with arthritis. We took him straight to our vet at home and he was started on a herbal supplement called Seraquin, and also an Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) with a brand name of Loxicom or Metacam. He takes these with his breakfast each morning.

Syringomyelia (SM)

This is a common with Charlie’s breed (70% of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels showed syringomyelia by six years of age) and causes fluid-filled cavities to develop within the spinal cord near the brain. It is also known as “neck scratcher’s disease”, because one of its common signs is scratching in the air near the neck, which Charlie has done for many years. As the disease has progressed over the last year, the neck scratching has got more prolific and he now doesn’t know where his feet are, so he often ‘knuckles’ onto his knee or falls over. This makes him reluctant to walk – unless there is something that smells good nearby, or the fridge door opens, then he’ll make the effort. He is on a diuretic called Libeo to try to minimise the fluid build up.

Heart Mitral Valve Disease (MVD)

Whenever Charlie had a check up at the vets he would always be checked for a heart murmur as Heart Mitral Valve Disease afflicts around half of all cavalier King Charles spaniels by the age of 5 years and nearly all Cavaliers by age 10 years. In December of last year, not long after his 11th birthday we were told he did have a heart murmur, but on a scale of 1 – 6, where one is good and six is bad, he was a one. In February he was struggling for breath, and the vet said he was now a four which means he now has congestive heart failure, and has been put on a drug called Vetmedin which increase the ability of the heart to pump blood. Unfortunately this seems to make him very susceptible to the heat, he pants and won’t settle unless its 21°c or less.

Breakfast time for Charlie!

To Travel or Not To Travel

For us it was an easy decision to make. Charlie has spend about half his life with us on the road and he loves it. When we arrive at a new place he barks like crazy to get out, see where he is and have a good sniff around, especially if it’s the beach. Also being in the motorhome also means that we are always within a few feet of him, and so is the fridge, both of which he loves.

Pet Insurance

When we first set off travelling with Charlie we couldn’t find a company who would insure him while out of the UK for more than a couple of months, so we cancelled his insurance policy and decided to self-insure him. In theory, instead of paying the insurance money to a company every month it goes into a separate bank account and builds up to cover any costs incurred. In practice we didn’t physically do that, we just mentally did, so the money stayed in our normal bank account, but we knew Charlie would be building up credit that would need to be spent at some point in the future.

Medication

Once the decision was made to go, we had another trip to the vets (they should do a loyalty scheme) so we could have a final check-up for him and sort out getting four month’s worth of medication. In the past we’ve been told by the receptionist at the vets that we could only have up to three month’s worth of Charlie’s arthritis medication. Once we’ve explained to the vet that we were going away for a year, they would tell us side effects of the drug and what to look for if things were deteriorating and what to do if either occurred. They would then prescribe us the large-sized bottle of his medication that would last us for the trip.

These days Charlie is on a lot of medication, which can work out quite expensive especially if bought from the vets. So we asked our vet to write prescriptions for his medication so we could buy it elsewhere. The vet charges you for prescriptions, and you need a different prescription for each medication, they don’t all go onto one. At our vet it is £15 per prescription, but I had already worked out how much each pill was costing us when bought from the vets and how much we could get them for online. We opted for three prescriptions to cover four months worth of his diuretic, heart medication and another drug called Gabapentin, a top-up pain killer, which Charlie had been on in the past. These three cost us £45. I understand that you’re also able to get ‘repeat prescriptions’ from the vet, which like a human repeat prescription can be given to the pharmacy so you can order a month’s worth of drugs at a time for up to six months; this would help to keep down the cost of getting the prescriptions.

Once we had the prescriptions, I researched several online pharmacies. For Charlie PetDrugOnline.co.uk had the drugs he needed at the best prices. We scanned in the prescriptions, placed an order for four month’s worth of his diuretic and heart medication (we didn’t order any Gabapentin as this will only be used if his condition deteriorates while we are away; if that happens we’ll use the prescription to buy the drug wherever we are) and uploaded the prescriptions with the order. The saving we made by ordering online instead of from our vet was around £200, but as we’d paid £45 for the prescriptions, in reality we’d saved around £150. About a week later Charlie’s medication arrived and he was all set to go.

Charlie is going need a bigger cupboard!

Van Modifications

Charlie isn’t very mobile these days, so we lift him in and out of the van and onto and off the seats, which we don’t mind doing. I’ve seen people who have made a ramp for their dog to get access for themselves, fortunately we’re both fit and healthy and Charlie is a small dog so we haven’t needed to do this.

As Charlie struggles on hard floors, we have kept the carpet in the main area of our motorhome. The carpet isn’t fixed down, so it can be removed easily for cleaning or a shake outside. We also have lots of old towels on standby in case of accidents. In the kitchen area we use mats covering most of the floor so he can get to his water bowl and the habitation door.

Driving

With diuretics in his little body, Charlie’s trips to the bathroom have become more frequent. Partly due to this, and partly because he doesn’t snooze these days when we drive, we keep our drives as short. We aim to be less than an hour driving, or schedule a stop if its going to be longer.

Keeping Comfortable

Charlie used to get up and get a drink by himself, tapping his water bowl with his foot if it was running low. Or if he needed to go out he would go and stand by the door. These days he lies where he is and either pants or makes a whining, squeaky noise. I can only assume it’s a bit like trying to work out what a baby needs when it cries, and as Charlie always wants food, we’ve devised a routine to deal with the squeaks – we WOLF him.

W = Water, we take the bowl to him and let him have a drink (interestingly at night he gets up and get his own water!)

O = Outside, we take him outside – with all that water and those diuretics he tends to have a wee whenever we take him out.

L = Love, he gets picked up and cuddled (if he’s not feeling grumpy and bitey which has started since the heart medication)

F = Food, he gets a bit of his normal food allowance.

If the temperature in the van is above 21°c, we put him on his cool mat which by some sort of magic keeps cool without going in the fridge or being wet. We find this really helps him, and if it is really hot we also pop a cold wet towel over him. I have had several people recommend cool jackets for dogs too, and if Charlie was more mobile we’d probably get him one. If all of that fails, we go somewhere cooler! I am typing this in a cloudy ski resort in the French Alps, it’s 12°c outside and 18°c in the motorhome and Charlie is snoring like a baby – the most beautiful noise there is at the moment.

Charlie keeping his cool

Patience and Communication

This is the hardest part. When we’ve done everything we can think of and Charlie’s still squeaking we end up on edge. We’ve learned that not only do we need to be patient with Charlie, but with each other as the tempers fray at different times and rates. We’ve found that we need to be honest and tell each other how we are feeling. If one of us is struggling, they say so, go for a walk and get some air while the other stays and looks after Charlie. If Charlie is having a good day and we’re somewhere cool or shady we go out together, and though it sounds horrible to say it, those times are precious to us at the moment. Usually we take it in turns to see the places around where we are.

We’ve also had many discussions about the inevitable trip to the vets – usually accompanied by tears from me. We know that at some point he’ll be suffering and we won’t be able to manage his pain or discomfort, and at the point we’ll have to say goodbye to our faithful furry travelling companion – the ultimate act of love. This may happen while we are on our travels, and if it does it’ll probably be fitting for such a well travelled pooch.

Ju x

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