Camping with Barry: The Prep

Tonight we'll be camping with Barry and some friends. We're so looking forward to it! Getting out of the city and into nature. We'll do some hiking, swimming, hanging out by the campfire, s'mores, tent sleeping, the whole nine. That includes bugs and whatnot. Last year we had a great camping trip in a beautiful part of Wisconsin, but that was without Barry. There were TONS of mosquitos. Swarms of them. Flying into my eyeballs, landing in our food, buzzing by our ears, in my hair and they even got a few bites in. We were drenched in the toxic, supposed cancer-causing, amazing product called Repel which is 100% deet. It works. Even though our chairs, hair, skin and clothing was drenched in the stuff the mosquitos were still trying hard to get in on the smorgasbord of us humans but they mostly didn't dare land on our bodies due to being covered in poison. I am never ever for using a toxic ingredient like deet anywhere near my body UNLESS I'm getting eaten alive by mosquitos. Then it's cool. I'm willing to forsake my somewhat healthy and toxic free lifestyle when camping - how strange is that?

Unfortunately we cannot be drenching everything in deet this time because we have Barry. I will still be using some of the strong stuff on my body and I'm assuming Husband will as well (if needed) BUT as for spraying the area of our campground and spraying Barry we'll be trying something more natural. Ugh. I hate the idea of it even. I keep just imagining it all being totally useless. I have a number of recipes for safe and natural mosquito repellents for dogs. Many call for a combination of essential oils, lemon, and witch hazel so I think I shouldn't have any problems with ingredients. I'm just worried it won't work. Even though there are tons of recipes out there I've not heard once about how effective they are or if they even work. That makes me seriously doubt the effectiveness of the natural route for this particular scenario. I don't want Barry getting all bit up. I also have to keep in mind that even though I'm using a natural repellent he still will be licking his fur so I can't totally drench him in it like I'd want to in order to keep the little buggers away. Hopefully there won't be tons of mosquitos. Maybe our spot will be dry with a good breeze as well (that helps with the mosquito issue as well). I will be reporting back with my recipe and the level of effectiveness.

Husband bought a nice outdoor/travel bed for Barry as well. It's pretty nice. We use it indoors too (yet another bed for Barry). So aside from us packing our own essentials we now need to make sure we are packing Barry's essentials too. I love that we are bringing Barry. I think he's going to love it!

Another exciting thing happening this week is that my mom, step dad, and sister will be coming to visit! They will finally get to meet Barry. Though, they aren't coming all this way just to meet Barry but I think they'll just fall in love with him. So Barry is going to be extra spoiled this week with lots of love and attention from three extra people :) Lucky dog.

This will be the only post this week as I'll be too busy to do any updates but fear not! I'll be back next week with updates and pictures of our camping trip.

If anyone has any advice for me please let me know. I can use all the camping-with-dog advice that I can get.