Ferry and Boat Travel With Your Dog: What Actually Works

By Jessica Ennis, DVM, CVA

✓ Medically reviewed by Jessica Ennis, DVM, CVA — August 17, 2026 For general education — not a substitute for veterinary care.

Destinations · August 18, 2026 · 6 min read

Ferries look easy until your dog is standing on a moving deck with no crate, no leash length limit, and nowhere to pee for two hours.

Most people plan a ferry crossing with their dog the same way they’d plan a car ride: leash, water bottle, done. That’s the mistake. A ferry isn’t a car with a view — it’s an open deck, a moving surface, engine noise, and often no relief area for the length of the trip. I’ve counseled enough clients through their first ferry crossing to know the failures are predictable, and so is the fix.

In my practice, I once worked with a family bringing a 60-pound goldendoodle named Baxter on his first island ferry trip — a two-hour crossing to Vineyard Haven. They’d packed water and a favorite toy but nothing else. Twenty minutes in, Baxter was drooling heavily, pacing the small stretch of deck they’d claimed, and refusing to lie down. He wasn’t in danger, but he was miserable, and so were they, standing in the wind trying to calm a 60-pound dog with nowhere to put him. What they were missing wasn’t gear — it was a plan for the parts of the trip nobody photographs: the wait in the terminal, the walk before boarding, and forty-five minutes of watching him for early motion-sickness signs instead of assuming he’d be fine because he’s “a good traveler in the car.”

Myth vs. reality: what ferry lines actually require

The myth is that ferries are more relaxed than airlines about dogs. The reality is closer to the opposite in some ways — there’s no single federal rulebook, so every line sets its own terms, and they vary more than owners expect.

Washington State Ferries updated its rules for the 2026 season: dogs are now allowed in designated indoor areas as well as on deck, but they must be in a harness or a crate regardless of training level, and large dogs have to stay on the floor rather than on seats, according to WSDOT. On the other coast, the The Steamship Authority: Steamship Authority, which runs the Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket routes, carries pets free of charge but requires them to be leashed or crated and kept off seats and out of food service areas at all times.

Neither line provides a shipboard relief area as standard, which is the detail that trips up first-timers most. Plan the walk before you board, not after.

Before you book: the sequence I walk clients through

1. Call or check the specific route’s current pet page. Rules change by season and even by vessel — the Washington policy above was explicitly framed as a summer trial, so don’t assume last year’s rule still applies.
2. Confirm whether your dog needs to stay on-leash the entire crossing or whether crating is required instead. Some lines accept either; others require a crate for dogs over a certain size.
3. Check indoor vs. outdoor deck rules. A dog that overheats or gets anxious outdoors needs an indoor option confirmed in advance, not discovered at the gate.
4. Time your pre-boarding walk. Build it into your arrival window — most terminals don’t have relief areas past the ticket gate.
5. Bring water and a collapsible bowl. Salt spray and wind dry a dog out faster than owners expect on an open deck; see our guide to collapsible bowls and feeding gear for traveling dogs if you haven’t picked one yet.

Motion sickness: the part that actually derails the trip

This is where most ferry-day failures come from, and it’s not really about the boat — it’s inner-ear physiology. Motion sickness is more common in puppies and younger dogs because the balance structures in the inner ear aren’t fully developed yet, per the Merck Veterinary Manual, though adult dogs can absolutely get seasick too, especially on their first open-water crossing.

Cool air and a calm environment help more than most owners expect. If your dog can stay outdoors safely, the moving air on deck often works in your favor compared to a stuffy cabin. If you know your dog gets carsick, don’t wait to find out on the ferry — trial any anti-nausea approach on a shorter car trip first, so you know how they respond before you’re two hours from shore with no easy exit.

If your dog has never been on a boat before, treat the first crossing like the first flight: short exposure beats a long one. The prep overlaps with what we recommend for getting a dog used to a travel carrier before flying — familiarity with confinement and motion, built gradually, pays off on the water too.

A practical sequence for the crossing itself

• Arrive early enough for a real walk, not a rushed one.
• Claim a spot on deck (or your confirmed indoor spot) before the boat leaves the dock — footing gets harder to navigate once you’re underway.
• Keep the leash short. A long line on a moving, crowded deck is how dogs end up tangled around other passengers’ legs.
• Watch for early stress signals — lip licking, excessive drooling, refusal to settle — rather than waiting for vomiting to confirm it.
• If you’re keeping your dog on their normal feeding and walk schedule, don’t abandon it for the trip; see how to keep your dog on its routine while traveling for how much structure actually matters on travel days.

One of the dogs I worked with, a 4-year-old Lab mix named Cricket, had done plenty of car trips but never a boat. Her owner assumed the ferry would be no different. It wasn’t the water that got to Cricket — it was the engine vibration under her paws combined with a crowded outdoor deck on a warm afternoon. She started panting hard and wouldn’t lie down for the first thirty minutes. What helped wasn’t medication; it was moving to a quieter stretch of rail away from foot traffic and giving her something familiar to lie on. By the second half of the crossing she’d settled completely. The lesson I took from that trip, and repeat to clients now, is that the first twenty minutes on a new boat tell you more than any amount of pre-trip planning — watch your dog, not the schedule.

Where I land

My honest recommendation: treat a first ferry crossing as a trial run, not a guarantee. Book routes with confirmed pet policies, walk before boarding, and budget the first twenty minutes of the crossing purely for watching your dog’s body language rather than settling into your own seat. The counterargument I hear most is that dogs who travel well in cars will be fine on boats too — and sometimes that’s true. But car sickness and boat motion aren’t the same stressor, and I’d rather a client over-prepare for a two-hour crossing than assume equivalence and get caught without a plan.

If your dog is reactive around strangers or other animals, a crowded ferry deck is a genuinely harder environment than a car — it’s worth reading our guide on traveling with a reactive dog before you commit to a route with limited space to create distance.

So — is your dog actually ready for open water, or just ready for the car ride to get there?