There are myths about most things that involve dogs. There has been some shift to beliefs that are based in science and research but I find that the saturation of these notions are always there. While I have spent my life exploring the science of dogs I am also a human living with a dog. In many ways my dog is a perfect traveling companion. She is comfortable around people, dogs, horses and farm critters. She is rarely more than 10 feet from me. She is generally confident and mellow. Here are some of the myths she has busted:

Dogs Love Car Rides – This may or may not be true for individual dogs. I have seen a range of behavior in and around cars that I saw as ‘happy’ at the time but through my better understanding I would interpret as more complicated. My childhood dog, Fandango, went where I went and that meant a lot of different ways of following me around – walking, buses, cars. His relationship to this was more about keeping track of me than any deep feelings about cars. A couple years hitchhiking around the country and
Not All Dogs Like Rides in the Car – She has panic attacks in the car.

Some of this is just who she is and some is from a relationship built on trust. I respect her discomfort with children. She is a cute fluffy dog and children mob her. I advocate for her while taking a moment to educate the child on what it looks like when the dog says no. I provide opportunities for her to work. She would rather solve problems through enrichment and engagement than eat from a bowl. She can spend hours staring at a hole where she saw a rodent. Sometimes I am providing those problems to solve. Other times just the autonomy to engage safely with the environment. Most of the time she finds a spot to snooze.

It can be easy for me to fall prey to the romanticized youtube and IG version of van life and not just for dogs.

The reality is that I am not a 20 something with a drone and an aptitude for (or the patience) to put together great content. As a 50 something I understand from decades of thinking I should be this or do that the reality of me. It is amazing that I get up every day. I get to choose how I live in big ways and small. The biggest gift I have given myself is the freedom to change my mind. From this simple concept I have been able to acknowledge when I am experiencing anxiety or acting from obligation to someone else. Most often that sense of obligation was completely in my head and in my ego. If I told you I was going to spend a month off grid in the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies I might just do it so you couldn’t judge me later or I would spend too much time having conversations with you in my head about all the reasons I wasn’t able to fulfill my obligation. None of those reasons were likely true or at least not the whole truth. The truth was likely that I thought I should be someone who had spent a month blah blah blah but as the details became more real I felt anxious and, before I even left, lonely and disconnected. You had probably forgotten the conversation I had based this whole event on and ,even if you did remember, had no vested interest in whether I did or did not go.
I am kinder to myself and I am able to accept myself however I am in the moment. The not so nice voice in my head wants you to know that doesn’t mean I make plans and then change them every 2 minutes and I haven’t found some perfect state