pet connection

While I’ve always bought vehicles with the dogs in mind, my ’98 Plymouth Voyager SE was the first purchased with the dogs at the very top of the list.The first thing I did after buying it brand spanking new was pull out the rear bench seats, the better to get crates and dog gear in.

Rare was the time I turned over the engine without a dog or two (three or four) in the car.

The Voyager has been a good vehicle: Countless river runs, lots of training trips, competitions and a coast-to-coast drive to live in a beach house in on the Florida Panhandle for a few months in the winter of 2000-1.  My heart dog, Queen Heather, spent her entire life with me in that van, which I named Forest, as in Green.

And now they’re both gone.

With 12 years and close to 100K miles, the Voyager was becoming increasingly unreliable. So I stole my brother’s little truck — an ’87 Mazda pick ‘em up with less than 65K miles — as my daily driver (he bought a newer used truck), and also snared neighbor Judy’s ’97 Toyota Previa van as my DogCar, because it was in better condition.

In the end, I didn’t sell ol’ Forest — I donated him, to Capital Public Radio. Quite a few people responded to my Craigslist ad, but I just got the feeling a lot of them were planning bad things for Forest, and I didn’t want him involved in the smuggling of drugs, puppy-mill pugs or undocumented workers.

So … he went to charity, with lots of Heather’s fur still in him. He just left, and yes, I feel sad. Yes, I know that’s crazy, but it’s still true.

***

I even gave away the plates.  My “FLTCOAT” vanity plates will end up on another person’s car in SoCal — she wanted them, and I … am planning to leave the state in the not-to-distant future. So they’re gone, too.

End of an era, truly.

Images …. all pretty self-explanatory, except for Roger and Me: That’s McKenzie sitting on the hay.

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Suddenly, my brother and I (we’re best friends, with different houses,  some merged finances) have more vehicles than we need. He has a convertible, currently blanketed and tucked in gently at our mother’s garage until summer. He’s driving a used pick ‘em up truck. I’m driving a used pick ‘em up truck. And I additionally currently own not one but two minivans: The ’97 Toyota Previa I recently bought from my neighbor Judy, which came fully equipped with Varikennel 500s, and my ’98 Plymouth Voyager (pictured, with its Bark magazine sticker showing, forgot to mention that one), which is on the way off the used-car lot that my home has become.

To accomplish the goal this weekend (I hope), I put an ad on Craiglist this morning:

’98 Plymouth Voyager SE — one owner, low miles – $950

The good: Incredibly low mileage for a 12-year-old van — 90K — dark green exterior, gray cloth interior. Great AC, power windows, nice sound system, newish tires. 20ish mpg. Should be a good transportation car for years. One owner, regular servicing.

The bad: Sagging left front bumper (bolt broke, doesn’t impede driving), electrical short in door, neither interior nor exterior very pretty. This was my “dog car.” The rear bench seats have been stored since 1999 in the garage, so they’re like new. But the rest … well … allergies may be a problem and the fastidious dog-hater will not like this vehicle, possibly even after detailing.

The good or bad: Obama sticker, under which is an anti-Bush sticker. If you’re a Rush-Beck person, the karma on my dogma may be very wrong for you.

Price is $950 dollars firm, cash or registered check . I’m giving a good break off low private sale Edmunds book for you to pay for detailing and to deal with the electrical short.

Seems there are a few potential buyers already, and my brother will be dealing with them this weekend. But I knew I would get a nastygram,  and I was not disappointed. Paraphrasing over the f-bombs, removing the caps and hyper-exclamation pointing, here’s the meat of it:

I wouldn’t sit where your fat ass has been and I wouldn’t let my kids sit where your shitty mutts have been, either. Obama? It figures. Another clueless socialist, but I don’t expect YOU to care about the future of this country. You’re another dog freak who hates children.

Yeah, well … that’s why I put all the details in the ad. To save everyone some time. You’re welcome!

Actually, I’m surprised I got only one such response, but the day is young …

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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.

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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.

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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!

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