Your pet on holiday

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34037, 29 December 1975, Page 15

Your pet on holiday

A lot of children will have received pets for Christmas, and are faced with the problem of learning to look aftei’ them.

Motor camp proprietors are tightening up on pets. Most will not allow dogs, and many now look askance at white mice, rats, and guinea pigs.

Siamese cats on leashes are about the only animals motor-camp owners are allowing in. They are more lenient with campers whose guinea pigs, budgies, and cats are kept in owners’ caravans.

Proprietors are not averse to pets; many have pets of their own. They are just scared of what will happen when ca; finds mouse, dog finds cat, dog finds cat, dog finds, etc. Dogs also bark at night when most campers are trying to catch up on a year’s lack of sleep. When one starts, the rest join in. Some motor camps—not usually those in city areas —have pounding paddocks near to camps yvhere dogs can be housed for the night. Generally no pets are allowed in caravans or

cabins; they tend to leave their smell. Pet regulations are even more stringent at motels. Some motel proprietors allow dogs to be kept in cars of short-stay tenants, but there is growing opposition to any pets at all. The arguments of motel owners are very similar to motor-camp proprietors’; pets soil and tear motel furniture, they leave a smell, they bark at night; and “What happens,” one motel owner asked, “when I find one night that all my tenants have dogs? You can’t tell me fur isn’t going to fly.” Rather than put themselves in embarrassing corners by allowing one dog in and refusing another, motel owners are erecting signs outside their properties, which simply state the position: “No Pets Allowed.”

There are still some New Zealanders, hoyvever, who like to keep to back-roads and motor camps where proprietors are happier to get custom, and dogs with it, than no custom at all. And there are still a number of these camping places around. The petlover will have to learn

where they are, or run the risk that he might be roadside camping more than once on the trip. Admission to motorcamps and motels is not the ony difficulty petowners face who plan to take pets with them. Some cats — but very few — take to travelling quite happily. Others will not go near cars. Siamese take a leash quite well, other cats wear them like wild horses take to saddle and bridle. “You own a dog,” one pet-shop owner said, “but a cat owns you. A dog belongs to its owner, but a cat belongs to a place. If you lose the cat on holiday you’ve lost it for good.” Provided that people who take budgies, canaries, and parrots with them on holiday are prepared to risk no admission to increasing numbers of camping grounds, birds are no real bother to take. The birdcage can be hung in the caravan for the whole of the trip. People having no caravans can perch it in the back of the car on the top of the luggage. The cost is minimal —4oc pays for a packet of birdseed that would last any budgie with a moderate appetite about a month. White mice, rats, and guinea pigs are a different story. A guinea-pig hutch is not a convenient thing to cart round, and the creatures might be cute, but they are also smelly. White mice might be cleaner, but their cage is not a space conserver. They are easily looked after; bread crumbs, grain, and milk are an adequate diet for any white mouse. Guinea pigs are a useful depository for scraps. Quite obviously aquaria cannot be taken on holiday; nor can goldfish in bowls. There is no real problem in finding accommodation for pets while owners go on holiday. Dogs can often be left with close friends, or relatives, but the most likely prospect is a fee for booking them into the kennels. Cats present the greatest problem. Catteries are about the best solution, because most friends or relatives will have dogs, or some completely incompatible feline pet, or hordes of tomcats in the district. Pet shops will often board budgies or other caged birds during holidays