Best Tent For Camping with Dogs: The Ultimate Guide

The Weathermaster is an awesome choice if you and your furry friend want a little bit of luxury, plenty of space, and a shelter that won’t tear up after just a few trips.

This spacious tent excels in both warm and wet conditions. The WeatherTec waterproofing is rated to 6,000mm, so you and your canine camping crew will be safe from soakings in rainy weather, and your gear will stay dry if your wet dog chooses the vicinity of your tent for their post-river-dip shakedown.

In hot conditions, the duo of large doors, mesh ceiling, and mesh-lined windows keep stuffiness and condensation to a minimum.

Two features make the WeatherMaster a standout for critters and keepers alike. First, a huge screened room in which your pup can chill in the shade in the daytime or catch Zs at nighttime. Secondly, an LED lighting system that makes it easy for them, after dark, to locate essentials like dog toys, bones, or the treats you’ve hidden in your backpack.

One of the main features we highlight in our buying advice below is additional space in the form of an annex, screened room, or vestibule. The USP of the Wenzel Klondike is that it doesn’t just have any old vestibule but one that measures a whopping 60 sq. ft. In dog terms, that’s enough space to swing a cat in, or at least for plenty of privacy from pesky humans.

The sleeping area in this shelter measures 98 sq. ft., so four-legged campers could feasibly allow a few humans (6 or 7 tops) in there too if they so choose. Inside, you’ll also find plenty of storage pockets and mesh windows that permit ample airflow.

While not as waterproof as the Coleman WeatherMaster, the Klondike is a slightly better performer in warm weather thanks to its smaller rain fly, large windows, and a handy ground vent at the rear, which can also be used by your pup to sneak in unnoticed after a night out on the prowl.

The Klondike is also easier to pitch than many of the larger tents on our list, so your pup won’t be embarrassed by their human taking an age to do something they’d take care of in seconds if you’d only let them help by chewing the poles, sitting on the fly, stealing the stakes, etc.

This four-person tent isn’t only cheap, it’s also very, very cheerful.

How cheerful?

Let’s start with the doggie bits.

First of all, the Juniper Lake has plenty of space for the suggested number of occupants (4), boasting 63 square feet of floor space. This gives each sleeper a generous over 15 square feet of personal space. While the peak height is low (50 inches), this is to be expected in a hybrid tent geared toward both backpacking and car camping.

Secondly, in addition to that main sleeping area, you get a nicely sized annex. At 28 square feet, this doesn’t compare to the screen rooms on the Coleman Evanston or Wenzel Klondike, etc., but it’s more than big enough for a few canines.

Now over to the causes for cheer for the humans.

Firstly, this tent is cheap! While cheapness usually entails a few compromises in metrics such as durability or sturdiness, with the Coleman Juniper Lake, this isn’t the case.

Sure, it uses fiberglass tent poles instead of sturdier steel or aluminum poles, but these will serve you well unless you start using them for games of “fetch” or camp out in hurricane-force winds. The polyguard fabric is also tough enough to deal with those madcap digging sessions and is surprisingly effective in wet weather.

Secondly, the setup is an absolute cinch. Even if your pup’s pawing at your legs for attention and your kids are too busy taking pics of the scene to lend a hand, it shouldn’t take you any more than a minute (seven minutes in dog time).

There are, however, a few downsides.

First of all, while getting the thing up is child’s play, getting it back into the carry bag requires a Ph.D. of some kind. Either that, or we’re missing something.

Secondly, the annex is, for reasons unknown, situated at the rear of the shelter. While this means it’s far from critters who might sneak in to steal your dog food supplies, it also means your dog will have to traverse the entire tent interior to get to their designated bedroom. Even if you have a well-trained dog, it’s hard to imagine they’ll be wiping their feet before doing so.

If space is your number one priority, this Coleman dome tent-tunnel hybrid is well worth considering.

The Red Canyon has a giant, 170-square-foot interior. This makes it both the largest model we reviewed and capable of hosting an annual county dog show, never mind accommodating a pair of pooches and a few humans. While dubbed an 8-person shelter, you could comfortably squeeze in 8-10 adults plus a few dogs. Given its low price tag, that’s a lot of room for very few $.

But the Red Canyon has a lot more going for it than space alone. Its large windows and wall vents mean it ventilates well in warm weather, while its two-room dividers let you get a little privacy come bedtime. The tent material isn’t quite as rugged as the WeatherMaster, but it’s waterproof and tough enough to deal with the passage of many paws.

At 21.5 pounds, it’s a little too heavy for a backpacking trip, but it’s light for the size and downright feathery compared to the Coleman WeatherMaster, which is slightly smaller but weighs 10 pounds more.

The Coleman Evanston is, in essence, a pared-down and more affordable version of the hugely popular WeatherMaster (above).

The Evanston has a 90-square foot sleeping area and a 50-square foot screen room. While these dimensions aren’t as generous as other options on our list, that’s still enough for 6 adult sleepers, all your camping gear, and a pack of pups.

Like most Coleman tents, the Evanston uses the brand’s patented WeatherTec waterproofing technology. This includes a partial-coverage waterproof rainfly, welded corners, and inverted seams, all of which make it an above-average performer in wet weather.

This is also a surprisingly rugged shelter for the price. It’s made with 75D polyester taffeta, which isn’t the toughest fabric out there but burly enough to withstand a bit of abuse. The floor is also hardy enough to handle scratches from even sharp pawnails.

Other admirable features in the Evanston include window awnings, interior storage pockets, and a skylight for star-viewing on clear nights.

The main downsides to the Evanston are that it only has one tent door and the shape of the screen room leaves a portion of it exposed to rain – not ideal if you were planning on using it as a sleeping area for your pup.

Weighing in at just 5.5 pounds, the Mountainsmith Morrison is the lightest of all the tents on our list by a long way. It’s one of only two tents on our list that’s suitable for backpacking trips or tent camping a few miles from the trailhead. But to achieve that, this lightweight tent does do away with a few extra features and attributes.

Like most backpacking tents, the MM is a bare-bones affair. All you get are a reasonably sized sleeping compartment and two small vestibules where you can let your dog sleep separately from the humans if he/she ain’t a snuggler. The sleeping area measures 35 square feet and the vestibules 7 square feet each.

Unlike most of the other shelters on our list, the Mountainsmith Morrison is a genuine three-season tent. That means it’s capable of keeping you and your dog warm and dry even in heavy rain showers and strong winds.

We also love that it has two doors and two vestibules. This layout means that you and your camping partner (or pup) have one entryway/exit each, as well as two spaces for storing gear or creating a dog sleeping area.

Above all else, the MM is very well-made. The aluminum poles are robust, the 185/190T fabric tough as nails (almost), the seams well stitched and sealed, and the bathtub floor resilient enough to keep the tent interior dry and deal with sharp claws.

And the downsides? Well, there’s no denying the vestibule space falls a long way short of the giant screen rooms on other tents on this list (okay for smaller dogs, not so much for big ones) and the low peak height could make things a little claustrophobic. This, however, is the trade-off you almost always have to make in return for portability.

If you’d like to treat your dog to a tent all of their own, the Yolafe Pet Tent is the perfect option.

On first impressions, this “dog house” might look cute or like a quirky novelty item. However, there is a lot more substance to it and we’d happily spend a night or two inside it ourselves if they made them in a bigger size!

The Yolafe’s interior measures 36” x 36” x 26”, which makes it roomy enough for all but very large dog breeds. It’s also very easy to pitch thanks to the use of a central pole hub that pops into place in the same way as an umbrella.

Performance-wise, this little shelter took us by surprise. Not only is it made with extra-burly, 600D oxford fabric, but it also has a rain fly that’s rated to 1500mm (enough for even heavy rain showers) and mesh walls that ensure your furry homie gets plenty of fresh air.

Depending on your pet-parenting style, you might also appreciate the zippered closure on the front entrance, which will allow you to leave your dog inside without worrying about him busting out and going AWOL.