pet connection

After a week’s worth of moving furniture, household goods and pets from one home to another, the prospect of cleaning out the cab of the 2008 Ford F-150 Supercrew “Harley Davidson” edition pickup truck before returning it to the press fleet seemed daunting.

A quick trip to the car wash to use the industrial strength vacuum would certainly clean out any remnants of dust or dirt the move left behind. Or so I thought.

In fact, it was the pet hair that caused the most concern. The black Harley-Davidson styled leather repelled the strands easily, but the equally black carpet not only showed off the small white pet hairs but managed to embed them deep into its fabric. This made the vacuuming a much more difficult and time-consuming process. After about an hour of crawling in and out of the back and front seats with vacuum hose in hand, and spending $5 worth of quarters gleamed from last week’s garage sale, I could finally say that I eradicated most of the pet hair from the cushy carpet.

I said most, but not all. The question is, how much damage can a couple of stray pet hairs do? A story on today’s WalletPop.com tells a nightmarish tale of how rental car agencies are ready to tack on excessive fees to those of who dare to drive with our dogs in their precious rental vehicles. Writer Carol Vinzant relays this story:

I know that car rental companies are having a hard time with people driving less. Their stocks are falling. But their absolute warfare against their customers fought with ridiculous fees and soul-crushing hassles can’t be helping. There’s hope that the gas refueling charge will go away, but it seems like Avis is trying to recoup their potential losses with pet hair and other absurd fees.

Pet hair? Now I’m all ears. Go on. . .

There is one group of customers that the car rental companies feel like they can overcharge with impunity: dog owners. Normally people return rental cars a mess. There’s fast food containers, grime, all kinds of gross stuff. And that seems to be fine with car rental agencies. But, if you come back with any trace of dog hair, you can get a fine. Again, we’re wise to this scam. So, we return the car in pristine condition. We use a special seat cover in the back, turn all the rugs over before we drive, then thoroughly clean the car with those sticky rollers.

But as we’re leaving the guy shouts at us that there was a dog in the car and they will charge us a fee. There was no dog hair on the seat. He did find some in the back corners of the carpet. Four guys came out in succession to look for hair. They pulled the seats forward to look at the underseat rug. They asked how much of the time our dog was in the car. We asked if we could just take the car back and clean it. No, they insisted. We pointed out how clean the car was. “We can charge you for one dog hair,” the clerk said. Their sign threatened a minimum $100 fine for dog hair. He cut us a break and charged us $35.

Read the full story here.

So once again, a corporate entity is trying to pad its pockets at the expense of the dog-loving public. We’ve seen it with hotels, and now car rental agencies. They are fine to allow humans to trash their cars with all kinds of dirt, fast food and debris without blinking an eye. Yet leave one, stray dog whisker under the seat and they are quick to assess a major fee for such criminal untidiness.

So the next time you a renting a vehicle for the purposes of traveling with your canine crew, here’s one piece of advice: Beware of the hair — it could cost you plenty.