Traveling with Pets / unknown mistake

I just read your article in the latest KOA Kompass monthly email. It was great. However, I noticed an important issue that was not mentioned and needs to be in future pet articles.......

We lost our 8 year old Chihuahua this summer due to high elevation in southern Colorado and his known heart condition. It never crossed our minds. The local vet in Cortez said she had seen perfectly healthy 1 year old dogs brought in by visitors to the region that would succumb to the stress that the higher elevations can cause. We had been staying in the mountains near Mesa Verde National Park which was nearly 7,000 feet in elevation. Gus had a rough night breathing and coughing due to fluid building up around his heart. He was already on medication for his heart as prescribed by our home vet. I got him to the vet in Cortez who said that giving Gus medication and oxygen was not going to save him. We we’re already doing that in her office. She said we had to get him to lower elevations quickly to have any chance of saving Gus. We got as far as Winslow, AZ and lost him. Please make this type of information part of any future articles. I would have given anything to have known about it before we ventured into such high country with Gus. Our local vet never thought to mention it before we started on our trip. We miss him so much and feel guilty for not understanding better what we could have done to prevent our sudden loss. We would have avoided the highest elevations for sure.

Stephen (Steve) J. Wheat
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Hello Stephan!
Thanks for sharing your story with us and pointing out trouble with pets in high elevations.

I am from Colorado Springs, but we now live in North Carolina.
We go back to CS often to visit my family and our 2 dogs go with us in our RV. I had never heard of such a thing before and feel so bad for your loss!

A part of me would die also if something happened to our dogs. We love them, as we do our 2 boys, Buck and Gracie are part of the family!

I believe you did everything in your power to save Gus!

I will post your story on our www.rvuniversity.com site.

Thanks again for taking the time to write as we may help someone else from the same unknown mistake!!!
Dawn

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RV Education 101 is a North Carolina based Company that produces educational videos on how to use and maintain your RV. Mark Polk, the owner, started in the RV industry as an apprentice technician in the early 1970's. After retiring as a CW3 from the military (where Polk was an automotive maintenance technician, and was in charge of some very large maintenance operations throughout his career) in 1996, he got back into the industry he had a passion for. Polk has an extensive background in RV sales, service and management. He felt so strongly about educating the consumer that he left his position as an RV Sales Manager in 2000 to devote himself full time to his company. Mark’s program includes instructional videos and other materials to make your RVing lifestyle even easier. Mark also provides the RV Savvy segments for the RVTV program and can be seen on the Outdoor Channel. You can order Mark's complete line of RV Education 101 material from www.rveducation101.com