Packing a Carrier for a Multi-Day Trip: What Goes In

Short answer: A carrier on a multi-day trip holds much less than most people pack into it. A familiar mat, one chew and a worn shirt live inside, while water, food, towels and anything your vet has prescribed stay in the car with you. Keeping the inside nearly empty is what makes it easy to sleep in at camp and easy to clean on the road.

A carrier gets bought for one job and then asked to do another. Ours started as a way to get Scout from the driveway to the vet without him shedding over the whole wagon. Then I took him on a two-week run up to the Gulf and back, camping most nights, and the same soft carrier became his bedroom for fourteen days. What goes into it for that trip looks nothing like a vet run. The first version I packed like a suitcase, and by day three the inside was a mess of loose gear, damp bedding and one unimpressed Border Collie. Here is what actually earns its place inside.

The carrier becomes a bedroom

On a day trip the carrier is transport. On a two-week run it is the one place in a strange camp that smells like home, and that changes the packing list completely. Ours is a soft-sided carrier sized for a collie, one of the shapes covered in our pet carriers notes.

A dog that sleeps in the carrier at camp wakes up settled. A dog that sleeps on whatever is left on the ground beside the swag does not, and neither do I. So the carrier gets treated like a small bedroom: somewhere to sleep, something to chew, and not much else. The inside needs to stay dry, stay familiar and shake out in a minute at seven in the morning. Anything that does not serve those jobs travels in the car instead.

What lives in the carrier

Three things travel inside, and they stay in there for the whole trip, whether we stop for one night or five.

A mat Scout has already slept on at home, not a new one bought for the trip, because a new mat is just another strange surface in a strange place. One chew, and only one, enough to keep him busy in the first twenty minutes at a new camp while I set up. A worn shirt of mine, unwashed, tucked into a corner, which carries the smell of home and is the fastest way to make a strange carrier smell familiar. If the shirt gets filthy it gets washed and another worn one takes its place.

What stays in the car

The car carries the rest. Water, in a 10 litre jerry rather than a bottle, because a working dog drinks more on the road than people expect. A bowl that lives on the ground at stops and never inside the carrier. Food in a sealed bin with a scoop, so the carrier never smells like dinner.

Towels, and two of them: a microfibre one for a wet dog and a heavier one for a muddy one, plus a spare mat in a bag in case the one inside gets soaked. Any medication your vet has prescribed stays in the car with me, in its original packaging with the label readable, and so does the first aid kit. The carrier is not a cupboard for things that need to stay dry and labelled.

Water and mess on a moving day

Nothing with liquid goes inside a carrier that is strapped into a moving car. A bowl on the floor of a carrier tips on the first cattle grid, and then you have a wet dog in a wet bed for the rest of the day. Water happens at stops: bowl down, dog out, five minutes, bowl away.

For mess I keep a small kit in the boot. A roll of paper towel, a spray bottle of plain water, a rubbish bag and a spare liner. Most soft carriers have a base that unzips or pulls out, and that is the one feature I would pay for again, because a removable base turns a twenty-minute cleanup at a roadhouse into a two-minute one.

• A mat the dog already knows, not a new one bought for the trip.
• One chew only, rotated between trips rather than packed in threes.
• A worn unwashed shirt makes a strange carrier smell like home.
• Water and food stay in the car, never inside a moving carrier.
• A carrier with a removable base is the easiest thing to clean.

What I stopped packing

The first trip I packed the carrier like a suitcase, and most of what I took never came out of the bag. That is how I learned to keep the list short.

A big toy was never touched at camp, because he had a chew and a bed and that was the routine. It came home wet and sandy. A food bowl inside the carrier lasted one day before it rattled, tipped and made the base damp. A thick blanket went the same way, too warm on a Top End night and packed down into nothing. The last thing to go was his harness, which I used to leave on inside the carrier until it caught on the mesh every time he turned around.

Packing down at camp each night

The evening routine takes about five minutes and it sets up the next morning. Carrier out of the car, base checked, mat shaken, shirt still in the corner, a quick wipe with a damp cloth if the day was dusty. The chew goes back in once we are parked and settled, never while the car is still moving.

If we are somewhere with grass and no traffic, the door stays open and Scout comes and goes. At a roadside stop the door gets zipped and the carrier comes into the tent with us. Same object, two very different jobs, which is another reason the inside stays simple. Then it goes back into the car the same way every night, so the morning is just load and go.

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