Cruising with a Dog

[gcaskew]

I'm taking my beloved Chihuahua to be put to sleep Friday and I will be without a dog for the first time in 16 years.

I would love to get another small dog, but we cast off in three years and will spend half of our time sailing the islands and home. I keep hearing dogs do not do well on a boat.

Do any of you guys cruise with a dog, what breed would work best? I know a terrier would not work, for example, too much energy.

Thanks
Carlton

[JK n Smitty]

I'm very sorry to hear about your Chihuahua. Always a tough time.

I think the type of dog has a lot to do with the type of cruising. We are in the preparation stage for coastal cruising down the east coast of the US to the Caribbean. We won't have more than a day at sea. We will take our Aussie mix, who can be very high energy. But we think that we will have opportunityto walk/run her daily based on the way we plan to cruise. The dinghy is her favorite place right now and she loves going to shore in it.

[sww914]

Our dog is plenty awesome on the boat. She loves it and she much prefers being at anchor than in a marina. That said, there are two problems. She will not do any of her business on the boat. We've tried everything. She's gone 53 hours with no potty.
Second, many places are very strict on dogs. There are quite a few islands where the dog must endure a 6 month quarantine before it can touch the land. Most former British colonies and most of the South Pacific, for example. We're waiting to cross for a few more years because of that. Noonsite has that info.
We have a bunch of dog pics on our blog, search for Nala and you'll get them all.
She's half Queensland Heeler and half Bisinji.
I would recommend that you not get a water dog if you decide to get another. A friend's lab loved the water so much that he jumped off the boat 30 miles out and my friend didn't hear the splash. A few minutes later he realized that the dog was gone. He executed a Parker turn (or whatever it's called) and returned on his path to find the dog happily paddling along, 3-4 miles back.

[rivonia]

We took our Golden Lab with us and sailed from Cape Town-Sth Africa to the West Indies, all the way up to Bahamas then over to USA and the Iter Coastal Water way, then finally across to the azores where he now lays in Doggie Heaven.

This was a six year cruise.

[NewMoon]

We cruised the PNW most of 14 summers with our 17lb Border Terrier. Lots of energy, esp in the first two years, but a wonderful personality - in contrast to some other small terrier types. She loved dinghy rides, and loved shore excursions, but did not have to have them daily. She learned readily to go potty on the boat, using a pee-pad we fixed up that eliminated most of the cleanup issue.

When she passed last fall, we got another one. She'll be seeing SE AK this summer!