pet connection

For more than a year now, I’ve been reviewing new vehicles for their potential as “dog cars.” (They started out as “dogmobiles” but that domain name was taken, so DogCars.com it was.)

The reviewing started out based on my own dissatisfaction with what the companies were offering — seats that didn’t fold flat, cupholders out the wazoo and a constant, pounding push of advertising aimed at soccer moms. This, even though people have need for a “soccer mom” vehicle for just a few years (the kids eventually leave home, after all), but for those of us with dogs, there’s always going to be a need for a dog car.

So I’ve been driving … and driving … and driving. I get a new test car every week — a van, SUV, wagon or sometimes a truck — and then write it up from the point of view of a dog-lover. These started out for our syndicated newspaper page, and I put them on the blog as a lark. When I saw how popular they were, we spun all the reviews into their own Web site, and started reviewing pet travel products, too. One per month goes onto the pet page and the rest onto DogCars.com.

And yet, more than a year after the first test vehicle, I still haven’t bought a new DogCar, although I’ve seen more than a few I would dearly love to own. In terms of comfort, safety and cool features, I can’t believe how far cars have come since I last bought one. (Heated seats … oh my how I love them! ) But call it an abundance of riches, call it indecision, call it cheap … but I think maybe I’m still just waiting for “abolutely perfect” to land in my driveway and it hasn’t yet. (Unless you count the Range Rover Sport Supercharged, which at more than $80K is more than I paid for my first house, and I just can’t go there, even if I had the money … which, I don’t!)

Although I can take reasonably clean dogs in the test vehicles, I cannot use any of the testers to haul wet, filthy dogs from to and from training or fun river runs. Toyota is still annoyed with me over an “incident” that they say left a car smelling “like wet dog.” All I can say is I told them where I was going and what I was doing, and I hope a dog-lover was the one who got the great deal on that barely used and totally cool FJ Cruiser!

A couple months ago, I thought I was going to buy a friend’s 1996 Toyota 4Runner, low mileage with all the service records. My plan was I would sell my Plymouth van (which doesn’t have four-wheel-drive) and buy the Toyota, which does, for use as the designated dirty dog hauler. But then the friend rather sensibly started thinking about car payments and such — who can blame him? — and so he’s keeping his 4Runner and I’m keeping the van as my dog car. Which meant that yesterday I took stock of my Voyager and made a list of those things that needed to be done to it to get a few more years out of it.

Not bad, for a 10-year-old car: New battery, new tires, some routine maintenance and the replacement of the front wiper motor. While I was figuring it all out, I cleaned the van and re-organized the interior (the two rows of rears seats haven’t been in it for years). Crates for everyone — both my Petmate Varikennel in camo green (!) and my Midwest Side-by-Sides – along with all the training gear, shade cloths, camp chairs, ice chests and everything else you seem to need when you’re doing field work or at dog shows.

We’ve got a trip to Oregon in April. We’ll be ready. In the meantime, I’ll keep reviewing the new Dog Cars — but when my dogs are filthy, muddy, stinky and wet, they’ll be safely and firmly crated in the old Dog Car, my trusty 1997 Plymouth Voyager a/k/a Forrest.

Pictures: Rear view, with crates (note tennis ball under rear bumper!) and side view, with third crate (behind the crate is storage, ice chest, shade cloths, etc.)