WILD- Topic 20: Building a Travois/Stretcher

Building a Travois for a Stretcher

Read the Article on How to Build a Stretcher for a Dog

Materials needed:

• Two long branches
• 2-4 shorter branches
• Rope
• Survival knife- portable to cut wood

A travois can be made from materials in nature and allows you to transport heavy loads over distance, in this case your dog. Below you will find instruction for how to build one yourself.

First, collect two poles of wood about the width of your wrist, and cut them to be about twice as long as the length of the dog’s body. Then collect several (at least four) shorter and narrower poles of wood that will go across the larger two. The first of these should be slightly longer than the width of the dogs widest part, and the last should be about twice as long as the first. The intermediate poles should be tapering sizes, growing from the size of the first to the size of the fourth. Low hanging branches of trees work well for this.

Place your elbow on the large end of one of your long poles and lay your forearm flat on the pole. Use your knife to make a mark in the wood where your fingers reach. Make a mark in the same place on the other large pole. It is helpful to cut a notch at this point on both poles for the cross branches to lay.

Lay the long branches on the ground about one and half the width of the dog and tie the top of the branches together only on one end. Now you have a V shape. Lay the shorter branches across the long ones about 2 inches apart for a smaller dog and 3-4 inches apart for larger dogs.

Tie each branch on both ends to the long branches.