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After the loss of our dog Bailey, right before we hit the road in our RV, Eric and I were unsure if or when we would adopt again. We’ve talked about it off and on but decided the right dog would show up when we were ready, whenever that would be…
True confession, over the last 6 months I’ve done research on different breeds and randomly browsed rescue shelter websites, but would end up closing the tabs saying “we’re not ready…”. Eric would suggest we swing by a shelter almost every week (seriously), but we would then decide it may not be the best idea.
Plus we wanted to make sure Duckie and Kobe would be cool with adding another member to our tiny home. (They told us they were cool with it.)
Then, while parked here at the RV repair shop, a photo of a pup caught my eye and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Here we are, parked at an RV repair shop, during a pretty stressful time filled with a lot of unknowns, yet there was something about this pup we couldn’t ignore.
Within a few hours, little McNally was a member of our family and a part of this crazy, RV life. We named him after the Rand McNally maps, and I think the name fits him perfectly. We know his mom is a Chihuahua, but don’t know about his dad. What we do know, is he’s awesome and makes our adventures so much more enjoyable.
We’ve had him for 3 weeks now and we can’t imagine our lives without him. Kobe and Duckie are good with him too, although they’re not in snuggle status yet, haha. They basically tolerate him and let him know their boundaries, but they do all lay next to one another during the day and all sleep in the bed with us at night. I’ll take that as a good sign.
He brings so much joy to our lives, and the puppy messes, chewing, and challenges are so worth it. I honestly believe he was meant to be our dog all along.
Video: Meet McNally, our rescue puppy!
We put together a little video of him, which you can watch below.
I like to think our pets pick us, and what’s crazy is we had an opportunity to adopt a Bassett hound a couple of months ago, but something just didn’t feel quite right. It was a puppy that showed up at an RV park we were staying at in North Georgia, Mountain View Campground.
He was just wandering around with no tags and seemed to be pretty friendly. The owners of the RV park had called local shelters and posted photos of him on their Facebook page, but when they didn’t hear anything they asked if we wanted to adopt him.
At first, I thought this must be a sign. We had been thinking about adopting and a dog just so happens to show up at an RV campground we’re staying at. Yup, sounds like a sign to me! There was just one thing… Eric and I had this feeling that something wasn’t quite right, although we couldn’t exactly put our finger on it at the time.
While he was young, less than a year old, he wasn’t exactly little and when we tried to bring him around our cats, we didn’t feel all that comfortable. He also reminded us a lot of Bailey, which is what made us fall in love with him so quickly, yet brought up insecurities since she had aggressive tendencies. We felt horrible, and incredibly guilty, but told the owners of the campground that we didn’t feel comfortable adopting him. We had to go with our gut.
As it turned out, he did have an owner, so we’re happy to say he’s back home with his family.
This experience taught us to trust our instincts and that we would prefer to adopt a younger puppy. We knew this would make both us, and our cats, feel more comfortable.
I guess the moral of the story is to trust your gut and don’t let guilt or anything else force you into making a decision you’re not comfortable with or ready for. I’m not just talking about adopting pets either, but with any decisions, you may be struggling with in your life.
And on that note, here are a couple of super cute photos of McNally…
I hope you’ll enjoy reading more posts about our pets moving forward, and seeing more of McNally in our future hiking videos.
If you have any questions, comments, or tips, be sure to leave them in the comments below!
We adopted McNally from Breeder Release Adoption Service in Colorado (they’re also in Arizona and New Mexico) and highly recommend going through them if you’re looking to rescue a new companion! They’re really good people, and it’s easy to see how much they care about the dogs they take in.
When we adopted him they gave us a blanket that was made from an awesome group called Wrapped in Love. They make and donate blankets to rescue shelters, which I think is a really cool idea, and are always looking for volunteers.
My husband and I have two cats that we adore as well, and we just purchased a vintage airstream to renovate. We’d love to take our cats on our travels, but they both get motion sick in the car, and I don’t think they could ever be comfortable traveling with us. Has that ever been a problem with your cats, and what have you done to help them be good travelers?
Our cats have never gotten sick, but they have gotten stressed – as in laying in the litter box to feel safe. Gross, Now they do pretty well and just sleep on the bed or couch, but we took a lot of short drives to try and get them acclimated. Every so often our cat Duckie gets a little scared when we start packing up – he gets stressed easier than Kobe, but as soon as I see him trying to find a place to hide I just prop him up on the bed looking out the window and he’s all good. I’m sorry I don’t have any tips for car sickness, but you may want to look into some homeopathic remedies. That can’t be fun for any of you 🙁 And let me know if you find something that works!
Hi Katie & Eric,
I’m so glad I found your website! My husband and I are getting ready to purchase our first motorhome very soon. Right now we are in the research phase, looking at diesel versus gas and all that fun stuff. Your updating ideas for RV’s are great! Did you paint the cabinets white or did they come that way? If you did paint them, what color white did you use? They look awesome! I love McNally and can see why you do too. He is such a little sweetheart. We have an Australian Shepherd/Husky mix named Bandit. We lost our other husky in March of last year. Both of our dogs were rescues as well. I can’t wait to read through all of your articles and watch your videos. Thanks again for creating your website! Happy Travels! Cathy from Grapevine, Texas
Hi Cathy! Yay, that’s such an exciting phase! Though it can be a bit overwhelming at times, haha. I did paint the cabinets and have a post about it which I’ll include below. McNally has been a little angel, he is filled with so much love and has made this journey so much more fun. Sounds like Bandit has quite the adventure ahead of him 🙂
https://mountainmodernlife.com/painted-rv-kitchen-cabinets/
Katie
I just discovered y’all, thanks to a facebook posting that mentioned you. I’m jazzed to read your stories of remodeling, researching progressive communities, kayaking, and PETS.
Q: How do you accommodate litter boxes for 2 kitties? And have you any other tips for RV living with multiple cats? Thanks very much!
We actually only have one litter box that we keep hidden in the linen closet of our bathroom, and our cats do well with sharing it. We just clean it every day. We have a cat door installed so they can walk through from the bedroom in there, but they generally just open the door from the bathroom anyway, which is always funny to watch. To be honest, our cats have adjusted really well and love looking out the windows, They always followed us around in our sticks and bricks home and they still do that in the RV, haha. One of them (Duckie) gets a little skittish when we pull in the slides to move, but we just put him up on the bed with his brother and then he’s good to go.
Hi K & E,
So glad I stumbled upon your Pinterest board and then also found your blog and website.
My husband and I are going to be purchasing an RV in a few years, (I’m retired already) after we pay down our VISA.
I DID originally have a question about what you do with your kitties when you’re driving around with your puppy but I saw in the video. When you do park for overnight, do you let them outside ever, on leashes or not?
Also I was curious about how you get mail or packages or stuff like that while on the road?
And also have you ever been assigned jury duty and how did you deal with that?
And also not to get too into your personal business but I’m curious about how you deal with medical situations for both of you as well as your animals?
Sorry for ALL the questions but thanks in advance if you can answer any or all of these.
Curious if you’re going to drive up into the Pacific NW and see our Cascade Mountains on your journey?
Thanks again for blogging about all these fun adventures for us!
Susan in Oregon
Hi Susan! How exciting that you’re planning to RV, we absolutely love it! We do have leashes for the cats and let them out sometimes, but we definitely need to work with them more.
As far as mail goes, we have most of our stuff set up electronically or it gets delivered to my mom’s address – but you can also pay for a mail service where they can email you PDFs of certain mail or mail it over to the address you’re at – Escapees/Escapers has a mail service option you can sign up for that you may want to check out –
https://escapees.com/support/mail-service
Otherwise, we get packages delivered to where we’re staying – whether that’s to the campground/RV park (we just check ahead of time), or through Amazon Locker. We’re currently going to be in this spot for the next 3 months so we’re actually going to pay for a local mailbox to receive packages. I think they said it’s like $30 for 3 months.
We haven’t gotten jury duty during our travels (fingers crossed) so I can’t say anything about that, but we do have our pets on a monthly pet plan at Petsmart so we can take them in whenever we need to. There are other (and probably better) pet plans out there, but we figured Petsmart is everywhere and have been happy with their services so far. And we absolutely can’t wait to get to the Pacific NW! That’s been our main destination and something tells me we may just end up in Oregon or Washington. I’ve never been but those trees give me butterflies. 🙂
Katie
We travel with our 2 small rescue pups and our 15yr old cat. The litterbox issue as well as being able to keep the cat food dishes up away from dogs has been a little bit of a challenge. I just came across your blog/you tube videos and have watched several and I’m hooked on your posts…but I haven’t spotted one yet that shows your set up for the cats and I would love to see what you guys have worked out…
You both have done an awesome job renovating your motorhome and it’s beautiful!! Just the decor I love too! 🙂 I can’t wait to get caught up on all your posts! Happy New Year and Thanks for sharing 🙂
Hi Gwen! Yeah, we have the same issue with keeping McNally away from the cats food. We generally feed McNally in the hallway and keep a water dish for all the pets in that area, but will feed the cats either on the “doghouse” up front and just keep an eye on McNally or if we’re busy and don’t feel like keeping an eye out we’ll feed the cats on the media cabinet. As for the litter box, we keep it hidden inside a linen closet door in our bathroom. We installed a cat door on the bedroom wall side so they can access it from the bedroom, but most of the time they just open the door from the bathroom, haha. We show glimpses of it in our tours, but haven’t done a video or post on it specifically just yet. Hopefully soon!
Awww, McNally is so adorable and smart. Seems to be the perfect fit for you guys and his siblings 🙂 <3