Taking dogs along makes for a good ride - mostly

It’s pretty cool taking dogs in vehicles with you if they’re not throwing up.

My dogs don’t ride with me too much; maybe it’s because the little one tosses her cookies about every other time she goes for a ride. Mostly I just don’t take the time to load them up.

I was reminded of just how much joy dogs take in a car ride recently when a friend posted a video of their dog riding in the back of their pickup wearing a Wonder Woman cape. That dog really looked like she was having a great time and no doubt anyone who saw them got a kick out of it too.

The first dog my wife and I got after we were married, Nipper, was a dog that liked to ride. She went everywhere with me including making rounds with me when I was selling newspaper advertising. She rode in the back of the pickup. If it were hot she simply got out and lounged in the shade of the vehicle until I got back. If it were cold she rode on the front passenger seat of my Datsun pickup like she owned it.

This is the dog that liked to ride so much, she took weekend rides with a neighbor who was a chimney sweep. He had an old van with a plastic chimney on the roof and my black and white dog next to him.

Nipper went with us on vacations and explored everything. She stayed in the back seat if we were in the car rather than the pickup, until we stopped somewhere that is. Then she liked to get behind the wheel. I never left the keys in the car when she was there alone for fear she would drive off and leave us.

Growing up we had a really cool Australian Shepherd adopt us before we moved to town. Old Lightning already knew how to load up in the back of the pickup and only needed one invitation. You didn’t have to put the tailgate down either, he was just there like a flash because he wanted to ride.

One day Lightning followed Dad and the hay baler to town, where he had gone to get a part welded. Dad looked back and saw the dog following him a good way down the road and he didn’t really want to turn the tractor around to take him back. Instead he stopped and told him to load up and Lightning jumped up on the baler and rode to town and back. Dad said he really got the comments about that incident.

My big dog loves to ride. In fact, if he gets past us out the front door the best way to catch him is to pull the van out on the street and stop and open the automatic back door. He gets in and we go around the block.

The other night I took both of them with me to the store. The little dog dutifully followed her big brother in the back door and off we went. Once we got to the store the big dog decided he was going to ride up front on the way back. All well and fine except he was heavy enough to set the seat belt sensor off and I had to listen to the alert chime all the way home.

Oh well. They enjoyed the ride.

Karl Terry writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at:

[email protected]