Tuesday week we will be boarding a boat in St-Malo and Rona, our Airedale will have her first experience of sea travel.
She has an up to date passport and will have her worming tablet on Monday morning, and she won’t be in Portsmouth until Wednesday morning - so that should be ok.
I’m more concerned about keeping her comfortable for the journey at sea. We are fortunate in that we are able to have her in the cabin with us and apparently there is an exercise area outside.
She’s not a great traveller in the car (possibly feels a bit car sick, without actually being sick) and I fear the motion of the boat will also bother her.
Any suggestions please for what to do to keep her relaxed, comfortable? Thanks.
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We always left our dog in the car but only on the quicker day sailings. I would just make sure you can exercise her as much as possible. The new BF boats seem very stable so (weather dependent) the crossing shouldn’t be too bad.
Thanks Mark, we couldn’t possibly leave her in the car - she would trash it! Hence my pleasure at finding that some BF boats offer pet cabins. As it’s over night, I’m hoping we all can get a night’s sleep. (I’m a lousy traveller. I get seasick on a swing.)
Did you feed your dog (or not)? What about seasickness pills or something?
Although it was a long time ago now, when we moved to France we had our Airedale in a large crate in the car. They didn’t have pet cabins then, but maybe a large crate/cage in the cabin would help, at least it would contain any accidents. The ferry was an overnight.
Given that they are specifically cabins for families with pets I’m sure they cope with accidents. 
Mind you, we would clear up if necessary. Unfortunately we don’t have room in the car for a crate - she’ll be travelling on the back seat of the car in one of these:
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That looks really good, there’s so much more choice now. Hopefully you’ll all have a tranquil crossing, do let us know how it went when you have a chance, please.
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No, didn’t feed him (day crossing) as too early. We got some travel sickness tablets from the vet (or possibly the pharmacy ). We used to use Dieppe to Newhaven when we lived in the Creuse - once my OH took the dogs tablets by mistake, I had a very peaceful 6 hour journey back home 
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That’s what I need! The tablets I mean.
Is the dog restrained when on the move?
Must be, both for the drivers and the pets safety. We use a harness not the collar, and an attachment into the seat belt fix
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Exactly.
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When we had our head-on crash in Sept '24 (with a closing speed of over 160kph) Gigi was strapped in, but only with the seatbelt through her normal walking harness , rather than a heavy dog in car safety harness (it was just a few minutes drive back from the market). Fortunately the harness was sufficiently robust and unlike my wife, she wasn’t injured, OTOH Gigi’s only 3.5kgs and I suspect a larger dog would need a proper car harness.
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Rona has a heavy duty harness with a ring at her back. A separate kong car strap clips to that with a heavy duty clip and then the strap clicks into the holder of one of the rear seatbelts. We learnt the hard way. The first time we put her in the hammock she was obviously feeling queasy and we opened the back window for her. She jumped out of the car window! The harness we used (which was too lightweight) broke as she jumped. Fortunately there were no other cars around and she just danced around our car.
I walked her home. And we started again, much more cautiously. We just put her in the back of the car and we sat in the front of the car and gossiped. After a couple of tries of not going anywhere we took her to the nearest place we walk her. About 5 minutes drive. We’re now up to 15 minutes each way and we’ll try a longer journey later this week. In fact about 90% of the journey will be motorway and we’re hoping she will sleep much of the journey.
Some years back someone told me it’s so important to secure a dog in a car in case you have an accident, not just because of the risk of them harming themselves (and you) but because if a door flies open you may lose the dog and never see them again because of the trauma.
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It’s also the law in France - either properly restrained in the back seat or in the boot/load area behind a grille.
However, on any given day you’ll see many dog owners who didn’t get the memo 
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Another (possible urban myth) piece of wisdom that we adhere to is having a ‘chien à bord’ sticker on the back of the car in case of crashes and needing emergency services know that they need to rescue a dog as well as us. It also helps us locate our car in car parks amongst the sea of similar looking cars.
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I’m amazed you don’t use a crate for a dog like that?? Dogs actually like them as a place of safety and comfort so long as you don’t use them for punishment.
Surely depends on the dog? Our last dog was crate trained, and happy to be in it. But preferred to be harnessed in a car as could look around more. He was quite big, as was crate and even with its wheels we wouldn’t have been able to move it around a ferry.
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I would definitely agree with that. Our boy Paco was kept 24/7 in a crate for his entire first year, until a Police raid freed him from his then owners. Nothing on earth would induce me to put him in a crate, cage or kennel now, even for the briefest moment. We only take Eurotunnel now, when crossing the Channel, so that he with us at all times. I do appreciate it is much easier for us, being less than 2 hours from the tunnel, than those travelling from further away.
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I’m intrigued to know what you mean by “a dog like that”? A dog like what?
….one that “trashes the car” unquote?