Today I pulled a muscle in my back while installing a cheap dog barrier in my car. I made this purchase after someone –I am not saying who, but he has a pointy nose, floppy ears, and a perpetually affronted expression – hit the parking brake while I was driving earlier this week.
Aside from sending my heart rate up to about 300bpm and making me say WHAT THE FUCK very loudly, no damage was done. I was driving slowly on a side street instead of much faster on a busy road. Also, there was nobody behind us. Fortunately!
I like almost everything about my car except for the fact that all of the controls you’d want to keep exactly how they are – the gearshift, the parking brake, the sport mode selector, the mute button, the navigation controls – are all located on the center console and are all eminently stomp-able by little dog feet. The puppy has turned on auto-hold more times than I can count. It’s not ideal.
I’m not sure if the barrier will work or not. I think eventually we are just going to have to get an anchored crate for them to ride in, which is probably safest anyway. All of my dogs have proven highly, highly resistant to any type of ill-begotten piece of Amazon claptrap designed to keep their wiggly asses in one place while riding in the car. Both of my current dogs hated their baby seat and the puppy finally ruined it for good by chewing directly through one of the anchor straps. The older one hates the sliding strap that clips into a harness and always behaves as though I’ve strapped a 30-pound pack to his back. I’ve also tried putting them both on anchor straps and it takes their combined genius about 23 seconds to tangle up 3/4 of their ridiculous celery stick legs.
We do have a hammock for the back seat, which the puppy has put many, many holes in with her pointy little gremlin teeth. And any time I put both dogs in the hammock, the bigger one promptly gazelle-leaps himself into the front seat, out of harm’s (aka, the puppy’s) way. So I got the barrier and now youse can’t leave.
I never knew so much of dog ownership would just be trying to outsmart a creature that is, objectively, far less intelligent than I am. Certainly, mine don’t even understand cause and effect, let alone possess the ability to problem-solve, but then again they are also highly manipulative and I guess there is a reason another word for “grim persistence” is dogged.
One night several years ago we ordered Lebanese food and left a plastic sandwich bag of pita bread on the coffee table overnight. The next morning, unbeknownst to us, our first dog (may he rest) snuck downstairs, retrieved the bag of pita, hid it in his crate, innocently accepted treats from my husband before he left for work, and then at some point proceeded to remove the bag of pita from its hiding place and tore the bejesus out of both the bag and the bread. The evidence was all around his crate when I returned home from work, and the dog’s face was calmly arranged in an I don’t know what you’re talking about I don’t even have thumbs sort of expression, like he didn’t even want to be asked WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED HERE.
It is better to just assume the pets are plotting against you.