What was it like to move cross country with my dog?

Back in February — that is, before COVID — I imagined our cross-country moving experience would look a very specific way. But when the global pandemic swept across the United States just weeks before we were set to travel down to Florida, nothing went as planned.

While my vision of how we’d make the experience easy on our Australian cattle dog didn’t quite play out, we still made it work!

Here’s how we moved from southern Wisconsin to central Florida — Scout in tow — without any major training setbacks.

Why did we move?

My partner, Sean, started casually looking for a new job as winter came to a close. I quickly learned that research-based opportunities for a chemical engineer aren’t around every corner.

He ended up interviewing with a company on the space coast of Florida — and they gave him an offer on the spot!

We didn’t live together and hadn’t quite been dating for two years, but there was no question Scout and I were coming along. Sean is her favorite (don’t even get me started) and m…