Toting Dexter?

  

It cost me $100 and three hours of driving around.

Ok, not exactly true.  I did drop nearly $100, but it was buying some other things that I wouldn't have bought had I not been out looking for a way to transport the dog.

I had the thought that a milk crate might do fine.  I checked online at Target.  They sell 'em, yes, they're very inexpensive, and they do carry them in the stores.  $3.99 takes one home.

I figured a couple of well placed bungee cords, some bedding, and I'd have me a Weasel Transportation System.

Went to the Target right down the street from me.  No crates.  No bungees.  No hits, no runs, no errors.  Damn.

Off to Wal Mart.  Again, no crates and no bungees.  (What the hell?)  Though I did get a chance to help out a lady who was completely confused about which power strip to buy.  ("I have a phone, a computer, and a router to hook up, and I only have two plugs!" she told me.  She'd spent a good five minutes eyeing power cords.)

Wal Mart was next to the bicycle store.  I didn't really think they were going to be able to help, but it was worth a shot.  Sure enough, they had some very majestic looking travel trailers, but, while I love the little critter, I wasn't going to spend $350 on a trailer.

Next stop, Meijer.  Again, no milk crates.  What the hell?  Aren't these things ubiquitous?  Doesn't every college kid in America get issued 30 of these things to tote their stuff?  

What I did see in Meijer is a dog cage.  There was one for tiny little dogs -- it was $37.00.  Which got to me to thinking that might do . . . but since Petsmart was right across the street, why not go over there and see if they have something designed for what I was trying to do.

They didn't.  They had a cage of their own -- for $48.  The attendant who was helping me at Petsmart did tell me she had lots of milk crates . . . from her college days.  (What did I tell ya?)

Walked next door to the second Target of the day.  Once again, no love on crates or bungees.  A woman was standing there, eyeing some other storage material, so I struck up a conversation with her, explained what I was trying to do, and told her about the utter inability to buy a milk crate in Columbus, Ohio!  We bitched about this and that for a little bit, then she remember that she and her husband had been at The Anderson's just the day before.  They have a little dog, they saw a little milk crate like thing, and she suggested to her husband that might just be the thing to tote around their little critter.

So it was off to The Anderson's.  Where I did find the milk-crate-like object you see in the picture above.  Plus some bungee cords.  The cords are a lot longer than I expected and I may replace them with some shorter ones.  I originally criss-crossed them, but Dexter had to go underneath them and I don't think he was happy about it.  I stopped and rearranged them so they went across the crate parallel. Gave him a lot more room to lift his head and look around.

He seemed to like it.  I tried to stay away from sharp turns, bumps, and sudden stops.  Rode about five miles with him playing Chauffeured Rock Star Dawg.  He's so tiny -- his whole head barely clears the top of the crate -- that folks driving / walking by don't realize he's in there until they're almost beyond us.  Then they get a big silly grin on their face at the "cute little dog" riding around in a milk crate.

Now I've got one more thing to figure out:  now that I've figured out (sorta) the mechanics of toting the dog, is it a good idea to bring him with me?