Concerned for your pets while away from your RV?

By Melinda Lord, Author of Pet E. R. Guide We’ve been traveling in our RV for some years now and we have enjoyed the flexibility it has given us because we can travel with our pets. In our travels we have been to areas where the climate has been extreme and where electric power was not ‘comfortably’ reliable. Somehow this particular concern of reliability always made, what would otherwise be a pleasant time, a little worrisome.

Over a period of months, I did research to find ways to keep in touch with our RV so that we would be able to make sure our pets were safe (Is the temperature okay? Are any of the alarms going off? Did the electricity trip? Is battery power failing?). My research, many times, led me to more questions. Or, every time I thought I found a solution, I ultimately also found another snag.

The biggest challenge, as we RVers know, was that we do not generally have a landline phone at the RV site. Certainly there were some great choices out there that I wish I knew about when we owned a second home that wasn’t on wheels. I would have loved to have been notified that the heat went out on a cold winter night, as we did have a land line at the property. I did find some options and some other products that could be converted to wireless (with additional components). So, that was a positive thing and a option to consider, among other types of products that may well be right for you.

However, a solution that we found to suit us well turned out to be The RV Nanny which is a wireless RV Alarm System that works wherever cell phone coverage is located. This product has added more enjoyment to our excursions and has provided our ‘children’ with a ‘nanny’ that will contact us (via a text message to our cell phone, it can also got to a PDA or PC) if any one of a variety of things happen in the RV. We can also call it and ‘listen in’. Or, we can send it a text message at any time requesting the status in the RV and it will send us an instant message back with the details.

What does it look like and how does it work? It is about the size of a good paperback novel and has a SIM card that you can either use from your own cell phone, or you can get from The RV Nanny company, Sensormetrics, Inc. (We just let them put it in.) You set the parameters of when you want The RV Nanny to contact you (i.e. when it reaches a low or high temperature you choose, among other settings). You can also shut off features you do not want to be notified about. It is all up to you. (Parameters can also be changed any time you want.) From there, you plug it into your RV electric outlet (just like you plug in your toaster), turn it on, and it is operational. You are now in touch with your RV Nanny and your RV Nanny is in touch with you. It can alert you to AC/DC power failure, fire & smoke alarms discharging, motion, and temperature (some features we did not even initially look for, but thought were important too).

The cost of the unit is more of an ‘investment’, as the price is short of $1,000*, but the value of knowing a variety of information about the inside of your RV is invaluable. (There are also the charges of the texting and the minimal cost of essentially another cell phone/SIM card.) For us, it has been a wonderful item that has been a wonderful addition to our RV. Suffice it to say, it doesn’t need to stay just in the RV. When we are not traveling, it is used in our house. I can keep tabs on the pets when I’m out for a few hours. I can make sure the AC or heat is still working. I can be notified automatically if any of the alarms are ringing. I can also call in and simply listen.

It has been a welcome addition to our family … our nanny … our RV Nanny.

If you are interested in knowing more about the product, feel free to check it out at rvnanny .com
If you have a boat or plane, there are products for those too. (There is also an option to have a water sensor for flooding.)

*Mention you read about this product in this publication to get an additional discount.

Melinda Lord is the author of Pet E. R. Guide (A Directory of 24-Hour and After-Hour Veterinary Facilities in the United States), published by Trailer Life Books. Her website is petemergencybook .com.

Melinda would love to hear from you regarding your pet stories, including stories of hope in a pet crisis, and your comments on her book Pet E. R. Guide. You may email her at Melinda @ petemergencybook .com