pet connection

Since the 16th of March, when the first pet-food recall was announced, I’ve fallen just a bit behind on my reviews for DogCars.com. Like, um, a dozen reviews, maybe, of vehicles and about half that many of products. I have all my notes, just haven’t been able to sit down and write all the reviews. (Something about 24/7 pet food recall coverage and three book deadlines sort of got in my way.)

Before this month is up, and as God is my witness, I will be caught up. I have just a wee bit of spare time in the next three weeks, while everyone except me is huddled somewhere negotiating the finer legal points of contracts for the next two books.

Because I have no idea what it’s like to actually enjoy some down time, I started a DogCars.com blog, although I honestly mean for my friend, syndicated auto columnist and total gearhead Keith Turner (a/k/a The CarGuy) to do most of the blogging.  (And, um, ex-boyfriend, but let’s not go there.)

In any case, check it out.

And stay tuned: Tomorrow I get a week with the new Scion xB, the redesign of the vehicle formerly and affectionately known as “The Toaster” by its cult following. (Christie’s mom is a member of the xB Toaster cult, and so is our “Why Do Horses Sleep Standing Up?” co-author Audrey Pavia. And they’re both way cool, and so is The Toaster — albeit a tick too small for my pack.)

Will it beat out the Honda Element for the title of Best Dog Car Ever?  

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.)

Every week for more than a year, I’ve driven a new SUV, van, hatchback, wagon, truck or crossover to review as a vehicle for dogs for our DogCars.com site.

There have been some wonderful dog cars in all categories, from the fun and economical Suzuki Forenza wagon ($16K and packed with features, plus a responsive and comfortable drive) to the big trucks like the Ford150 King Ranch Edition (Cowgirl up!) to the oh-so darling Mini Cooper S (more room than you’d think) to the best dog car ever (so far), the Honda Element.

This week, though, I’ve been living large: A Mercedes GL450. The Big Mercedes SUV. And yes, it’s a pretty darn good dog car, if you really want to put muddy retrievers in an $80K vehicle. The review will go up on DogCars.com pretty soon. In the meantime, just look.

And imagine, because after noon today, that’s all I’ll be doing. My week with luxury is over, and they’re bringing me another car to drive. No more having the proprietor of a jewelry store pop his head out at five minutes to closing when you park in front (to go to the restaurant next door) and ask: “Would you like us to stay open for you? It’s no problem at all!”

That never happens with my own Plymouth minivan!

Oh well. But then, no dirty looks from people who think you’re not only driving a massive, Earth-screwing SUV, but the most expensive one you could find. And no dirty looks from the people who want to know why you have one, and they don’t.

Now I’ll just be back to people giving me dirty looks for not washing my 10-year-old minivan, ever. Ahhh, real life at last!

***

In other DogCars.com news, I got help. Keith Turner, a former newspaper auto editor and syndicated auto columnist, is joining the DogCars.com team, along with Kim Campbell Thornton, one of our bloggers here and the pet-care columnist for MSNBC.com. Keith will be helping me with industry contacts, editing content and managing the readers forum. Kim is already reviewing products for traveling dogs.

We’re tweaking the site now, and it’ll be packed with new features by Sept. 1.

The help of Kim and Keith could not be better timed, since Dr. Becker and I have contracts for two new books on the way and — yes! — I’ll soon by up to my eyeballs in book writing again. Good thing I like the work, because there’s sure plenty of it.

This weekend, I’ll catch up on all my reviews for DogCars.com. I’ve fallen a bit behind — gee, go figure — and have at least a half-dozen to write up, including reviews of the newKia Rondo crossover, which I really, really liked. The Chevy HHR was another hit, and I’ll enjoy writing that up. The most head-turning car of the last few weeks was the Mini Cooper S, which isn’t as bad a DogCar as you might imagine, if you have small dogs. (And woof! is it fun to drive!)

But the vehicle they dropped off yesterday for a week’s test drive makes my heart flutter. And love doesn’t make sense sometime, which is why I love me my pick-em-up trucks. Especially this one: The King Ranch special edition of the Ford F150.

I live in Sacramento, not more than six-seven miles from the golden dome of the California State Capitol. I have little ranch house on a quarter-acre suburban lot. I’ve ridden horses off and on (mostly off) my whole life, but the closest I came to owning a horse was a brief partial lease on a nice Quarter Horse mare and a couple years on the waiting list for a stall at the Sacramento Horsemen’s Association. (When my name finally came up in 2001, I was unemployed and dead broke.)

And yet … I’m a cowgirl. I just know it.

Which is why I get all weirdly swoony hopping up into the cab of a citified ranch trunk like this one, with its interior that looks like a handcrafted Western saddle. Oh my.

Is it any surprise that although I’m hardly much of a country music fan (at least the new stuff, all pretty boys and girls, no heart) one of my favorite songs is Garth Brooks’ “Cowboy Cadillac“? (Although I suspect Garth is a Chevy Truck man, and I’m a Ford Truck woman.):

She loves to haul them cattle
All my ropes and saddle
And it doesn’t matter work or play

If it’s a mountain
She can crawl it
If it’s hay
Then she can haul it
She’s the last one to call it a day

Every cowboy loves her
Lord, they all dream of her
Oh and brother, don’t they all react

At the end of the evening
When they see my leaving
With my cowboy Cadillac

This weekend I’ll do what I always do when I have a truck to test drive: I’ll get hay. Just one bale, though, because rabbits, unlike horses, just don’t eat that much.

Most of the dogs here aren’t that impressed with trucks. But my boy Woody, who just happens to have the same name as the cowboy in “Toy Story,” will jump in with delight and ride shotgun over to the feed mill. And that’s the way it should be. (Note: Woody was just posing in a Nissan Titan I had for a week to review. My dogs do not ride in the back!)

Special horse-related note: As a favor to a writer friend with a family emergency, Pet Connection Director of Photography Morgan Ong and I are scrambling to get an assignment done for a horse publication. I am in such a horsey mood thanks to this truck there’s no better week to be doing it.

I’m still shaking my head over this “humor” piece from the Winnepeg Sun (Oops! Canada. I meant, “humour”). The writer shares the story of getting the family dog to the vet’s and back. On the way over:

The adventure begins when I lift Cody (who weighs more than 80 pounds) into the back of my small car, onto the blanket put there for him to lie on. He doesn’t even pause on the blanket, but instead squeezes his big round furry shedding body between the bucket seats, taking ownership of the right one. Moving him is out of the question. Besides, I have nothing to hold him in the back with.

Too large to sit comfortably in the seat, he has his front feet on the floor, face pasted to the dash.

“Ah well,” I mumble. “It’s a fairly short drive. I’ll just go.”

Within a couple of minutes, he finds the position he will keep for most of the journey. Paws straddling the stick shift, face a few inches from mine, panting early morning wicked dog breath directly into my face.

Before long, shifting through fur and legs, I notice we are both panting, and I’ve got the strangest feeling I’ve wet myself (feeling of warmth spreading “down there”). Cody is really panting. I look down, and notice his paws have managed to turn both heated seats on full. I shut them off.

Now the challenge is to keep him from drooling onto the front of my pants, making it appear as though I really have wet myself. I squeeze as far left as possible.

How attentive a driver do you think this fellow could be with this dog so out of control? A crate wouldn’t fit in his small car, but a harness and seat-belt restrain would. No worries, though: The wife has a van, and she’s going to pick up the dog:

She takes him to the rear of the van, just about breaks her back lifting him in, and drives away. As she is approaching the Perimeter Highway on Roblin Boulevard, she notices a nasty smell. Thinking that in his excitement Cody is probably just passing a little gas, she looks back and sees it’s a lot more than gas (vet nerves). [...] She stops on the side of the road, opens the tailgate trying to catch Cody as he jumps out, but misses.

Decision: “Poop, or dog? poop, or dog … DOG!” [...] She grabs his collar with one hand, rolls up the poopy carpet in the other.

Wow, how brilliant of her to not let her dog get hit by a car, and maybe cause a chain-reaction pile-up. Every hear of a leash, you two? Better yet: It’s a van. Get a crate, and have the dog ride in it. Even if “vet nerves” trigger a poop mess, a crate’s easier to clean than the carpeting of a vehicle. (And a dog ramp or step would help with the lifting!)

I’d go on about how many ways these two chuckleheads are risking their dog’s life, their lives and the lives of every driver on the road, but … I’ll just sum it up. Use a leash. Crate or otherwise restrain your dog. And maybe train your dog, as well.

Life with a dog doesn’t have to be this “funny.” Sometimes it can just be fun. A well-trained dog with manners in the home, in the car and away from home can go anywhere, and open up a world of possibilities for everyone. A crate can even get a dirty dog like the above (mine, after an hour at a dog park, and yes that’s the muddiest I’ve ever seen a dog) home with minimal mess to the vehicle. Update: Since I moved the picture of Woody muddy to the top of the blog, I’ve put in a picture of my van, ready to roll: Crate, water buckets, bucket of bumpers, etc., etc., etc.

We’re getting ready, by the way, to post a whole lot of reviews of pet travel gear over on DogCars.com, by the way, so check in there in a couple of weeks. Dog harnesses, travel crates and more.