Hi ... we took our 2 large dogs with us over our Christmas holiday, 2+ weeks, 3 campgrounds. Although I love my dogs and would in theory love traveling with them, honestly I would not have taken them on this trip had I been able (practically) to avoid it. My DH is not a fan (of our dogs, or traveling with dogs), it was our longest trip to date, we were visiting not-dog-friendly family part of the time (not staying at their place but in a nearby campground, but of course visiting their home), and we also had our preschooler in our group. On a positive note, we didn't (because of the season) need to worry about the a/c failing
.
You know what? It was fine. Parts were great. I'm not aware of any laws prohibiting putting dogs in a TT (I also have a horse ... he didn't come with us this trip ??? ... whom I routinely throw in a horse trailer, after all), and that's where ours did the ~5 hour drive to our first campground. They weren't happy (new setting, confusing, mobile), but they coped (more on this idea below). After that, we kept them in the back of the truck (with a camper cover of course), but we have a TT not a 5er, so that wouldn't work for you. My DH doesn't allow the dogs in the TT (claims allergies
), but honestly even if he did, it wouldn't be tremendously practical (28 ft. rig, no slides, 2 adults, energetic preschooler, you do the math!). Our dogs are very shaggy so I wasn't the least worried about the chill. We either tied them out or kept them in the back of the pickup (with regular walks, obviously).
I used cheap fabric dog "crates" for the dogs on the first part of the trip but those (literally) didn't contain them. Oh well. If I had it to do over again, though, and wanted the dogs to travel in the TT, I'd probably use the sturdy plastic crates, secure those in the TT, and put the dogs inside. I'd assume you could do the same for your cat, with an appropriate sized crate and presumably other stuff (blankets, etc.) that the cat would find familiar and "safe." And we didn't use the plastic crates at all this time (I only brought the shoddy fabric ones), but past summer when we took one dog with us, I crated him some outside the TT in the shade and did fine with that.
Honestly, our dogs adapted very well to the trip and got better, not worse, about stuff like people walking by with other dogs as the trip went along (basically, beginning to learn this was normal). I will say the one noticeable problem we had was 2/3 of the campgrounds we stayed in (all state parks in SC) had large feral cat populations, and my dogs are not at all cat friendly. Of course a healthy adult cat is at no risk from the average dog and certainly not mine, but seeing the cats produced much excitement for my dogs. It sounds like yours are probably better socialized than are mine in this regard, though, so not so much a problem.
Happy travels!