Tesla Tagalong
When my brother decided that a new car was going to be my birthday present this year, he considered a number of different vehicles before settling on a Tesla Model 3.
Among his first choices: another Toyota Prius. After all, I’d been driving a 2005 Prius hybrid for 13 years. He knew I liked them - I was determined to make mine last years longer. Mine was a first generation; the third generation being sold today gets far better gas mileage, what with its plug-in electric option.
But he kept looking. He wanted something with a little ‘wow’ factor, I’m guessing. An EV - electric vehicle - dependent completely on electricity would do it. He researched all of the options available these days, and eventually came to the conclusion that, when it comes to things like features and the charging network, Tesla seems to be, in his words, “far ahead of the rest.”
One feature it had that the others didn’t? Something called ‘Dog Mode’.
Dog Mode was introduced by Tesla in February 2019. Many initially viewed it as a gimmick of sorts - Elon Musk is known for adding silly features like the ability to make the car fart on command, after all - but, for dog owners, it was a very welcome feature indeed. EV’s offer something ICE (internal combustion engine) vehicles cannot: the ability to keep the car at a consistent temperature without keeping the engine running - and without risking carbon monoxide poisoning to the animal. In a year where there seemed to be a glut of news stories about pets being left in overheated vehicle cabins unattended, Dog Mode could have the potential to change the game.
But how would passersby know that a pet was protected by the vehicle’s new feature? The screen of the vehicle would illuminated with an animated doggo and a message: “My owner will be back soon. Don’t worry! The temperature is set to 70 degrees.”
My canine companion is a West Highland White Terrier, or Westie, named Trojan. We got Trojan in August of 2020 - literally one day before I’d go in for surgery. The surgery was routine yet with some real risks, including something called carcinoid crisis, a unique risk to this particular type of cancer that can carry with it shock and, in some cases, death. I suspect my family may have believed that having the most adorable little puppy in the world waiting for me might give me a smidge of extra motivation to pull through. In any event, we were in the midst of the pandemic, confined to home, and a puppy during recovery would certainly be a welcome distraction.
While she is my dog, my parents have ‘custody’ on the weekends. My brother took shifts watching her while I traveled to Boston for a second opinion. Someone in the family is always available to share their home with Trojan whenever I am in Rochester for scans, appointments, infusions, or injections. Trojan hasn’t been alone since we bought her, and I worry that one day we may all want to do something together, post-pandemic, where puppies aren’t welcome. Trojan may have a bit of a struggle with that. I’m reminded daily of how lucky we are to have each other - and of how Trojan never needs to be alone, and neither do I.
When we picked her up from the breeder, none of us knew how much this little puppy would change our lives. Sunday evening family dinners often revolve around the many things Trojan does to entertain us. Christmas 2020 featured gifts for the puppy, and gifts about the puppy - yearly calendars, and mugs, and slippers, and more. I’d say more than half of our gifts were Westie-themed. You can’t understand how much Trojan has changed things, for all of us.
Last summer, she and I lived on my boat - a 1977 36’ flush deck motoryacht, manufactured by the company for which she is named. Once winter came the boat was pulled and we relocated to our family’s cottage, which is winterized but not the best for winter travel, being a bit remote. No matter, on wintry stormy days the puppy and I hunkered down, me with Netflix and the puppy with windows filled with enemy squirrels to bark at and bald eagles to scare away. She and I spent so much time in a covered play area that she wore out a circle of dirt around my chair. (I have having breathing difficulties most of the winter, but on the days that I felt well and the weather cooperated, we’d go for walks, as well.)
I knew that in the spring we’d relocate back to the boat. I was worried that Trojan, being a bit bigger at 10 months than she was at 3, might struggle with living in such a small space. I needn’t have been concerned, though - she took to the boat like a fish takes to water, and was right at home on Day One. (As with actual water, however, she’d developed a bit of a fear, so I had to pick her up and carry her snugly as we stepped from the dock to the deck and back).
Another concern that the improving weather would bring: the puppy and parking lots. I’d discovered back in the fall that the Prius had a number of mechanical problems that prevented my from leaving her in the car for even a moment. For starters, the passenger side door refused to lock if the engine was running, meaning I’d be leaving a puppy in an unlocked vehicle. With a recent rash of puppy thefts, that wasn’t something I was willing to do. I could turn off the car, but that meant that Trojan would be locked in a car with no A/C or heat. That worked back in the fall, when it was typically in the 60s outside and not much warmer or cooler inside. For summer, though, it would be cruel. Illegal. And it might even get me on the news.
The easy answer, of course, was to avoid going anywhere I couldn’t bring the dog. At the post office I could run in to check my mail, and then run back out - a yellow card signaling a package could wait, I suppose. And the grocery store did curbside pickup for most things, free during the pandemic. But there would be other things that I’d struggle with - a pickup at Walmart, for example, that required going indoors. (The same Walmart would see a smash-and-grab puppy theft just a week or two later). Picking up prescriptions, which was a frequent event in the weeks after my surgery - the pharmacy eventually added a parking spot for to-your-car delivery.
Another concern, though - and one I hesitate to bring up - is the health issues that having stage IV cancer brings with it. One of them can be a sometimes urgent, sometimes frequent, need to use the bathroom. Carcinoid cancer in your small intestine, mesentery, liver, and lymph nodes can lead to this. ‘Carcinoid syndrome’ - another goodie unique to this type of cancer - can make it far worse. There would be times that I’d need to use the facilities, and there is no magic card that allows you to ID yourself and bring a puppy into the bathroom stall with you. No matter what I did, there would be times that Trojan would need to be left in the car. For those times, for us, ‘Dog Mode’ would be a fucking GODSEND.
Sure enough, Dog Mode has become a daily part of our lives this year. Trojan doesn’t like being left behind on the boat - major FOMO for this puppy - so I try to bring her for walks even for mundane things like using the bathhouse. No puppies allowed in there, of course - so Trojan takes her position in the car, occasionally in her ‘puppy duffel’ but sometimes up on her seat, and stares intently at the bathhouse door until I come back out. I give her a crazy wave and she stands up and wags her tail, probably counting down the seconds until we’re reunited.
Have you ever seen a puppy being carted around in a duffel bag? If you’ve met me and Trojan you have. She travels nearly everywhere in it: from the boat to the car… from the car to the boat… into and out of the groomer’s… sometimes even around town.
I was hesitant, at first - I felt like the puppy would feel cramped or confined inside a duffel bag. Would she fight being put into it? Other members of the Westie Facebook groups I belonged to assured me that their dogs loved it, so I decided to go ahead and make the purchase. I could always return it if she didn’t like it, right?
Much to my surprise, Trojan took to it right away. The fact that the bag had numerous zippered compartments that allowed it to be extended in size seemed to help - she’d jump right into the top of the bag and then find herself a compartment to hide in, keeping an eye on the rest of us outside the bag. Eventually it became a ritual: if I uttered the words “time to go!” Trojan would run to the bag, jump in, and make herself comfortable. (Sometimes if I even looked like I was getting ready to go, I’d find her in the bag, quietly waiting for me). Later rituals included hiding her treats inside the bag, and then jumping into the bag to retrieve a treat and trot around with it later, especially when her behavior hadn’t earned her one. #PassiveAggressivePup. In the car, I’d eventually add a ‘car seat’ made especially for puppies - keep reading for more on that - but Trojan would sometimes tire of that and make a beeline for her duffel bag to take a nap.
“I’ve never seen a puppy in a duffel bag!” would be the refrain from passersby who did a double take after realizing something was wagging its tail from inside of my duffel. Pictures follow…
Interested in purchasing this particular puppy duffel for your own pup? I found it on Amazon. Click here to check it out.
In the Prius I allowed Trojan to sit beside me in her duffel bag. This worked for a long while, especially in the early puppy months. Once she began to grow a bit, it was often too much - she’d see me seated next to her and decide she’d rather ride in my arms than in a bag. So she began exploring ways to extract herself from the bag, eventually settling on using her tiny teeth to physically unzip the bag, perfecting this until she could do it silently, escaping before I had even noticed what she was doing.
The Prius was a mess of sun damaged seats and sunscreen stains after more than a dozen years of being driven - and not garaged - in the scorching Florida sun. Plastic had cracked all throughout the car. It wasn’t getting any cleaner with any amount of effort. So a little puppy jumping up and down, muddy paws on everything? No big deal.
But safe? Not really.
I realized that Trojan absolutely loved riding in my arms because she liked to see things. Once the Tesla became our daily driver, escape simply wasn’t an option. In addition to installing the seat covers you see in the photos above, securing that bag became a priority. We used zip ties to fasten all zippers except the top one, one she couldn’t unzip without it being obvious. Also, I took to placing the bag in the back seat, where we had a harder time seeing each other. This seemed to reduce her attempts to escape, and it diminished my desire to ‘help’ her escape by ending her ability to stare at me through the mesh with those ‘puppy dog eyes’.
Still, I enjoyed Trojan riding up front with me, and began looking for options for her to do it safely. I settled on the Petsafe Dog Car Seat. With passenger side airbag switched to OFF, and a soft, comfortable raised seat with a tether, Trojan now had a view - of me, of oncoming traffic, of whatever we passed. Rides would be fun again…
Interested in checking it out? Click here to view on Amazon.
Want to read more about Trojan? Visit StageIVTesla.com/puppy. She also has her own website elsewhere.
