Travels with my dog - or: I Want the Large Dog Bed!

Gina on Zita's bed

Our Gina is the worst traveller you can imagine.

We believe it is her past; she was adopted 8 years ago from Istanbul, and travelled in the back of a Jeep from the airport in Germany to our country (a journey of some hours).
She has been violently carsick ever since. Even looking at the car makes her gulp and retch. Actually putting her in a car, any car, is asking for it. She will empty her stomach before we have turned the first corner of our street (10 meters from our house). So after the first couple of disastrous efforts of taking her along on our trips, and trying every trick in the book and then some, we gave up. Whenever we go somewhere, she stays at home with a sitter, or one of us stays at home with her.

Zita
But this time we decided we would try taking her with us, as we knew her pal Zita would come along as well. Zita is a 12 year old Golden Retriever, and the gentlest goofiest dog imaginable. The two dogs would travel together in the back of our van, and hopefully Zita's relaxed attitude would influence Gina. But I took a mega load of kitchen towels, just in case.

Zita's owner has a more chic taste in doggie furniture than us; we have a wicker dog basket, one of those old fashioned ones that starts to pulverise after a couple of years. Zita on the other hand sleeps on a fancy expensive dog bed. Both items were put in the van, all our bags were covered by a plastic sheet,  and the dogs were told to stay. We then kept our fingers crossed.

She adored that bed!
Halfway on our 4 hour journey to the North of Groningen, Gina had moved out of her basket and on to Zita's bed. Zita then moved into the basket.
When we had arrived at our destination, we put the basket and bed in front of the  fire and walked the dogs. On their return, Gina took one look at the bed, and confiscated it.
She took relaxation to new heights. Zita didn't even try to reclaim her bed, she simply collapsed next to it. 
Why didn't we think of this before? We could have taken our dog along all these years...all we should have done was take the fancy bed. And Zita.
So we had a really nice break. Walked around Eenrum and Groningen with the dogs. Took them to restaurants. All without a hitch. The only thing was that Zita, an old lady after all, needed to pee a couple of times a night. She barked us awake. 
Gina didn't even blink.