I love bringing my dog to concerts

Train the dog, take the dog, leave the dog... just enjoy life with the dog

Living in a van complicates a lot of things. (Spending the last 11 weeks in an apartment has underscored, by contrast, just how complex road-life logistics can be.) But as tiring as it is to find overnight parking spots and track water usage and navigate all the other mental drains—don’t even get me started on juggling acoustics when Sean and I both have work calls at the same time in less than 70 square feet—owning a vehicle that is also a house makes it consistently easier to take care of our dog.

The important prerequisites here are 1) that Scout feels safe in our van and 2) that we trust our temperature control system. With both those boxes checked, previously convoluted calculations about her bladder capacity and bowel movement schedule (dog people, you get it!) become easy to untangle.

Note to past self: Get the tattoos and the nose ring and the crochet top!

The first year Sean and I were dating, we wanted to go to Summerfest. The problem was that it’s only fair to ask Scout to last about eight hours between daytime bathroom breaks (even then, only on occasion—three to five is her sweet spot) and the venue was nearly four hours away round trip. Leaving her in the car wasn’t an option with no way to monitor the temperature, so we had to enlist a local friend to let her out of my apartment while we were gone. This privilege did enable us to have more fun than anyone else in Jack Antonoff’s audience¹, but I couldn’t stop worrying when we got caught in traffic on the way home.

Last year we saw Noah Kahan at a much larger venue in Wisconsin—our first concert since moving into our van—and this past Tuesday we drove a few hours for Hippo Campus and The Lumineers. Now that I’ve experienced the absolute joy of taking my whole house and dog with me to concerts? I’m not sure I’ll be able to attend live music any other way.

Instead of having to bid Scout farewell hours before the show so we could drive there and find parking and secure a sliver of lawn (budget general admission tickets forever, my friends) we just… brought her. We ate dinner together in the van, made sure her space was at peak cozy, and took her for a final bathroom break right before heading into the venue.

Then I lost myself in the music and catharsis of so many other living-breathing bodies sharing the same experience. No matter how late the performance went or how thick the traffic grew, Scout would be fine because we were already right there. We walked less than ten minutes to be greeted by a sleepy pup with a wiggly tail when the show ended.

I feel the same sense of ease when we visit friends and family. Parking our home in the driveway or on the street means we can always have Scout with us—we haven’t paid for a sitter in years, not to mention dealt with the intangible costs of leaving your sensitive dog with someone else—without having to have her with us with us. She’s happy to nap in her safe space while we galavant with my niece or help prepare Friendsgiving or shout-sing folk songs. Then she’s thrilled to reunite when we get back.

A sunset hike the day after our concert. When we do lengthy things without Scout, we take extra care to balance dog-friendly activities before and after.

Earlier in our life together, I internalized the idea that everything should be a training opportunity. I wanted an “everywhere dog”—a companion who could seamlessly come with me to any and all environments, boosting my ego by showing off my stellar handling skills—and Scout and I put in hundreds of hours of work towards that end. We succeeded, mostly. She’s spent too many mornings at coffee shop patios to count, joined us for drinks with friends, waited outside grocery stores, run the gamut.

In part, these excursions were practical. When we lived in Florida we had to go almost an hour out of our way to take Scout to the beach then drop her home before visiting a local cafe… so naturally we wanted to just bring her to both. Her “everywhere” skills were a key compromise so all three of us could live well. (So was her ability to be comfortable with a sitter here and there.)

But when we moved into the van, it became less necessary for our dog to tag along on full outings or be watched by anyone else. Sean and I had to make fewer in-the-moment advocacy decisions. Scout had to deal with fewer crooning strangers and excitable other dogs. We were all happier!

And still: I sometimes worried we were taking the easy way out. Were Scout’s frustration tolerance and training foundation—such hard-won things for my timid shelter stray—fading? Was I, myself, becoming lazy? I wondered if I was a fraud for prioritizing my dog’s public adaptability for so many years and then deciding maybe the frequency with which she side-flopped on a patio or walked nicely on a leash for someone else actually didn’t matter much anymore.

It took a while to fully shake those feelings, but I’ve now gone so far as to title one of the chapters in my Paws and Reflect manuscript Take the Path of Least Resistance. For us, the path of least resistance 100 percent involves a converted campervan.

Van dog forever, says Scout Finch.

As the end of our time in Portland approaches, it’s heartening to remember these van-life perks. (Also wow does she look cute in a lawn chair.)

Other notes and news

• Colleen Kinder (co-founder of Off Assignment) recently introduced me to EB Bartel’s work—and I am in love. I’ve read her “Letter to a Stranger” piece several times now.

• Adam Aleksic, known online as Etymology Nerd, just celebrated his debut book’s pub day! I don’t know Aleksic personally, but I enjoy what he does very much. I’m thrilled for him in that from-afar parasocial way.

In case you missed it

Last week I wrote about living in dog ownership’s dark underbelly.

It’s (still) isolating to love a sensitive dog

1. This sounds like bragging, but I’m convinced it’s true. Jack Antonoff, with a ludicrous amount of enthusiasm on stage, shouted “you know you wanna get on each other’s shoulders!” and Sean gave me one look and next thing you know we were one of only two pairs in the whole crowd who had listened. I took an amazing (and amazingly out-of-focus) video panning between the Bleachers performance and my thighs on either side of Sean’s head. (We might also be known for this move at friends’ weddings.)