Animals’ needs are very similar to ours as humans, and if you can fill the majority of these needs the majority of the time, your furry friends will not only do fine, but will flourish.
What do Pets Need
What do we as humans need? Fill in the blanks, and you’ll have about the same list as that for our pets: food, shelter, fresh water, exercise, affection, and variety.
Of course, the importance of some of these items is higher than others, but general well-being really must include them all.
Food and Shelter
Food and shelter and fresh water are necessary for survival and have no substitutes. One can do alright without exercise, though you won’t feel as well and will probably eventually fall prey to disease and malaise.
Affection and Variety
Affection and variety may sound less important, but they are vitally necessary for emotional and psychological well-being. Without them, depression can result in a lowered immune system and accompanying poor health, plus a lower quality of life.
Stop for a moment and think of how each of these components would affect your life if it were missing. Obviously, you wouldn’t survive without food and water, and survival without shelter depends on where you live and the weather. You may be one of the rare humans who actually gets enough affection and variety, but if not, consider how much better your life would be with them. Now stop for a moment and analyze your projected modus for RVing and how each of these necessities will be handled for your pets.
Each Pet is Different
Each pet is different, but in all honesty, most animals are happy to have food, shelter, and water and to just be with their person. They don’t need much more, except for exercise, which can be provided when you’re exercising yourself by walking. (And yes, you can walk your cats—more on this later). Providing the basics really isn’t all that difficult.
Pets are Adaptable
I’ve found that most pets are much more adaptable than their people. Some need more time to adjust, but they eventually do, and stories where someone says their pet couldn’t adapt to living in an RV or on the road are more often than not, sadly enough, more reflective of their person’s inability to be patient and give the animal enough time. A lot of pets that might have been quite happy given more time and patience have been the victims of their owner’s selfish or impatient tendencies, to be blunt.
My Personal Experience
As I write this, I’m taking care of a friend’s 3,000 square foot house while she’s traveling. I’ve basically set up camp in a large bedroom, where I feed the dogs and cats and keep the cats during the day, when they mostly sleep. At night, when people aren’t around to inadvertently let them out, I let the cats have the run of the entire house, which has many levels and is a perfect playground, with window ledges and stairs and night critters outside to watch.
Cats Surprised Me
Ironically, when I awake each morning, the cats are in the bedroom with me and the dogs, hanging out or sleeping.
This initially surprised me, as we’d been living in a small trailer for nearly three months before coming here. I expected the cats to want nothing to do with me and the dogs, reveling in their freedom to run around and do what cats like to do. Of course, I’m sure they do run around at night, but the fact that they gravitate back to the bedroom (other than just to eat) surprised me.
But just like dogs, cats become attached to their people and even their fellow pets, whether they be other cats or dogs or whatever (especially birds, I would think). Like us all, I think they like having the security of their family.
My Cats: Rowdy and Custard
One of my cats, Rowdy, likes to sleep curled up next to one of the dogs, Moki, who reluctantly lets him. I think if we could switch places with our furry friends, we would be somewhat surprised to see how much they’re like us in their emotional need for security, and it really doesn’t take much to supply that—just consistency and the knowledge that they’re going to be cared for, no matter what.
Add some nutritious food, water, and exercise, and there you have it—the basics. Nothing very complicated, and not any different than having pets in a sticks-and-bricks house.
If anything, the closeness of living in an RV or small space makes everyone more flexible and compatible, though be forewarned that this may take some time.
For example, Custard, a very independent calico Maine Coon cat, doesn’t much care for Rowdy (who, like a little brother, likes to pester her). When we lived in a house, their shenanigans got really tiresome. Rowdy would chase her from room to room while she screeched and yowled at him.
But living in a small trailer, they’ve made peace with one another, for the most part. Rowdy knows what “no” means, and now when he starts harassing Custard and hears “no,” he knows he has nowhere to hide so tends to be better behaved rather than get squirted with water.
Dealing with Different Personalities
Success on the road is guaranteed if you’re patient and persistent, but such success may come at different degrees, depending on the personalities of your furry friends.
Some pets are unflappable and take everything in stride. Others are true nut cakes and need constant reassurance. Though some breeds are calmer than others by nature, some of the more neurotic pets I’ve known were made that way by people, whether by their current owners or by previous ones.
Separation Anxiety
Rescues tend to need lots of extra special reassurance and can suffer separation anxiety. These pets often do better RVing than living in a house, as they’re now with their people constantly and worry less about being left. My experience with dogs with separation anxiety is that they do better sitting in the car than when left at home, as they know they’re going with you wherever you go (never underestimate the intelligence of your furry friends).
Cats can be easier to deal with in this respect, as, being cats, they usually don’t care if you go away and may actually prefer that you do. I’ve come back to my trailer many times to hear thumping sounds inside as the cats tore around and chased each other, playing, which they don’t do when I’m there with the dogs.
Neurotic Traveler
How can you tell if your pet will be a neurotic traveler or not? Basically, it’s hard to know, but you can start taking them out with you and see how they do. Weekend trips are good for this, but in general, I’ve found that even the most insecure pet will gradually adapt to living in an RV and traveling, even if they do poorly on test runs.
This is something that won’t be apparent until you actually just go do it, and I feel for all the pets that have been left behind because their people didn’t think they would make good travelers. Like humans, animals adapt. It’s resilience.
Adapting New Circumstances
How long does it take to adapt to new circumstances? Social scientists say humans generally adapt to new environments and traumatic events in about five weeks, developing new routines and attitudes in that approximate time frame.
Such adaptation is an evolutionary advantage, making sure we can survive and not die from changes or emotional upsets. Of course, we may not entirely get over things in that time period, but we begin to adjust.
I’m not aware of any such studies regarding animals, and I suspect they tend to adapt even quicker, but I also would predict it depends on the underlying emotional health of the animal when the change happens, as is probably the same with people.
Time for Adaptation
From what I’ve seen and discussed with others, a few weeks to several months are generally a good start for your pets to adapt to living this new life, though some resistant behaviors may persist longer. And if such behaviors are part of that animal’s personality, they may never change, but this would be true whether they lived in a house or on the road.
For example, Spice (the little cat who got away when I was trying to leash-train her) has always acted like a feral cat, even though she never has been wild. Her previous owner was dying and asked me to take her, and who could say no in a time like that?
The cat was a year old at the time and had never been outside. Her owner had trouble catching her even then, and I should’ve seen this as a portent, though I would have taken her anyway. Her owner was a cat lover, so I know she didn’t abuse her.
Special Precautions
After acclimating Spice to my gang, I wrapped her in a towel and walked her around outside on my fenced acre (which had a pet hotwire so the cats couldn’t get out and the coyotes couldn’t get in), and she soon grew to love being outdoors. With a pet door, she could come and go as she pleased. But after having her for 10 years (and taking extensive time to try to socialize her), she is still difficult to catch and acts like a half-feral cat. When I lived in a house, it wasn’t a big deal, but living on the road, it’s been difficult sometimes dealing with her.
Of all my animals, she’s the most challenging to try to RV with, and I have to take special precautions with her. Since she panics and claws me when I pick her up, I’ve trained her to go into a soft cube cat bed, and I’ll pick the entire thing up, holding the opening closed, in order to transport her outside to her metal cage or Abo tent.
She thinks this is just fine, and willingly will get into the cube when she’s ready to go in or out. Even if I accidentally carry her in it upside down, she’s OK, but if I try to carry her without it, she panics and claws me.
Patience
So, even though we’re all pretty adaptable, sometimes if the animal can’t or won’t adapt, we have to make adaptations that will work on their behalf. This can involve some creative thinking and problem solving, but isn’t what we humans do well? Exercising those skills and patience on behalf of our furry friends makes us truly humane.
I’m focusing more on cats right now because I consider them more of a challenge, but some find cats amazingly easy to RV with. I think some of that depends on your rig and how big it is, as well as the cat.
A bigger rig of course makes everything easier, at least when it comes to sharing a living space, and cats like their privacy and personal space and do better in bigger rigs, but there’s no reason they won’t do well in tighter spaces. You just need to work with them.