Marisa Fitzpatrick: Hello, everybody. Dr. Fitz here with “Rollin on TVs” “Paws on Board.” With more and more people taking their pets along with them when they travel, many RV manufacturers are starting to offer pet friendly features on the products. With me today is Joe Mehl and Harley from Forest River. He’s going to highlight for us some of the new features now offered on some of the Forest River units. Joe, welcome to “Paws on Board.”

Marisa: Since we’re outside, what are some of the pet friendly features people can look for on the outside of these new units? Joe: Yeah, so on the R pod behind me, you see that big black thing up at the top there? That is a 15k air conditioner. You know, when you’ve got a hairy dog like Harley here, you’re going to want to keep him cool as these summer months start coming on.

And then also with an old dog like Harley, he’s 12, those extra wide steps, those are super important. He has come to a couple video shoots with me in the past, and going up steps is just difficult. These steps, he has no problems.

Let’s head inside and explore some of the interior features.

What can you tell me about what Forest River has done to make the R-Pod so pet friendly? Joe: Yeah, so one of my favorite features is, well,  I got Harley here, and when I pet him, I don’t know if you guys can see that on camera, all that hair. All that hair is got to go somewhere, right? So it’s usually going to end up on the floor. In this case, it’s on the table, but I could just sweep it down to the floor. The great thing is there’s a central vac system.

This is the 202 model and it’s actually located in the bathroom behind me. And what that does is you can either just take a broom, sweep it over there, and sweep it right up, or you could–there’s actually aftermarket hose attachments that you can purchase. And those, you could just run it around the whole entire unit and just sweep everywhere.

And, you know, on top of that, the R-Pod 202 is in all R-Pods across the board zero carpet. So I don’t know if you have carpet at home, but I have a carpet in our lower level, and this guy’s hair fills the vacuum in about 5 seconds. So, with this, you take 5 minutes just once a day and kind of sweep out the unit. No carpet, no pet dander, no other little debris.

And especially if it’s raining, then, you know, when you got a wet dog, you can wipe the floors. It’s going to be pretty simple.

And then obviously we have tough surfaces. So he’s going to take a little nap right now. He’s an old boy. There, as you can see, he drooled all over the table. If I had a rag, you could just swipe that right up. Easy clean up pet messes. And what about–you know, obviously we’re sitting on the furniture right now. He has a lot of pet hair. He might get dirty. So this is actually a really tough multi-surface vinyl that is very tough. So you can scratch it. It’s not going to damage it. His claws can get into it, not going to damage.

That’s so important, especially if you’re traveling and you go on hikes. And even in the campground, it can be pretty muddy. So that’s definitely important. I love it. Okay, so I know with traveling we have a lot of pet supplies that we need to bring along with us. Is there anything incorporated into here that if I forgot something important, let’s say, that I’d have on hand?

Joe: Yeah, so actually from the factory direct, we are very–we were thinking about all the pets and all the people that are coming into the RV industry that have pets and they want to bring their love–furry love– you know, love pups with them. So we actually–right by the door on most of the floor plans, there’s a little storage net with two pet bowls in it that come from the factory, that when you buy the unit from a dealer, they will be included.

So I know we’ve covered a lot on the inside. What do we have on the outside that’s pet friendly when you’re hanging out in the campground? Joe: Yeah, so when you hang out at the campground, you know, not every dogs, like Harley, he’ll just stay right by your side for the most part, some of dogs like to go wander and explore. Marisa: All the smells, of course. Joe: So all the smells. Yeah. So one thing that Forest River has done in R-Pod, they actually created the leash latch. It’s a little latch that’s actually part of the chassis itself. And it has–it’s a D ring similar to like what you’d use in a toy hauler that goes on the floor to strap down big heavy toys. So if you have a big 200 pound dog, that dog can probably pull 4 or 5, 600 pounds. So we made sure that it’s very, you know, strong. It’s a D ring that you can put a leash to, and then he actually weight it to the entire weight of the trailer.

And then the other great thing is, you know, on a rainy day like it is today, dogs like to go explore in the woods or you take them on hikes and their paws get muddy, and they get dirty and smelly. And you don’t want to give him a shower in your bath and clog up your tanks. So there’s actually a spray port outside.  It’s a nice little hose that you can just– you can rinse them off. So–and then clean them, dry them off, get them ready for the night. So that way they can sleep in the trailer with you.

There are so many new people coming into the market that are RVing for the first time, and they might not have kids, but they have fur babies. And so we are trying to think of all those new owners that want to travel with their fur babies.

So we also have a few other brands that actually are pet friendly as well like Surveyor and No Boundaries and Ibex and a couple others beyond that as well, yeah. Some of them will have–so this one’s a really unique floor plan because the slide out is actually elevated, and so we’re at dinette right here, but this can also be option to have a couch here too so that way if you want to sit here, there’s a TV across from us.

Well, thanks, Joe. This is been great. Thanks for showing me all the pet friendly features that you guys have in your RVs. And hopefully this helps a lot of pet owners travel comfortably and safely with their pets.

And if you guys want to learn more about Forest River and all the other brands that we have, including all the pet friendly features, check out forestriverinc.com.