pet connection

The Environmental Protection Agency recently came out with its fuel economy guide for 2010 vehicles, and it’s no surprise that hybrids dominate the top spots.

And while many of these hybrids – like the mileage-leading Toyota Prius – don’t necessarily qualify as great DogCars, there are some on the list that do. The Ford hybrid triplets of the Ford Escape, Mazda Tribute and Mercury Mariner hybrids all rate multiple paws in reviews on DogCars.com, our website that puts dog-lovers in the driver’s seat when shopping for a new canine carrier.

Here’s a sampling of the report from Edmunds:

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency has issued its annual Fuel Economy Guide to 2010 models, and hybrids — not too surprisingly — are dominant on the leader board. Nine of the top 10 fuel-sippers, in fact, are hybrids, led by the Toyota Prius’ 51 miles per gallon in town and 48 on the highway.

Rounding out the top five are the Ford Fusion/Mercury Milan Hybrid at 41/36 mpg (FWD model), the Honda Civic Hybrid (40/45), the Honda Insight Hybrid (40/43) and the Lexus HS 250h (35/34).

The remaining five on the best-fuel-economy top 10 are the Nissan Altima Hybrid (35/33), Ford Escape, Mazda Tribute and Mercury Mariner 2WD hybrids (34/31), the traditionally powered Smart Fortwo Cabriolet and Coupe with automatic transmission (33/41), Toyota Camry Hybrid (33/34) and Lexus RX 450h 2WD at 32/28 mpg.

Here’s the list of the top 10 fuel misers.

As it happens, DogCar.com reviewer Kim Campbell-Thornton recently tested the Lexus RX450h hybrid, which cracked the Top 10 list at 32/28 mpg, and not only found it to be ribbon-winner in the fuel-savings class, but a decent DogCar as well.

Here’s her review.

On the other side of the fuel spectrum – but still worthy of DogCar consideration — is the Infiniti QX56, a conventionally powered sport utility vehicle that is high on luxury and low on mpg.  Read our review here.

Check out these and the paw ratings of many other vehicles at DogCars.com.

Pictured: The 2009 Lexus RX450h hybrid.

Not satisfied with simply having the Honda Element named the first-ever DogCars.com Best In Show DogCar of the Year, the folks at America’s No.1 foreign automaker have dug deep into their bag of dog tricks to roll out a new version of the Element that is sure to get the attention of canine lovers everywhere.

The 2010 Dog Friendly Honda Element, which made its debut last spring as a wish-list concept car at the New York Auto Show, will officially start rolling into Honda dealerships by mid October and will go on sale Nov. 16.

What makes this Element so dog friendly? Check out these features:

• a soft-sided cargo area car kennel made from seat belt-grade netting;
• a cushioned pet bed in the cargo area with an elevated platform;
• a 12V DC rear ventilation fan;
• second-row seat covers with a dog pattern design (matches the bed fabric);
• an extendable ramp (stores under the pet bed platform);
• all-season rubber floor mats with a toy bone pattern;
• a spill-resistant water bowl; and
• Dog Friendly exterior emblems (driver’s side and rear).

You may recall that the Honda marketing folks were caught somewhat off-guard when DogCars.com, our Internet littermate, named the Element as the DogCar of the Year for 2007. Upon learning about the award – and the multi-billion-dollar annual spending appetite of American pet owners – they quickly shifted advertising gears to appeal to the dog-loving public.

For a while Honda even had the DogCar of the Year “Best In Show” logo in some of their print and online advertising. Other manufacturers soon followed Honda’s lead by rolling out their own dog-friendly vehicles, like the Toyota Venza, which was introduced in late 2008 with a carload full of features for our four-legged friends.

But sources inside Honda had hinted that the automaker was not ready to sit back and let others hog the DogCar spotlight. So it wasn’t a total surprise when they rolled out the dog-friendly concept in New York. What was surprising was the extent that they loaded up on the dog-friendly features.

Bone patterned rubber floor mats, a hideaway ramp with raised dog bed and exterior “Dog Friendly” badges are sure let everyone know that the Element has clearly – as the press release states – “gone to the dogs.”

The price of having the dog friendly package added to your new, 2010 Honda Element is a cool $995. That’s about what you’d pay for an upgraded sound system or heated seats.

The folks here at PetConnection.com also run DogCars.com, which is a site for reviews of new vehicles from the point of view of a dog-owner. In other words, we don’t care how many kids from the soccer team you can get into that minivan or how many cupholders there are in that sedan– we want to know about how crates fit, if the seats fold flat and if the air conditioning gets to the back of the vehicle.

The concept that anyone would review a vehicle based on the needs of dogs was very new when we started, and it caught the car companies by surprise. They soon realized they had been underserving  a prime customer segment, and not long after that, some of them — most notably Honda, Volvo and Toyota – started adding dog-friendly options and promoting the vehicles in ads actually aimed at dog-l0vers.

I drove a test vehicle and wrote a review every week for about three years, but around the time my father was dying last year I just got tired of all the coordination of vehicles and started to fall behind in writing the reviews. Kim and Keith took over the driving and reviewing, and I went back to driving Forest (Green), my ‘98 Plymouth Voyager.

Apparently Forest resented being left in the driveway while I was testing all those lovely new cars, because not soon after I started driving him again he started falling apart. (Yes, I can hear the voice of my father from the great beyond, saying, “If you’d take better care of your VEE-hicles, they’d serve you better and last longer.” What can I say? Father knows best.)

I had one thing fixed, then another. Then I parked the car after the door panel became so overheated I knew I had an electrical problem I couldn’t afford to fix this month. I borrowed my brother’s “spare” vehicle, a stripped down, manual-tranny, four-cyclinder  ’84 Mazda pickup named Roger. My brother drives Roger to his job as a high school teacher, because the students vandalize the teachers’ cars routinely and he doesn’t want the punks at his school to trash his prized T-Bird  convertible (Danny, as in Steely Dan, and yes we do name all our cars in my family).

Now, Roger’s a great little truck, but even the best little beaters have their problems, especially when they’re getting up in years. So it was that on the way home from saying goodbye to Heather, Roger broke down. Yes, there’s nothing quite so special as a day when you have your car break down on the way home from putting your heart dog to sleep.

One tow truck and a ride home from a friend later (thanks, Sonia!), I had: One car in the shop and one electrical-fire-to-be sitting in the driveway.  And, of course, one less dog in the house.

Not a good day. Really not.

I hate car payments. Hate them. My plan when I bought Forest in ‘98 was to put a little aside every month to pay cash for his replacement, but that was a plan that didn’t work out quite as well as I’d hoped.  Times have been pretty lean the last couple of years for most of us, and I’m no exception.

Now, I knew what I really wanted: The latest, dog-tagged version of our first DogCars.com Best In Show Dog Car of the Year, the Honda Element. I still think it’s about the best DogCar ever made, although I’d sure love it in a hybrid for better gas mileage. (Hello Honda: Are you listening?)

But this isn’t the time for a new car for me, so I just did what I usually do when faced with a decision that wasn’t that likely to have a solution I really wanted: I curled up in a fetal position with the pets. (Sans Heather, which just made everything that much worse.)

And then things started to happen.

The phone rang. It was Judy, my wonderful neighbor.

“Come see my new car,” she said.

“Don’t wanna,” I said, but I did anyway.

In Judy’s driveway, a 2007 GMC Acadia, also a fine DogCar, may I add. (I test-drove the Buick Enclave version of this vehicle.)

After enough oohing and aahhingg, Judy asked me if I want to buy her van. “I know you’ve been having problems with yours,” she said.

Now Judy actually listened to her father, and she takes great care of her vehicles, and even keeps all the service records. And her old van is one great DogCar: a ‘97 Toyota Previa. So we talked, the mechanic checked and …. it’s now mine, at a friend-to-friend bargain price.

Frankly, I’m delighted. It’s really a lovely clean van, and even with 117,000 miles it should have a lot of life in it. I’m looking for a smaller used car to complement it, so I can have a fuel-efficient city drive-around car and baby the Previa for when I need to take all the dogs somewhere. I even have a pretty good idea which little car I’m getting — and it’ll likely be the cute little 2004 Scion xB (a/k/a “The Toaster”) that belonged to Christie’s late mom.

Maybe someday I’ll buy a spiffy brand new DogCar, but I’m certainly not in any hurry. The dogs are happy, Judy’s happy and I’m happy.  And the tow truck drivers will have to get along without my business for a while, God willing.

Funny afterthoughts: Drew doesn’t like the new van, and didn’t want to get into it. He loves going places, so I couldn’t figure … ? And then I realized: Judy grooms him. So when he saw the van and I asked him to get in he thought he was off to get a BATH!

Also: Judy left two jumbo-sized VariKennels in the van, since they won’t fit in her new Acadia.  How utterly cool is that? A van that comes with crates!

Image: JudithAnne the Van, my new old DogCar. Long may she roam!

In Utah last month, a 2007 Nissan Murano - one of those mixed breed car/SUVs referred to as a crossover – was hit head on by a Ford F-150 pickup. Despite a seat belt and air bags, the driver was killed on impact. Her restrained dog, however, survived the crash in fairly good shape.

According to Utah Highway Patrol (UHP) , a dog was in the back seat of the Murano but was restrained and survived the collision with no significant injuries. Lieutenant Lee Perry of the UHP tried to find out exactly how the dog was restrained, but could not figure out which Mendon fire fighter removed the dog. “I just know they told me the dog had been restrained.  Mary Doty’s family also told me she always restrained her dog in the back,” said Lt. Perry.

Mary Doty believed strongly in animal therapy, and her therapy dog was highly popular around the Utah State University where she worked as the director of the counseling center. Her dog was frequently in the car with her.

This summer I wrote a product comparison article on pet restraints (for Tuft’s Your Dog newsletter, which is not available online) so the news hit me hard. Some of the restraints were better than others, but any restraint is better than none. I felt that the safest restraint was the RuffRider Roadie Elite, but because there is no buckle it has to slip over the dog’s head and chest. Dodger hated getting it on and off because he is a sensitive type, so for him I use his regular harness attached to the seat belt with the connector from the Solvit Pet Vehicle Safety Harness (the fleece-lined harness is a higher quality than you’d think for the low price). I also like the Kurgo Tru-Fit Smart Harness. The trick is find a harness that your dog doesn’t mind going off and on, and one that fits appropriately. Some folks use anchored crates. What you never want to do is tether to a dog’s collar because it could injure the neck and in a collision the neck could easily be broken. Cats should be confined in a cat carrier or small crate.

Whatever product or system you find works best for your dogs and vehicle, the key is to USE IT each and every time your dog is in the car. Mary Doty is surely glad her dog survived even if (or especially because) she didn’t.

(Photo reprinted with permission from Utah Highway Patrol.)

Our DogCars.com site started for a single reason: I wanted to buy a new vehicle.  I started reviewing new vans, wagons and SUVs from a dog-lover’s point of view, posting the reviews into this blog.

Before too long, we had a lot of reviews and no real way for people to find them. So we started our DogCars.com Web site. Two years ago, we thought it would be fun to celebrate our top cars in a variety of categories, so we started the DogCars.com Best In Show DogCar of the Year award, choosing the Honda Element as our first winner and the Dodge Grand Caravan as our second.

And we kept reviewing as many vehicles as we could get our hands on, although Kim and Keith do most of the driving and writing now.

We got a lot of attention for our efforts, and sparked some change. Car-makers realized that they were missing a part of the market with special needs, and started to pitch to pet-owners. Honda, Toyota and Volvo did more than pitch: They put together special features into some of their models to appeal to dog-owners.

We’re pretty proud of those accomplisments, and of helping people find out more about how to travel with their dogs in safety and comfort.

A few weeks ago, the folks at Autobytel.com asked us to partner with them to suggest the top vehicles for dog-lovers, for their MyRide.com Web site. Keith pulled all the information together from the reviews Kim and I wrote, and from Dr. Becker’s advice on safe and comfortable travel, and the team at  MyRide.com did the rest.

Here’s the article. We’re pretty happy with how it turned out.

And no, I still haven’t been able to decide on a new car. But I’m going to have to, soon, because my 1998 Plymouth Voyager isn’t going to hang on forever!