New Here Looking for a Bus to Travel with a Bunch of Dogs

[k9disc]

You all rock! Thanks a bunch for all the advice and interest.

We have been on the road for several months out of the year with our dogs in our sprinter. It is very hard on us and the dogs, although they seem fine.

We have amazing places to stay at and to park a rig, so it's mainly just while teaching and en-route that we are all in the rig. It's still too much.

We live in the city with our dogs, Midtown Kingston, NY, in an old pajama factory -- it's super cheap for a 3000 sqft space in NY State, but it is not cheap. It's pretty amazing. People are usually not able to wrap their heads around a dozen plus dogs in the city, let alone a bus, but that's life.

When we make the move we will dump the pajama factory (super bummed about that, it's a great space at a very reasonable price) and hit the road.

We have "Homes 1-4" (friends, other dog pros, and family) where we stay while on the road: MD, FL, TN, St Louis, SoCal, and are looking for a home base in NorCal, WA, and maybe up in the NE. The plan is to travel and hang out for a month or 3 (FL), and then move on -- manufactured annual exclusivity. It's a good gig, so far, but the travel and staging while not at our various hosts' places, is really tough.

My dad has a 4104 that he wants to sell.  It already has a floor plan but honestly, part of the floor needs to be redone anyway.  Any interest in a manual bus that old?

Not really interested in the 4104. The 4905 looks good to us, from an aesthetic point of view. For the right rig we could go a bit older.

A manual trans is not desired, although we're capable -- to a point... There's a really sweet looking Gillig that's been available for a long time that's got a 10sp manual. Looks amazing, but we're terrified of the idea.

I'll take a look if you give me a link. PM or post it here if there are no rules against it.

Hello Ron,

Not sure if he would have any good leads on a bus for you, necessarily, but I would encourage you to send a private message to Jon (goes by "siberyd" here on forum) to talk "dogs and buses". Jon and his wife are involved in a Siberian rescue program - and own and travel with dogs in their converted bus. He may have some good information for you one way or another. Best of luck with your bus purchase, whatever you wind up with... As you said, there is a wealth of information to sift through here!

Kevin

Thanks a bunch, Kevin. Will do. We're pretty involved in rescue as well.

Hi Ron,

The Sprinter is likely more reliable and serviceable than an old bus. Getting the bus is just one phase of the bus experience. Take a hard pencil and write a number you can set aside for ongoing bus maintenance, repairs, and trip delays/alternative transportation.

Buses consume large amounts of fluids, parts cost much more if you can even find them, and down time often spans weeks or even longer. If the bus must get you to specific venues on specifics dates, you'll need to have plan B ready to go if breaking down mid journey.

Don't mean to put you off at all; I finally bought one and loving it. Hoping I got a good one but prepared to write big checks if necessary.

We love our sprinter. But it's not the easiest to service -- rather terrifying to go to normal diesel places for fear of incompetence on the 5cyl diesel. Lots of horror stories, and the few problems we've had over the last 3 years and 100K miles confirm that, anecdotally. We went with the older, mechanical diesel to avoid the expensive and confusing electrical $#!%.

As I mentioned above, we'll be eliminating our factory rent, and money will completely be an issue, but we should be able to cover most of it with a similar, and hopefully reduced budget.

Plan Bs after breakdowns are a fact with the Sprinter too. Bad fuel hit us and left us stranded with a $9000 repair. Fortunately it was covered by insurance.

If we can swing a nice rig at a low enough entry point we can keep the sprinter, which would make a great plan b.

I appreciate the honest eval of our situation.

I'm having a very hard time getting my brain wrapped around travel in a coach with as many as twelve dogs in crates.

I flew a lot of animal rescues in my plane with as many as 24 pups at a time. Depending on the size of the dogs and how well they socialized my number of dogs per flight varied. Just loading and unloading was a major process and I averaged between two and four hours per flight. There was something about a plane flight that made the dogs relax and sleep as soon as I was airborne. I imagine it was the steady drone of the engine and no changes in pitch or attitude that quieted the animals down and unlike car relays the dogs were not high strung for the most part.

In a bus going from point A to point B I guarantee the dogs are going to be high strung nervous wrecks and despite efforts to walk them often there are going to be accidents. A number of times I had to empty crates from the plane at my delivery point to hose them down. Any bus set up with crates has to be set up to easily remove the crates for cleaning. After each flight I also pulled the crates upon my return and sanitized them to prevent the spread of diseases.

Living in a coach with a number of dogs goes far beyond my ability to imagine

Yea, dogs do settle on the slow drone of a motor. Our dogs are quite familiar with travel. We've been traveling with dogs for 12 years come October, the last 7 with lots of destination travel. They're solid and comfy.

The Bus is required so we can have 2 rooms. That's the key, and that is one of the reasons that we are looking to a shell or a minimal or messed up interior conversion. If we have 2 rooms, the dogs get to experience a normal pajama factory kind of life. A single room, or tiny space as we're in now goes beyond hard to imagine and strays into just plain hard.

If your budget is only in the 20K range you might be best with a school bus, many of them around for sale. The good thing I see in a school bus is the back emergency door, you could make a kennel area in the back and have an inside access door to check on the dogs and have a middle and front living area. Though not excessively fast they have more modern diesel engines, auto trans some have over the road air and could possibly meet your needs with your budget.

I've been looking into more skoolies, and they'd be great for getting into areas that are rough -- we've got a couple of those that may be excluded with a highway rig. The thing is that we DO put down some miles and must have lower compartments for storage. My GF also is a metal sculptor, so we'll be rolling with a welder, plasma cutter, compressor, and genny. Let alone all our dog training and competition gear.

It's on the radar, for sure, scanzel, but lack of compartment storage is a real problem.

LOL if Samantha can raise over $160,000.00 and buy a Prevost to transport cats to her shows you shouldn't have a problem raising $200,000.00 for the transportation of dogs  

I've been thinking about a kickstarter or indiegogo. We've done an indiegogo successfully with our dog training webseries. I'm not very optimistic about success though, and the bus would be but a part of it. It's so hard to get support these days, and it's a real full time job with great attention to detail and planning to pull out a 6-figure campaign.

Would love to get a link to Samantha's project...

Consider a truck conversion. Look at http://www.renegaderv.com/ at their garage motohomes. Perfect for hauling dogs, and still having a motorhome on a dependable truck chassis. Good Luck, TomC

Yea, amazing. A friend has a 300,000 rig that he rolls in with his dogs and gear storage. Pretty nutty.

Know where I can find one for 20k? ;-)

Hi K9, I had an access door to my bay thru the floor of the coach, the dogs would go down into the bay to sleep or lounge around, some put windows in the bay doors, you could dedicate two bays with access hatches,  and open bay doors wide to clean them, lvmci...

That's an amazing idea, man. Love the idea. Not sure if we'll have any extra space though.

Dogs are a lot of work when traveling.  You have to stop and walk them every couple of hours.  If they are not used to traveling their stomachs get upset and you know what that means-- the big D.  I have three dogs so I cannot imagine a dozen strange dogs that could bark all the way.

--Geoff

Tell me about it Geoff. Walking dogs is my job, man. Our dogs are very experienced with the road. We've got two barkers. People are always
shocked at how many dogs we have and how quiet they are. We do have a couple of howlers that get our rig rocking though.
This   describes my life quite well.

A school bus with a back door, or putting the dogs in the bays of a coach would be good practical ideas. In the case of the baggage compartments of a coach, you could have a inner cage wall and gate inside that would be revealed when you open up the outside hatches. Then you would have cross ventilation across the width of the coach, but when the bays are closed you would have to have A/C and fans sufficient to keep them cool.

Long ago and far away, I was the Operations NCO for a Military Police Sentry Dog Company in Vietnam. I had 250+ German Shepherds to move around Vietnam and out of country for retraining. We shipped them in Aluminum crates that had round holes in the sides and bars across the front door. We had to stack them on trucks and shipping pallets for flying in cargo planes. As long as the front door was facing the outside of a stack, they did okay as long as there was air movement. The noise from all the barking indicated they were okay; if they stopped barking, it was time to get them out. The people that have sled dog transportation trucks with enough cages for the whole team on a flat bed remind me of our stacked cages on army trucks.

We will have a bank of custom crates in the coach. Stacked 2 high. Pretty much where the bunks go in an Entertainer.

We've been looking at a couple of MCI-9 Prison buses. Love the back door access. Also looking at d3s with the wheelchair lift being pulled out for an extra door.

A friend of mine was a canine recon guy in Panama. He now runs an assistance dog organization. Crazy to hear him talk about his job. He jumped out of planes with his dog and hunted humans in the jungle. Friggin' crazy!

A late model dog-nose school bus with rear airbags and AC would be the way to go in, IMHO.
5k and you'd be in the catbird seat. Best to know the drive train that would work for you before you bid.

I feel you. But again, we do mileage. Big runs. Comfort and aesthetics are important. That said, I've seen more than a few aesthetically pleasing skoolies.

Anyone comment on comfort in a skoolie from NY to SoCal?

Thanks a bunch for all the responses guys. Super stoked to have some fellow crazy peeps to talk about this stuff with.

Peace~

[eagle19952]

yes... with a $20,000.00 budget...i am sure this is doable...

Consider a truck conversion. Look at http://www.renegaderv.com/ at their garage motohomes. Perfect for hauling dogs, and still having a motorhome on a dependable truck chassis. Good Luck, TomC

[k9disc]

yes... with a $20,000.00 budget...i am sure this is doable...

Do you have a direct link to a product? All I found was $70K+ rigs. Beautiful, but not quite in the budget.

Sorry to be thick, but my first google didn't work out so well...

[luvrbus]

You ruled out the Model 12 Eagle in Arkansas I take it

[eagle19952]

Do you have a direct link to a product? All I found was $70K+ rigs. Beautiful, but not quite in the budget.

Sorry to be thick, but my first google didn't work out so well...

uhmmm....i was sarcasticating... Tom.

[DoubleEagle]

Check eBay and Craigslist for buses, there are always a few popping up under $20,000. In fact on eBay there are three Eagles at $10,000 or less currently, including a 1984 Eagle with Allison automatic with an entertainer setup (not done professionally, but the dogs are not too picky). The bus is in West Virginia, the current bid is at $5100, and the auction ends in about 24 hrs. A search with the words Silver Eagle Bus will bring them up.

[k9disc]

uhmmm....i was sarcasticating... Tom.

I'll get adjusted to your schtick, Tom. Figured so, but as a noob, can't be sure.

[k9disc]

Check eBay and Craigslist for buses, there are always a few popping up under $20,000. In fact on eBay there are three Eagles at $10,000 or less currently, including a 1984 Eagle with Allison automatic with an entertainer setup (not done professionally, but the dogs are not too picky). The bus is in West Virginia, the current bid is at $5100, and the auction ends in about 24 hrs. A search with the words Silver Eagle Bus will bring them up.

It's on my watchlist. Actually interested in Eagle's to avoid the air bag stuff. Kind of like the idea of sliding under the bus if I need to.

Thanks for the heads up. Feel free to keep me posted with anything that looks solid.

[Jon]

If you don't like air bags plan on doing the most comprehensive rust inspection you can imagine.

[luvrbus]

  Don't let Jon kid you there are a lot more old Eagles around than old Provost,all buses rust GM,MCI Vanhool,Neo and Prevost if they have steel up to 1985 you could hear a Prevost rusting 

[Iceni John]

Someone mentioned John Usle and his Siberian Husky rescue  -  he has two buses, a 4104 for the two-legged folk and a neat old White/Carpenter pusher school bus for the four-legged folk.   A few years ago he brought both his buses to our annual get-together so I got to look around them  - the husky bus has space for about a dozen large cages, and being a skoolie it can be easily hosed out and cleaned.

How about a recent (2000 or later) front-engine skoolie, either dog-nose or flat-front, with air suspension on the back and a DT466 engine (maybe the best medium-duty engine), towing a toy-hauler trailer for all the metalworking supplies and Other Stuff.   Buses like that are cheap, can be serviced anywhere, can go where low-slung road coaches fear to tread, and could definitely go coast to coast, but obviously less luxuriously than a "real" bus.

John

[k9disc]

Someone mentioned John Usle and his Siberian Husky rescue  -  he has two buses, a 4104 for the two-legged folk and a neat old White/Carpenter pusher school bus for the four-legged folk.   A few years ago he brought both his buses to our annual get-together so I got to look around them  - the husky bus has space for about a dozen large cages, and being a skoolie it can be easily hosed out and cleaned.

How about a recent (2000 or later) front-engine skoolie, either dog-nose or flat-front, with air suspension on the back and a DT466 engine (maybe the best medium-duty engine), towing a toy-hauler trailer for all the metalworking supplies and Other Stuff.   Buses like that are cheap, can be serviced anywhere, can go where low-slung road coaches fear to tread, and could definitely go coast to coast, but obviously less luxuriously than a "real" bus.

John

I think that's a fine idea, but we're going to be living in it, close quarters with dogs, AND working out of it. Neither of us want to trailer anything in a large vehicle like that.

But it is on our radar. I saw a real nice 2007 rig that looked doable...

Thanks, John.

[eagle19952]

If you don't like air bags plan on doing the most comprehensive rust inspection you can imagine.

lol...buses with air bags don't rust ?

newsflash ... MCI's come with bellows blockoff plates...don't they ? or was that GMC's ?