Travelling With a Dog
Tunisia, France, Norway. Flying to Madeira as soon as covid lockdown rules allowed. Buying a drone days before going to Teneriffe. That’s how our holidays used to look, but now they have moved closer to home and become less exotic - because we got a dog, obviously. However, we are still travelling! Just differently. Dog friendly.
The criteria for our recent destinations was as followed:
- Reachable by car in reasonable time.
- Nature nearby
- Generably good dog vibes: activities, tolerance in restaurants, lodgings that allow pets
For our summer holidays, we ended up going to the area of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. Even though I am from Germany, I had not been to that part of the country before and even though this was not as exotic as the south of France with flamingos, it is a beautiful area with large forests and a lot of lakes.
Watch our travel vlog here:
Last Christmas we spent in Sweden. It is also fairly easy to reach from Copenhagen and has a lot of beautiful nature to offer - even though general rules for dogs are slightly more strict than in Germany (or Denmark for that matter). For example, as a tourist you need to register your dog before bringing it to the country.
Snowfall during our exploration of the Swedish forests.
Luckily, Mila is a confident dog and by making use of management tools and rituals to control and ease her excitement, we are so happy to be able to bring her along many places. Tools are a fixed (short) leash, gates in our car trunk so she can feel safe in her spot and a settle mat she knows and is familiar with. Rituals we make use of are for example picking seating places that are protected from traffic and movement of people, communicating to her where we expect her to be, and not letting everyone say hi (sorry!).
Our photography has changed since we move around with a dog. We are no longer as flexible and free in our movement as we were before when our walking pace would adjust depending on whether one of us would squat down for that macro shot or suddenly dash over the road cause they spotted the perfect light on a street scene.
A tool we found helpful when being on a photo walk with the dog is a handsfree belt which the dog leash is attached to as you can grabble your camera and gear without having to manage the dog leash as well. There are many brands and price options out there, we are quite happy with the Canix belt by Non-stop dogwear🛈 .
If the dog can roam off-leash, it would obviously also free up your hands. Then you’re never safe from a curious wet nose wandering into your shot trying to figure out what you’re so captivated by, though.
Jonathan was flying the drone around an abandoned observatory in Sweden, while Mila enjoyed the break to flush pheasants.
For all of our dog holidays, we’ve so far made good experiences with AirBnB. Already in the summer 2024, we found a lovely AirBnB in Germany that is right outside the national forest and allows pets. The owners are lovely and own a little dog themselves.
As we live in an apartment on the 5th floor in Copenhagen, we made use of the fenced in garden for the morning coffee. Mila also got to enjoy the space and I took the opportunity to have a little photoshoot with her where she could be completely “naked” - aka no harnesses, collars or dogtags.
The joy of being able to goof around just outside the house without having to worry about escapes or unwanted visitors.
You can see the national forest in the background - it was amazing to have it that close!
Posing as if she is a show dog. I don’t often get her to stack that elegantly.
We had a bit of fun with some action photos as well. I didn’t get all the camera settings right, but I still love them and her goofy faces.
Our Swedish sommarstuga provided a little Christmas tree and beautiful forests right outside the door. It was a very free feeling to step outside at freezing temperatures in the morning to let Mila do a “patrol & toilet” round and then search her breakfast in the frost-covered thicket while the chimney is smoking as we warmed up the house with the fireplace.
As you can see, we had a few gentle snowflakes one of the days, but nothing major which suited us quite well as we weren’t impacted in our movement much.
This shot of Mila actually attentive looking into the camera with the golden sun in the background would probably have been my Christmas greeting this year if I would be living a life where we take Christmas greeting photos like that.
This photo was my attempt to make Mila’s one solid pose (“down”) look a bit more posed by having her awkwardly lie on a tree stump where she would never go by herself. Hence her put-upon face.
As I started to do a bit of casual canicross myself and Jonathan didn’t mind coming on a jog with me while operating a drone, we even got some epic drone footage of us bouncing about the forests. More or less bouncy depending on whether you ask Mila or me.
Activities like nosework or canicross opened are great activities to do during the holidays as they’re known rituals for the dog in unfamiliar surroundings and can provide some great, focused footage of your dog being focused and confident!
Where do you go on holiday with your dog or do they get a vacation away from you with family and friends?