Traveling with the birds, dog
We go up to Los Angeles frequently to visit family for the weekend. When we go, we typically bring Toby, Little Wing and Ozzi. When you take a dog somewhere, you don’t really need to bring much stuff: leash, food, and maybe a bed. Toby is very easy to travel with since he has been doing this almost monthly San Diego to Los Angeles trip his entire life. He likes the car, is fairly good at just sitting in the back seat but often times wants to sit on our laps up front (and at 30 pounds and constantly moving around, it isn’t the most comfortable situation). In general though, we don’t have to think much about making a trip with Toby.
The birds, on the other hand, are like traveling with infants. The reason being is that when you have birds, you have to recreate living conditions that aren’t found in everyone’s house. A dog you just need a roof and you’re set. For the birds, it’s like we are moving everything out of the house and into the car. For traveling, we have crates for them to be in for the drive (dog/cat crates with comfy perches inside) because they can’t just sit in the back seat. In someone else’s house, we have perches/stands for them to hang out on since they get really heavy holding them all the time. They also need a place to eat, so the perches have bowls that attach to them. When it comes time to eat, we have to make sure to bring along their food because most people don’t have nuts, Harrison’s, or Pretty Bird pellets. Finally, we need to bring along their sleeping cages (dog kennels with comfy perches) whenever we stay the night.
Once you put all this stuff into a smaller car, with the animals and two people, it gets crowded quite quickly. We are going to need a bigger car to hold all this stuff soon.