Dawg Seat

Farina has never liked riding in the front seat of the truck. For most of the past year she’s been complaining about her place in the back seat. Can’t blame her for whining and pacing back and forth in a space too small for her sixty pounds and too uneven to give her secure footing. I’m sure anyone, dog or hobbit would be uncomfortable in that narrow space designed more for stowing stuff you don’t want to haul in the truck bed. And for a dog that loves to put her head out in the rushing air, side windows that don’t open are another bummer. At least she has the small window in back that opens.

Since she goes almost everywhere with me, I’ve worried that the narrow back seat with its equally narrow leg well could prove a dangerous trap for Farina under certain circumstances. Reason is, Farina has seizures at intervals of about once a month, a brief but definitely scary situation for both of us. For two or three minutes the dog is thrashing on the floor with foam and saliva pouring out of her mouth. I often worried that if it happened in the truck, she might fall down into the leg well on her back and choke on all that gunk boiling up out of her throat. So I thought about ways to prevent that from happening.

I figured the main point was to close that leg well gap and at the same time widen the bench seat. Why not fit a piece of half-inch plywood over the seat and the leg well? I took my idea to neighbor Randy—the one with all the skills and all the tools. We talked about cut outs in the plywood to fit around the curve of the two front seats and the armrest box between, figured out how to do the two supporting legs in the well and how to pad the surface to make it more comfortable. I went off to Home Depot with scribbled measurements and bought half a sheet of plywood and an eight-foot 2x4.

Like always, Randy did all the work with me trying to help out in small ways. He told me he loved doing this kind of job but really enjoyed working alone. Said he could concentrate on the job better that way. So I left him with his saws and sandpaper and with vacuum, brushes and lint roller I worked at cleaning out as much of the dog hair as possible from that back seat. It didn’t take Randy more than an hour to finish the job. I helped him fit it in behind the front seats and then he tacked down the canvas cover over the custom fit padded bench. We stood back looking at it for a bit then both wondered how Farina was going to handle the jump up onto the bench. Her footwork would have to take into account the covered leg well. She was sleeping over on the apron of Randy’s garage and I called her over to the truck. She looked up at the new arrangement; I said, “Get up!” and in one smooth movement she was up and in, standing with paws on the armrest between the front seats looking out the front. She seemed to be thinking, “Where’re we going?”

I ride a lot easier in the truck now knowing that Farina will be okay should one of those seizures come to call. In the past six weeks the vet has gotten the dosage of her medication to what seems like a good balance. The interval between seizures is lengthening.