What Really Happened Moving 2,200 Miles With Six Pets

The Pet Parent Hotline

Host: Amy Castro

Guests: Bev Brooks and Kelsey Castro

Episode type: Personal story / road-trip follow-up

Runtime: Approximately 34 minutes

Disclaimer: This episode shares personal experiences and general travel considerations. Always consult your veterinarian before giving a pet medication or changing a prescribed dose, and seek professional help for medical or behavioral concerns.

Chapters

·        00:00  The real story behind the move

·        00:54  What actually happened

·        02:09  A delayed departure from Texas

·        04:00  Tire-pressure trouble

·        05:34  The first RV stops

·        06:32  A check-engine light and roadside assistance

·        08:20  How the six pets traveled

·        10:15  Delays stretch the travel days

·        11:32  Gunny’s first crime scene

·        13:45  Gunny creates a second crime scene

·        15:24  The laundromat, Oreos and rotisserie chicken

·        16:25  An unexpected campground wedding

·        19:01  Gigi and the monster bumps

·        19:56  Travel medication and test runs

·        22:54  Preparing for medical emergencies

·        23:45  Helping Pickles cope with the road

·        24:32  Why Amy chose an RV

·        26:33  Coping with the stress

·        27:00  Moving every day versus stopping longer

·        28:21  What not to assume

·        30:42  The trip’s superstar pet

·        32:07  The biggest takeaway

·        33:34  Final thoughts and what comes next

Transcript

Amy Castro, Host (00:00)

We moved six pets more than 2,000 miles in an RV, and somewhere along the way we dealt with a check engine light, a cat who cried across pretty much every state, a bulldog who turned two vehicles into a crime scene, and a campground wedding that nobody warned us about. We made it to Massachusetts, but definitely not according to plan. So today, my friend Bev, my daughter Kelsey, and I are gonna sit down and tell you what actually happened.

Amy Castro, Host (00:30)

You've reached the Pet Parent Hotline, your lifeline to practical solutions for your toughest pet parenting challenges. I'm your host, Amy Castro, and I'm here to help you cut through the noise and turn expert advice into step-by-step strategies so you can stop chasing your tail and start enjoying life with pets again.

Amy Castro, Host (00:54)

In the last episode, I gave you the high-level lessons from moving six pets more than 2,000 miles. Today we're gonna go back through what actually happened, what went wrong, and what we learned along the way. My friend Bev is gonna take the lead, my daughter Kelsey throws in some comments from off camera, and we're just gonna pretend we're all sitting around at the dinner table talking about the trip now that I'm safely parked in Bev's driveway and have had a little time to breathe and reconsider my life choices. So, Bev, take it away.

Bev Brooks (01:22)

I would first like to point out that everyone's talking about Kelsey and Amy and the traveling. No one asked me what it was like to be stuck here in Massachusetts worrying about all the things that were going on on her trip. I'm up here in Massachusetts getting ulcer because like there's I couldn't help her in any way. So I'd like a little support from everyone about stress that I was going through. Just saying. Okay it was very

Amy Castro, Host (01:45)

Okay. Stressful. I feel bad for you. I feel sorry that you had to suffer vicariously through our travels with our six pets. So we did. We did make it here a lot.

Bev Brooks (01:57)

They made it here safely. It worked out, absolutely. I think we should talk about how the trip actually got started with many wrinkles. Is that something that you would like to talk about? Sure.

Amy Castro, Host (02:09)

So despite having planned for this trip for over a year and buying the RV, there's just some things that you don't necessarily think about in advance. So the day that we were supposed to leave, we had anticipated a eleven AM closing. That was the earliest closing I could get on the sale of my house, being out of there by eleven forty-five. Unfortunately, the air conditioner went out on the car. So we took two cars, just for those who haven't seen some of the photos. We had me driving the RV and then my daughter Kelsey following behind me watching my tail in my car. And so the air conditioning went out in my car and we were gonna just leave it because we figured we're going to New England. It's cooler. But then I second guessed it. So we put the car in the shop and it was supposed to be ready at noon or one at the latest. And it didn't get ready till like two thirty, which left us sitting on our own driveway with the RV running, with all of our pets in the RV, while the buyers showed up. And they were super excited about moving into the home and we just wanted to get out of there. So that was an interesting start. And it was nine million degrees, just so you know. So that was that was the kickoff to the trip. So first of all, the whole idea of the trip leaving at two thirty instead of eleven thirty put us right in downtown Houston, rush hour traffic. Meanwhile, I've driven this RV, that was probably like the fourth time I've driven it. Loaded up with pets and all our stuff.

Bev Brooks (03:17)

Then you finally get on the road.

Amy Castro, Host (03:35)

including our personal stuff that didn't fit in the pod that I apparently woefully misjudged the size that I needed. And so therefore we managed to survive the rush hour traffic and end up at our first stop at like seven o'clock at night, which was not at all the plan. The plan was to be there mid afternoon at the latest and have a whole afternoon to set up and resettle ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. So then it was the next morning. So after the first night, the next morning was the night we got up, go to leave. And my very high end tire pressure monitoring system was showing my brand new tires that I just had put on at all different pressures. So yeah, that wasn't a good start to the first

Bev Brooks (04:18)

Like, how do you know? Do I keep going? Do I stop? Am I gonna have a blowout? Should do I ignore it? Is it a faulty th if you're buying an RV, I guess these are the things that you deal with. It's a s very steep learning curve. I would never do

Amy Castro, Host (04:30)

Yeah. Well it's never done it's a good message for anybody that's hitting the road in a road trip is to make sure you know your tire pressures, what it's supposed to be and that your tires are aired up 'cause you don't need a blowout on the road with pets. So you

Bev Brooks (04:41)

Do all those things like you did. You got new tires. And all and then check the tire pressure light comes on. Yeah.

Amy Castro, Host (04:44)

Brand new, and they should have all been right. But we fixed it. We we I had two options. One option was to sit on the ground and air it up myself with my brand new air up kit. And the second option was to go to discount tire and let them do it, which is what I opted for. But but it cost us what was it, Kelsey? Like about an hour. Yeah, it cost us about an hour. But I think it probably would have taken me that amount of time to air up six tires 'cause they're not easy to get to the air thing I'm about what are those things called? The valves. It's not easy to get to the valve stems. So anyway, then we were on our merry way. So that wasn't there?

Bev Brooks (05:19)

Tuesday the twenty third. in Arkansas at the RV Park in at Love's.

Amy Castro, Host (05:28)

Is that where we stopped? Mm-hmm. The second night? Okay. So yeah, the second night we

Bev Brooks (05:32)

The first night was in at the Woodland Creek.

Amy Castro, Host (05:34)

Yeah. So the first night we spent in a lovely RV park called Woodland Creek in Tyler, Texas. Highly recommend. Lovely, lovely place and nice facilities. The second night was in a Love's truck stop, which had RV hookups, but it was quite the interesting phenomenon. Basically being parked in your pajamas and coming out your door in the morning and there's people gassing up their cars.

Bev Brooks (05:43)

I shot.

Amy Castro, Host (06:01)

However, the convenience of being able to walk into the store and go and get comfort food, let's just call it that, because you're feeling sorry for yourself that you've made this horrible life choice, it was okay. It worked out well. The bathrooms were very clean. Yes, the bathrooms were super clean at the Love's in wherever it was, Arkansas. I'll put all the places we stop. Well that's maybe not all of them. Some people might not want the advertising that they're gonna get, but we'll for sure put that Love's in there because it was fine. One night. So you're

Bev Brooks (06:32)

So you leave Love's and I don't know what time in the morning and eleven o'clock the check engine light comes on. Yeah. And you call who? The i i the roadside assistance that you paid for.

Amy Castro, Host (06:43)

Yes, so I did a lot of homework for this trip and I opted for the more expensive and supposedly better Coach-Net roadside assistance because you can't just like call a regular tow truck to take your fourteen thousand five hundred and something pound RV to the shop. So called the Coach-Net, told them what I was experiencing, they said they were gonna call a dealership and call me back, and then they never did. To this to this day I haven't been called back. So I did end up calling them back again, but in the first conversation, at least the guide said, you know, you can go to an O’Reilly Auto Parts and get them to run a diagnostic on your vehicle, which we discovered that it was just an emissions thing. So it certainly wasn't a life and death, you must stop your trip, because in the notes for the guy that didn't call me back, he had put that the dealership could get me in in a week. And I'm thinking I'm in the middle of nowhere. Like they could they couldn't even hardly find me on the map. They're like, Do you see a blah da boom boom? Like, I don't know, I can't see anything. I'm sitting in a crappy convenience store parking lot trying to call for help anyway. I said, Am I supposed to sit here for a week? That's crazy. So we took can we took things into our own hands. O'Reilly hooked me up with a diagnostic and I called a dealership and they were like, Yeah, I wouldn't stop my trip for that code. So off we go.

Bev Brooks (07:58)

O'Reilly hooked.

Bev Brooks (08:07)

Sometimes that's all you need is somebody to say, No, that's not that bad. Go ahead, you're fine. Right. Or or the the other end of the spectrum would be like, my God, yeah, do not drive. Yeah. You know. So that's good. A little bit of confidence to go.

Amy Castro, Host (08:20)

So if people are listening though, and they're thinking that this whole episode is gonna be about the vehicles and the driving, let's talk about the pets a little bit. Because I just wanna kind of give an overview of the pets if people don't know. So we had six pets that we were traveling with three dogs, three cats, and we decided in advance that we were gonna split everybody up. So I had three cats in their carriers strapped down in the RV, and then I had my Chihuahua. Tinkerbell, the best dog ever. Also in the RV in her special car safety seat. And then Kelsey had the two worst dogs of the crew of all of our pets, Gunny, the bulldog, and her horrible, horrible dog, Gigi. Now, for you, Kelsey, the dogs were pretty good in the car the first two days, would you say? Yeah. Okay. And Tinky, I never even saw her. Like I couldn't even see her because she's black. The inside of that carrier's black. The mesh on it is black. Part of the trip I wasn't even sure if she was in there or not. I had to open it periodically and just to see if she was still in there. I'm here. Quiet as a mouse, she didn't have any accidents. Two out of three cats, quiet as mice, didn't have any accidents. And then there was Pickles, my 15-year-old cat, who basically howled or cried most of the trip, let's just say. Hours. Hours. So that's brutal. Yeah. So f with all of these challenges like check engine lights and low tire pressure. We had the howling miserable Pickles. So I just wanted to paint that scene for you 'cause anyone who's been stuck in the car driving to the vet and having to listen to their pet cry, multiply that times four hours driving a vehicle that you're not familiar with. It was not fun. That poor thing. I know. I felt Yes. I know I felt bad for her. And she was on drugs too, so that didn't seem to help. But we'll get to that.

Bev Brooks (10:05)

No mama. I don't want to do that.

Bev Brooks (10:14)

Yeah, yeah.

Kelsey Castro (10:15)

So we lost 40 minutes dealing with the roadside assistance people. We lost another 25 minutes at the O'Reilly's, but they fixed it for us. We drove for another 42 minutes and then the weird symbol came on the dash, and that's when we stopped and we checked fluid levels. So we lost another 30 minutes that day doing that before we eventually arrived in Paducah.

Amy Castro, Host (10:36)

Kentucky, Kentucky. Thank you, Kelsey, for that timeline of events. So yeah, so each day basically, even though we had it planned and we were gonna start early, we were gonna end early, we were gonna be stopped, parked, set up, and ready to go at two or three in the afternoon, it was like seven o'clock, five thirty, six thirty. So it turned into a super long day for everybody involved.

Bev Brooks (11:01)

like every day something went wrong. Right. Putting a wrinkle in that time timeline. You never had a chance to really relax.

Amy Castro, Host (11:07)

Right. So Thursday was was the day that we decided things were gonna go well. We got off to a good start in the morning. The place in Paducah, Kentucky was lovely. Everybody slept peacefully and we got a good start, hit the road and thought it was gonna be a good day. Right.

Bev Brooks (11:28)

Yes, but I think we're now we're gonna call it the the gunny poop incident.

Amy Castro, Host (11:32)

Yes, then there was the gunny poop incident. Forty four minutes. I'm sorry, we got the exact timeline here. So forty four minutes after we left, just when things were looking good. I don't remember even how that played out. Would you like to tell that, Kelsey?

Kelsey Castro (11:43)

Yes. So Gunny was farting in the back seat and I even radioed Amy, because we had handheld radios to talk to each other, to let her know that her dog was farting up the car and she stunk. And then a couple minutes later, Gunny continuing to fart, now sits up from her laying down position. So she's sitting up and I'm watching her in the rearview mirror. Then she starts turning sideways and I said, Gunny, and she didn't stop to look at me. She kept turning and she kept spinning in a circle. And that is when I knew that the spin art diarrhea was taking place. So I had to radio Amy and tell her that her dog had pooped in the car and that we needed to stop to deal with it. So we pulled over to a gas station so we can handle that.

Amy Castro, Host (12:24)

Yes, and my dog is notorious for spin art. She doesn't have accidents a lot, but when she does, when she poops, she does not like to just stand still like a normal dog. She twirls around. And so it like I've got a photograph. You could look at my Facebook. I maybe I'll maybe I'll put it on the podcast page. It looks like Stonehenge, but that was the solid poop. But what happened in the backseat was a crime. I just want you to know. In the back seat of my car. it was not only a crime, but it was a spin art crime because obviously the poor dog was a tad upset by the drama and trauma of moving so far. And yeah. So we pull into a gas station to clean up. And Kelsey is trying to clean up. Now and that goes back to the being prepared. In the previous episode I talked about having cleaning supplies. Thank God we had all the cleaning supplies that we had. So I took her from Kelsey. She has poop all over her back end. So I go to ask the lady that works at the store if they've got like a water hose or something that I can hose her off. And she said That they didn't have a water hose because somebody stole it, but there was a spigot on the side of the building. So I took Gunny over to the side of the building and I jacked up her back in and blasted her with the spigot and cleaned her all off. And then I proceeded to put her in the RV so she would be out of the way. And then I would And safe. And safe. And not, you know, getting loose or getting hit by a car. And then I went over to help Kelsey finish cleaning the car. So had that It did not work out well because here's your lesson learned for the day. Never go to the second crime scene. Okay. So putting her in the RV was a huge mistake because when I went to retrieve her from the RV, she had literally pooped from the bow to the stern. Is it bow to stern? Whatever. Straight line. It was in a pretty straight line. She's trying to tell you something. I don't know. And then she jumped up on the sofa.

Bev Brooks (14:12)

Was it a

Amy Castro, Host (14:18)

So that was when I had to make a decision. Either cry, turn around and go home. I didn't have a home. Sorry. I guess I didn't have that choice. but I just decided to make you know, make the cleanup job as easy as possible on myself. And so the little runner that we had on the floor of the RV, I just rolled it up and stuck it in the trash can and bagged up in big garbage bags the other things like my seat cover for the back seat of my car. Which I did mention in the last episode to make sure that it actually covers the whole thing because her diarrhea ended up down the seat buckle. Like the one opening in that seat cover, the poop went underneath. So now it's on the seat, it's down in the buckle. And to this day we still cannot get the buckle doggy seat belt out of the buckle.

Bev Brooks (15:08)

So did you save anything from the poop incident?

Amy Castro, Host (15:12)

We saved the seat cover because it did protect most of the seat.

Kelsey Castro (15:16)

Like the be the backseat car cover, we got most of the visible stuff off. So it was more of a stain than actual fecal.

Amy Castro, Host (15:24)

So we bagged stuff up and we went to the laundromat versus throwing things away because we figured we would need them and it was a good excuse to get away from everybody for a while because I've pretty much enjoyed that trip to the laundromat. I also proceeded after the laundromat to go to the grocery store and bought myself ice cream and Oreos. Yeah you did. Yeah, I did. And a rotisserie chicken. And a rotisserie chicken for dinner.

Bev Brooks (15:44)

So So now we're like day three or whatever into it. Yeah. Maybe tomorrow's gonna go better.

Amy Castro, Host (15:48)

Maybe tomorrow's gonna go back Pickles is still crying.

Bev Brooks (15:51)

So now keep in mind I'm stressing out up here in Massachusetts and she's telling me all these stories that going on. So the next day I get nothing. She's things are going well. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to ask her anything. She's not telling me anything. Maybe it's gonna be a good day. They get to the RV park, they start parking. Now we're in Butler, Ohio. What could be more Butler, Ohio? And looks pretty good.

Amy Castro, Host (16:10)

Is Ohio? Yep. Okay. Yeah, it looks pretty good. We're at a really quiet campground. Nothing had gone wrong. Yeah, we actually had a good day. We were on schedule.

Bev Brooks (16:22)

Gonna have an early dinner, relax. Yeah, whatever, work on the podcast about

Amy Castro, Host (16:25)

Whatever. Yeah, Pickles did cry a good bit of the time, but we did adjust her meds along the way so that that kind of ebbed and flowed. And got in early, figure we were gonna chill out, enjoy the rest of that rotisserie chicken and the ice cream and the cookies. And then out of the corner of my eye, I see a tent. And then I hear testing, testing, blah, blah, blah, like somebody's on a microphone. Come to find out I don't know who decides that they need to get married in a campground. I guess people that own the campground because that's what was happening. Yeah. So there was a wedding in the campground. And nobody told us that when we made our reservation. We were expecting a nice, quiet, peaceful night in the campground. And so I called to the front office and used my best communication skills to ask about how long this wedding was going to go on. And they said it would be over by the quiet hours, which was 10 30. So by midnight, I think I went to bed at about quarter to eleven and I put in my Pink noise. I need to put a link for those because those were lifesavers. My pink-noise headphones and drowned out the noise. But yeah, there was singing and music and dancing and partying well into the night. You stayed up later, Kelsey. What was

Kelsey Castro (17:40)

Last time that I looked at my w clock it was one forty-two.

Amy Castro, Host (17:42)

One forty two AM.

Bev Brooks (17:44)

Were there consequences for their actions?

Amy Castro, Host (17:50)

Were there consequences for their actions? Yes, I did write an email to the owners of the campgrounds. First I congratulated them on their nuptials because far be it from me to squash somebody's honeymoon joy. Well, it was actually a KOA campground. So anyway, I just kindly asked for

Bev Brooks (18:07)

In an RV park.

Amy Castro, Host (18:18)

A refund because I figured I paid for a peaceful, quiet night's sleep and if they were gonna plan to have their wedding where I think we were literally the only two humans in that whole KOA campground that were not part of the wedding party. Did you I don't know. I thought about going to get some food. But we had that rotisserie chicken. We were still working on that. So yeah, no. It's horrible. Yeah. So they did not respond to my email, which was sort of sad that there was no explanation slash apology or anything, but they did give me my money back. So

Bev Brooks (18:30)

feel bad that you weren't invited?

Bev Brooks (18:48)

Money back, no questions asked because I knew they were wrong. That's why. So you leave Butler on your way to Pennsylvania. And I have a note here that said, Gigi, let me get this right. Scared of the monster bumps.

Amy Castro, Host (19:01)

Okay. Can I explain that one? Yeah, talk about the boss first because that was kind of the first other than the pooping incident and Pickles the constant crying where an animal started having some issues. And was th were there drugs involved or no drugs? Yeah.

Kelsey Castro (19:16)

So she was drugged, but anytime I hit a big bump in the road or I hit the rumble strip because I'm swerving all over the place apparently, Gigi would get so freaked out. So she'd look towards, she'd hear that noise, she'd look towards the passenger seat, and then would freak out and try to scramble into the back seat with Gunny, but her leash wasn't quite long enough to get her there. So she kind of ends up stuck in the middle. And it happened every single time I hit the rumble strip and any time the road was particularly bumpy. So I gave her more drugs the next day and she was definitely still freaked out, but more like I'm too high to really do anything about it. So after that incident, there were no more bump.

Amy Castro, Host (19:56)

And so keeping in mind here that our drug dosages were well within what the vet had prescribed for the pet. And where we had trouble with certain pets like Pickles, we were in contact with the vet to see like, can we give her more? Should we try something else? So we didn't just willy nilly start giving them. I have to admit Sometimes people will do that. They'll just willy nilly give, like, that would work for humans and you don't want to do that, or my dog's twice the size of my cat, so I'll just give her twice and you just gotta be really careful with that. So it was all

Bev Brooks (20:26)

And in the in the previous podcast too about how do you know your cat's never been on the road more than fifteen minutes to get to the vet. How do you know the one hour's gonna be fine or not fine? Like, I don't know, do you do a test drive, like driving an hour or?

Amy Castro, Host (20:37)

We probably should have taken some kind of mini trip before you take a two thousand mile trip. Yeah, 'cause we've literally never with this combination of pets have never done any like not even a trip to the beach, let alone Right. So that was a that was an error in judgment.

Bev Brooks (20:41)

That might be some good advice for someone who's thinking of

Kelsey Castro (20:53)

Well, and there was some experimentation because the dosages that our vet gave us, it was a low end and a high end. And for Gunny, the first day, because she gets so worked up in pants and everything else, I gave her kind of middle of the road dose. And for Gigi, I gave her a middle of road dose because she's always high strung. and that first night, and even the next morning, Amy noticed that Gunny seemed a little off, like she was still a little out of it. So I bumped her back to the low end dose for day two and for the rest of the days and she didn't seem to have an issue. Whereas Gigi, I stuck with the middle to high range. And then for Pickles, obviously we talked to the vet about that. And then for the cats, the first two days they got the low end dose. And then the second and I think the rest of the trip, Penny didn't get anything because he didn't seem any worse for the wear.

Bev Brooks (21:39)

So thinking of doing it, you might not have to. Your pet might be fine too. There's always that possibility. But yeah, a test run would kind of put that to bed, I guess.

Amy Castro, Host (21:46)

Yeah, I think you have to kind of make a judgment call from the standpoint of like even the cats that we decided when you decided to not give Penny the medication. You know, he he seems fine, but how do we know he's not stressed? I mean, it's kind of a it's a tricky thing. So I think in combination with talking to your vet, knowing your own pet's personality and how high strung they are, you have to decide, like, do I want to try it without anything and see how the first day goes? If it's rough, then we introduce it, or do we just start with a low dose and maybe they're more mellow than they would normally be, but at least they're not stressed. I don't think there's a magic right answer, but I would talk to your vet.

Bev Brooks (22:24)

Like I barely know your pets and I know that Pickles would definitely need the medication and Penny or Monkey might not at all.

Amy Castro, Host (22:30)

She's a rock star, yeah. She that's the one with the no eyes. So we wouldn't we wouldn't actually let her drive, it would have to be somebody else. I think she probably she would she would hear that rumble strip and

Bev Brooks (22:39)

I don't know. She'd hear a hundred feet turned left and she'd be on that. Yeah. Yeah, she's she's pretty awesome. Mm-hmm. All right. So we did that. The wedding. what would you do if there was medical stuff that needed to be

Amy Castro, Host (22:54)

That's one of the things we made sure we knew how to access our own records, we knew how to access the pet records, we had certain things printed out, certain places scouted out, things like that. Something to think about. Yeah, especially like if you're traveling cross country and you've got an animal that has seizures, I wouldn't even just have my records handy. I would have places scouted out along the way so that if you had to go an emergency vet or something like that, I mean it's it's a not a bad huh. Not a bad thing. Because when you are traveling, you think you're gonna have access, especially for people who live and die with technology, which is pretty much me. There were a lot of places we didn't even have phone service, let alone access to the internet. So that could have been a real problem if we didn't have redundancies, printed out stuff.

Bev Brooks (23:41)

And how was your experience driving through upstate New York on the New York State

Amy Castro, Host (23:45)

Throughway. Yeah, the New York State Thruway was definitely bumpy. I was about at the end of my rope with the bumps at that point because every bump in the RV was rattling and banging, and I'm sure that didn't help the cats and their stress level. So Yeah. She quieted down sometimes. It was also tricky to note, and this is something you'd have to know for your own pets for the people that are listening, is that, you know, having the radio on, does that make it better or worse? Is it better to be completely silent? Is it

Bev Brooks (23:58)

With Pickles still howling.

Amy Castro, Host (24:12)

better to try to talk to them and comfort them. I felt like every time I said Pickles' name it made her cry more. So I stopped talking to her. Yeah. And just let her kind of cry it out. And I covered her up. I think that helped too. I don't know I don't know if I don't know if I said that in the other episode or not. But yeah, I covered her little crate up so she had less visual stimulation as well.

Bev Brooks (24:32)

So when you first bought this RV, of course I thought it was maybe not the best move, but after hearing everything that's gone on and I actually got to see the inside of the RV, how did you decide what size? Because it's the it was a good size for two adults and all these animals in close quarters for a week.

Amy Castro, Host (24:50)

Well, I knew from previous experience traveling with a travel trailer that had no slide outs, that trying to navigate around pets when they're standing in the aisle and you're trying to step over them or picking them up and moving them so you can get past them, that I needed something that had some width to it. So I knew I wanted something that had slide outs to it. but I think the whole idea of making that decision, I mean, that was probably the even trickier part is the step before that is deciding If I'm gonna go two thousand miles, what's the best way to move my pets? Because we contemplated things like we'll each get a plane ticket and each one of us can carry however many you know, I don't remember what the rules are, but one or two pets under the seat.

Bev Brooks (25:30)

I think I was gonna fly down and be part of that too.

Amy Castro, Host (25:32)

Yeah. Yeah. And but that doesn't help with the dogs. You know, big dog you can't put under the seatt. So it would have gotten the cats and the small dogs there, but then I still had a big dog. We contemplated, you know, traveling by car and getting two different hotel rooms, but I don't know, I was afraid that I'd get caught sneaking it that third pet 'cause usually you're limited to two pets per room. Traveling by car and staying at people's houses, it just it seemed like the logical choice to do. Yeah. The RV still as the way to go. But it was a huge expense and now I have an RV.

Bev Brooks (26:04)

And stepping out onto uncharted territory. That's really scary.

Amy Castro, Host (26:07)

But I think it's important for everybody to look at what your budget is, look at what your options are. And I think some of that ties into what I said in the previous episode about making those sh relatively short travel days, too, is knowing what your pets can handle. If you've got two happy go lucky dogs that are fine in the car together and you're gonna just plow through, then great. Or if you know that you stayed at hotels with your pets before and it's been no problem, then great, do that.

Bev Brooks (26:33)

How do you think you coped with the stress looking back?

Amy Castro, Host (26:38)

I don't know. I think I'm good in a crisis. For sure. So then I just have a meltdown later on or whatever.

Bev Brooks (26:46)

Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. Like I said, it's not a vacation trip. It was it was everything all together at once. Moving, not having a house. Is it gonna work? Yeah, that's that's true.

Amy Castro, Host (26:57)

You're in for a penny, in for a pound. Once you sell your house, you're past the point of having a choice.

Bev Brooks (27:00)

So far so good, you know. Yeah. I think something else we talked about was you guys were moving every day. Yeah. You know, something I would assume that's most people who were doing RV stuff in campgrounds stay for a couple of days or take their time doing stuff. So having said that, was it worth it doing the setup and the takedown every

Amy Castro, Host (27:17)

Day. Definitely gets down to be a pattern and you have a plan about how you're gonna do that. You know, it might have been beneficial to stay an extra day. Originally when we planned it like halfway, we were gonna stay two nights instead of just one holiday weekend. Well, the origin yeah, the original takeoff day was supposed to be two nights because it was supposed to be going into Fourth of July weekend and I didn't want to be driving, but the closing date got moved up, so decided to just plow through. I don't I don't think that would have made a huge difference for us, but for some people it might. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like especially if you were traveling with pets and kids. I don't think you can go with kids like back to back back. Or a puppy. That would be another thing. Like going back to back with a puppy in the car. Like you need a day in between where you can take that puppy for a bike ride or a long walk or whatever. And all of our pets are adult or or senior. Yeah. So it worked okay for them.

Bev Brooks (28:09)

And you mentioned walkie talkies, which I thought was genius.

Amy Castro, Host (28:12)

Yeah, that was Kelsey's idea. That was great. Instead of Yeah.

Bev Brooks (28:14)

Of using cell phones. So you could talk to me on the phone and just have that walkie talkie handy.

Amy Castro, Host (28:19)

So the walkie talkies were super helpful.

Bev Brooks (28:21)

So we're talking about planning a trip with pets. What should you not assume?

Amy Castro, Host (28:25)

I think you should not assume that you're gonna have cell service the entire way. Yeah. I think you should not assume just because you just got your vehicle in for new tires and a tune up that nothing's gonna go wrong and that it's gonna be perfect. I would say part of the planning was planning our route. We could have taken a route through the country that would have been shorter, gotten us here a day sooner. But we chose it

Bev Brooks (28:29)

Yeah.

Amy Castro, Host (28:51)

Because I was trying to avoid excessively truck infested routes, excessive grades for the RV to travel, and huge populated areas. So traffic. I don't know, other assumptions.

Kelsey Castro (29:06)

not planning out your stops with a hundred percent, like saying, we're gonna drive six hours every day.

Amy Castro, Host (29:12)

Yeah. Because Yeah, don't assume you are gonna make it a certain distance. We made reservations for the first night because we knew we were gonna get to that spot regardless to try to get out of the Houston area. But beyond that we had no reservations. That's smart. Because we used every day as a way like, how did that feel? Could we have gone another half an hour? Could the pets have tolerated another half an hour? I think that's something to assess.

Bev Brooks (29:35)

Right, 'cause it's not just about you. Yeah. And how does somebody know of their pet's stress? Just by knowing their behavior?

Amy Castro, Host (29:40)

I mean yeah, you'd have to kind of know their behavior. Are they panting a lot? Are they restless a lot? the crying, and how long does that last? Like Pickles Pickles was our common denominator. It was partly I can't listen to it anymore, and partly okay, she's had enough. Because as soon as she came out of the carrier, she was fine. It was trying to find that fine balance of not too long of a day, but also not turning it into a twelve day trip. You know, it's like the sooner we get her and stop. And just knowing your own limits too. You know, you you got friends and stuff that'll say, I'd have driven straight through. Yeah, you do it. Go ahead. You know, you're not my age, you don't have all these animals in the car, you're not driving an RV. Several people that I talked to, even experienced drivers, thought I could have made that trip a lot faster. And, you know, when we overall looked at it, we averaged about sixty miles per hour while we were driving.

Bev Brooks (30:30)

That's pretty

Amy Castro, Host (30:33)

But, you know, if we were driving in a car, we probably could have knocked a whole day off of it over the course of a trip. So knowing the what your vehicle could handle too.

Bev Brooks (30:42)

So we're gonna wrap it up, but I'd like to have a little contest. Who was the best pet and who was the worst pet on the trip and why?

Amy Castro, Host (30:52)

Let's not use the word worst. Worst is a relative. Who had the most challenges? Who had the roughest trip? Pickles, I think, had the roughest trip.

Bev Brooks (30:59)

So too, and I wasn't even there. Yeah. I could hear her in the phone as I'm talking to Amy in the background. It was heart wrenching.

Amy Castro, Host (31:06)

Yeah, to hear her crying. I think that would be a tie. Penny Penny always gets the short end of the stick because he's the background cat. He's never the star. He's never the problem child. He's just kind of there chilling out. He's the best. You think he was the best? Compared to Tinky? Tinky Well, I mean, dogs are always gonna be more work when you're traveling because you gotta take out, you know. So considering Penny didn't make a peep the entire trip. He used the litter box, he didn't have any accidents, he didn't seem to have any trouble. He'd settled in in the evening and was content to take a bath and watch TV.

Bev Brooks (31:40)

Hugh Hefner.

Amy Castro, Host (31:45)

He's the Hugh Hefner of cats. Yeah, I think he was probably the superstar. But I think three out of six pets did pretty well. Fifty percent of the pets did well. And fifty percent of the had not too bad. Faced some challenges, yeah.

Bev Brooks (31:59)

So what do want people to take away from this? I wanna drive cross country with my superstar cat causzy.

Amy Castro, Host (32:07)

Yeah, yeah, we've heard his name before. I would say plan as much as you can. Have a backup plan. So don't put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak. So have the backup plan, but go into it knowing that there are things that you couldn't anticipate that are gonna happen, especially the longer the trip, the more likely it is that it's gonna happen. And don't let it rattle you, you know. Just okay, it happened. What what now? Well n what what's my next what's my next step? How do we get through it? How do we minimize the impact, minimize the damage, whatever it is, and just move forward?

Bev Brooks (32:42)

I think the answer is paper towels.

Amy Castro, Host (32:44)

Paper towels, lots of paper towels. Lots of paper towels, lots of enzyme cleaner, and Lola's Laundry.

Bev Brooks (32:52)

What though, man, just seeing you drive up the roadway. I'm like, I can't I can't believe after like basically two years of waiting for this to happen, driving up my road towards my driveway, I'm like, I can't believe what I'm seeing. It's actually here, it's actually happening.

Amy Castro, Host (33:05)

I know. It's shocking. Now she won't leave. Can't believe we did it. Now I'm stuck here. So yeah. So the next phase of this will be finding a house and moving in. So right now we're camped out in Bev's driveway. The cats are living in the RV. They've got air conditioning. They're all happy and content. The dogs are here in the house. The humans are in the house and now we're gonna be house hunting. Very good. So we'll let you know where we land. Next. Yeah, that's right. Next chapter. All right. Thanks very much. Thanks for being on my show. Thanks for your help.

Bev Brooks (33:26)

Chapter.

Bev Brooks (33:30)

Nice meeting ya. Yes.

Amy Castro, Host (33:34)

So that's the real story behind the lessons from the road. We planned for more than a year, and some of the biggest problems were still things we could never have predicted. In the end, the goal wasn't to have a perfect trip. It was to get six pets safely from Texas to Massachusetts. And somehow, with all of the trials and tribulations, we did it. If you're planning a move or a long trip with pets, be sure to listen to the first episode too, because that's where I break down the practical things that helped and what I would do differently. And be sure to send both episodes to somebody who's about to load their pets into a vehicle and just hope for the best. They're gonna need them. And finally, we will keep you posted on where this next chapter takes us. And we're glad to have you along for the ride. Thanks for listening to the Pet Parent Hotline. If you enjoyed the show, don't keep it to yourself. Text a friend right now with a link and tell them I've got a show that you need to hear. And ask them to let you know what they think. And remember, your pet's best life starts with you living yours. So be sure to take good care of yourself this week and your pets.