Fleegle is curled up on the den couch. “I don’t feel so good.”
“For a chocolate dog, you look mighty green. Is that grass stuck in your front teeth?” I pull it out for him. “So much for your duck treats, eh? Did you throw up?”
He nods. “By the back gate near the garbage cans.”
“Poor dog.”
“And in the flower beds.”
“Poor flowers.”
“And in your shoes by the bed.”
“Poor Raud.”
Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #8 – Ducks and Geese
Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt
“Look, Raud, a stork with a baby,” Fleegle shouts from his seat on the couch overlooking the backyard through the den window.
A seagull with a Subway sandwich wrapper in its beak flies by.
“Not big enough,” I say.
A little while later, he asks, “What about them? They’re huge.”
Ducks and geese land in the yard, well fed and plump from a mild winter.
“Nope, they’re not storks. Go chase them away before they poop all over the patio.”
He remains seated on the couch. “Are you sure they’re not storks? Maybe they’re in disguise.”
“Storks won’t land if ducks are in the yard.”
“Oh,” he says, then bolts through the double flaps of the dog door into the yard. “Woof, woof.”
A little later Fleegle comes inside through his dog door, a green smear on his snout.
I ask, “What’s that on your nose?”
His tongue darts out and swipes both sides of his mouth, slicking back his whiskers and getting rid of the evidence. “Nothing.”
“What’s that sheepish expression on your face for then?”
“You told me to chase the ducks and geese away, but you didn’t tell me they made such yummy treats.”
“You didn’t?”
He licks his lips again. “I did.”
Next: Negotiating with Cookies #9 – Feeling Green
Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #7 – Om
Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt
When you Google “best car for dogs” the Honda Element is almost always on the list. I bought mine with about 100,000 miles on it and have put another 30,000 on it trouble free, though I need to swap in new brake pads in the rear this afternoon.
I like that it has no carpets for dog fur to work its way in so deep no amount of vacuuming can get it all out. Instead it has a thick vinyl that you can use a mop on. I put in aftermarket rubber mats cut to fit perfectly in the front and back. There isn’t a lot of sound insulation, so road noise can be a problem if the blacktop is chewed up by studded tires, but the extra mats help. The noise bothered me at first, but I’ve acclimated to it and don’t notice it much anymore. I drive a 2006 model, and from what I understand the earlier versions were even louder.
I like the tailgate door in the rear because I can open the upper window section to get something out and still have a barrier there so the dogs don’t get their hopes up too much about getting out, though we all know that anytime we stop the car our dogs get their hopes up.
The backseats fold up and out of the way easily, or can be taken out completely without any fuss. Once they’re out, there’s lots of room, including headroom. In cars with less headroom, dog fur gets imbedded even in the headliner. This isn’t a problem with the Element.
Gas mileage is what you’d expect from pushing a large box around town, maybe 20mpg, and better on the freeway. Speed-wise, it gets the job done. I have the 2WD version, which I bought because it gets slightly better gas mileage than the 4WD version. Don’t know about the AWD version. When first starting out, the front wheels tend to spin, especially if the roads are wet. I’m in Portland, Oregon, so they’re wet a lot. This is a common complaint about the 2WD version, and not caused by worn tires. This is my main performance complaint because it has raised my adrenaline a few times while entering traffic.
The Element has an optional dog package that contains the dog behind the rear seats. I don’t have it, I’ve only seen photos of it. I prefer a crate if I need to contain a dog. Less to chew on. My dog, Fleegle, likes to ride shotgun, until he gets tired, then he stretches out in back and naps. He often goes front to back and back to front since his water bowl is in back. I bring this up because the three cup holders are on the floor between the front seats, exactly in the way of any dog getting in the front or going in the back, which makes them useless for anything but holding tennis balls.
So an aftermarket cup holder is a must. And you’ll need to get more of them than you need because they seem to break pretty easily, as if spilled coffee somehow weakens plastic.
The suicide doors are a compromise. The rear side doors can’t be opened without opening the front door first. If you transport more than one dog in the car at a time, you definitely need to work on your Place-stays because with both doors open, it’s a wide space to body block. Then again, I wouldn’t have been interested in the Element in the first place if it had sliding doors. And with all the doors open, it makes for easy access.
All and all, I’m quite satisfied with the Element. If I did it again, I think I would go with the AWD version which would remedy my main complaint about front tire spin on wet roads.
In the backyard, I sit down cross-legged on the grass, close my eyes and begin to meditate. I count my breaths and try to clear my mind, and just when mental silence dawns, a wet nose bumps me in the back of my neck.
“Whatcha doin?” Fleegle asks, circling around to my front.
“Meditating.”
“What’s that?”
“A way to make contact with my higher self.” The words are no sooner out of my mouth before my curiosity prods me to open my eyes to see if he’s staring up at the sky. He is.
“How high up did you say he was?” he asks.
I look into the sky where he’s looking. “At this rate, very high up, maybe even beyond the stratosphere.”
“Stratosphere?” he ponders the word. “Does he look like you?”
“My higher self? In a sense, yes.”
Not seeing anything, he raises his nose high and sniffs the breeze, his snout twitching back and forth. “Well, I don’t think he’s anywhere nearby unless he smells like what the cat next door just left in little Jimmy’s sandbox. Maybe your meditation remote needs new batteries.”
“Meditation doesn’t require a remote.”
“Are you sure? Everything else you do does.”
Next: Negotiating with Cookies #8 – Ducks and Geese
Previous: Negotiating with Cookies #6 – Flies and Opossums
Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt
Still unable to sleep, I listen to Fleegle snore. He sounds like a train struggling up a steep grade with a freight load of fat Labradors. I nudge him with my foot under the covers. “Straighten out your neck and maybe that freight you’re pulling won’t be so heavy.”
“The circadian rhythm of my snores not lulling you to sleep? I’m out like a light when you snore,” Fleegle says sleepily. “I love pizza, but I love it even more because it makes you snore and I know exactly where you are without even looking.”
“And it gives me far out dreams,” I say.
he rolls onto his back, paws pointing toward the ceiling. “When I can’t sleep I don’t bother trying.”
“I know, you go outside and hunt opossums.”
“That’s not me, that’s Buck from across the street. No one knows yet about the hole he dug under his fence. He’s a little obsessed with opossums. Did you know he takes his kills inside his house through his dog door?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I prefer chasing flies to chasing rodents.”
“What about squirrels? They’re part of the rodent family and you chase them.”
“They don’t count. They’re too cute to be rodents.”
“That’s not what you say when you make them mad by chasing them up trees and they try to poop on your head from the branches above.”
I feel the bed move as he gets up. “Now I can’t sleep,” he says. “I wish flies flew at night. Will you turn the light on and wake them up?”
I shrug. “Might as well.”
The bamboo outside the bedroom window rustles even though there isn’t any wind.
“There goes Buck, hunting,” Fleegle says. “Poor opossums.”
I snap on the light, waking a fly on the shade. Fleegle is after it in an instant
“Poor flies,” I say.
Next: Negotiating with Cookies #7 – Om
Previous: Negotiating With Cookies #5 – Furbabies
Start at the beginning: Negotiating with Cookies #1 – Stinky Butt
Gnawing the Bone 