Tara's Travels

When we got our Tara!pup she’d never really been in a car before. On the journey home she alternated between sitting or standing beside me in the backseat and sitting or standing on my lap. Aside from being a bit restless she wasn’t too bad and we quickly got her used to sitting in the boot to travel.

Then she discovered that she didn’t have to stay in the boot because she could actually squeeze between the headrests on the back seats and climb into the back seat while we were driving. Huge distraction for the driver. Tara thought this was a brilliant game however. We quickly resolved it by getting a dog guard fitted which kept her securely in the boot and us safe in the knowledge that if we had an accident we would be faced with a labrador-sized pinball flying around the car.

Then she realised that when the boot was opened she could hop right out and take off wherever she wanted. This was solved by fitting a sort of doggy-seatbelt in the back that she could be clipped to when she was in the car, so when the boot is opened she can’t just run off whenever the mood takes her. Within days of getting this put in she suddenly got really good about not getting out of the car until we told her she could, silly pup.

Of course, the back of the car can be really boring at times, especially when you’re having to travel a whole five miles or so at a time. It can be touch to entertain yourself when you’re a young black lab back there, which is probably why they invented these really yummy mat things which you can chew on when nobody’s looking. Yeah, the mat in the back of the car got nibbled. Being the cruel dog owners that we are we had it replaced with a wooden board which isn’t nearly as fun to chew on; though the blanket we put over that definitely makes up for the mat removal.

Then a couple of weeks ago I nearly had a heart attack when I got out of the car and realised that our Tup-Tup had all but shredded one of the seatbelts in the back. The way the car is designed the seatbelts pass through the dog guard, tantalisingly close to her nose where they bounce around invitingly while the car’s in motion. It seems as though our pup had resisted temptation for long enough and decided to have a little nibble. Unfortunately shredded seatbelts lead to cars failing their MOTs (not to mention not being much use for the passenger forced to wear them), so we had to order a replacement.

Along with the £35 replacement seatbelt, we ordered a stylish basket muzzle for her. Which she promptly wriggled out of and ate! I’m a little bit curious as to what she’ll come up with next to challenge us on our little journeys around the island. Luckily even with Tara’s slight modification to its design, the basket is doing its job and she’s back to being as good as gold in the car, for now at least.