My dog really wants a ride in my new Mini. It is a rough tug between two things I love: my best furry friend and the eye turning Mrs. Peel. Call me neurotic, but I can't stand the thought of multicolored beagle fur all over the black interior. Annie the beagle is far from the shedding machine that my recently deceased yellow lab was (rest in peace, girl) but does pretty well at spewing fur for her breed. Does anyone have tips about products that might help house the hound but still allow her to see around her when at one with me and my Mini?

 

Cabella's has a ton of products for your vehicle and dog. They have some covers and the like for seats that will help protect from fur as well as other neat ideas for helping your furry friend ride along.

FrogGuts

 

Someone on MCO - I forget who - bought a bunch of fabric at low cost and constructed a cover for the entire back seat area. It has grommets to attach to the front and rear headrests, and covers the entire back seat to protect it from dog fur, claws, etc. They even made a couple of pillows to make it really swanky back there. Somewhere here there are a few great pics of it. I'll have a hunt around.

 

I used to have that problem. First I tried covering my seats in sheets and then went to very large towels. I found that the sticky rollers that are use by people to remove lint and fur from clothing works really well for getting fur off of the cloth seats. Still have no solution for the slober and droole.

 

I too have a beagle. (Surprize!) She LOVES to go for a ride. As much as I would enjoy having Holly next to me in my Mini, she has to stay in the back, in a pet carrier. It is the safest for her and me and my car. I put down both back seats, place the carrier in level, toss a fresh blanket into the carrier and she jumps right in. Together, we do the best motoring!!! We go places for great walks, see new things and we chase the bunnies and those noisy squirrels, and, and, and.... (I get so excited!!!) My beagle and I (and the Mini) make a great team.

God speed.

 

Dalmatian hair is the worst! It's not like I can make my dog only shed the hair from her black spots so it's not so noticeable.

 

>>Dalmatian hair is the worst! It's not like I can make my dog only shed the hair from her black spots so it's not so noticeable.

I see your Dalmatian and raise you a tan Siberian Husky. Same light color, twice the fur.

I put stuff (old sheet, a couple of giant towels) down in back for my dog, but as furry as she is, it's not doing much. If I have the windows open, the fur just flies around the car. It's all over the place in my car.

I really need to get in there and do a cleaning. I won't be needing to transport my dog again for a while. It's just a matter of a vacuum for most things and tape for the tougher stuff.

 

I just found the post that I mentioned before - it's from Davbret, and the photos no longer work, but here's his description of it:

"I made a cool backseat cover thing. It's a piece of grey denim I sewed to be 45 inches wide and about 9 feet long. It has 4 grommets on each end which it uses to stay in place. The headrest metal legs go thru the grommets and secure it. Make sense? Has a cushioned seating surface and there's even a piece that can fold out to protect the side sill when she's getting in. Scotch guarded the whole thing too! And to protect the plastic side pieces in the backseat area, I made two silver pillows. Since I've got the panther black/silver space cloth seats, thought I'd continue that theme for the dog cover thang. Was a god send recently when we went to the coast. Best part was that it cost under $30 in materials!!"

It looked really nice!

 

My mini should arrive in a month, but my two great danes will not be riding in it. I'm keeping my '95 Escort for that purpose (and because no one would buy it anyway with the amount of dog hair and wet dog butt odor!).

I would not only need a seat cover, but a ceiling cover too with those two galoots hitting their heads on the ceiling after each Michigan pot hole.

 

R

 

I also have Dalmatians (two of them...so I have twice the hair), and I'm currently using a universal cargo liner from CanineAuto.com. It's about $40.

It's bigger than the rear of the MINI with the seats down, but I use the extra material to cover the sides up to the side windows. Plus the cover can be cut without fraying. To get it to stay in place I punched holes in the front so that I could bungie the front of the liner to the front seat headrests. To get the sides to stay, I'm using some plastic clamps I got from Wal-Mart that just suction to the rear side windows. The clamps aren't perfect, but they work better than velcro (which I tried...but the velcro doesn't really adhere well to the textured plastic in the MINI).

To make the boot area level with the rear seats (in the down position), I built a wood platform from scrap pieces of a 2 x 4 and a piece of plywood roughly 15" x 32" (to approximate the area of the boot). I also placed crate pads on top of the wood platform and on top of the rear seats (in the down position) to make the ride nice and comfy for the Dals.

 

Hey thanks everyone, especially "Chrisnl" for posting the homemade directions and "Davbret" for the cool ones of your curious but contented looking canine. I have a really beat Izuzu Rodeo I am keeping just to transport the dog, but it would be better donated to the local high school to work on. I'm glad other dog lovers are in the same boat and working on solutions short of shrink wrapping out dogs.

Oh, now the name Cooperbeagle makes sense.

 

I remember some time ago about someone working with Cocomats to make a floor mat that would cover the entire back when the seats were down. Cocomats probably has the pattern on record to reproduce this at request. Also there is a thread on MINI2 about some homemade platforms that you might find interesting.

Link for platforms

 

That is a really cool platform, Dan. The one thing missing for my pooches behavior is a barrier between the seat to keep her from coming to the front and spewing drool and fur all over it. Then again, I put up with that from passengers and it shouldn't be hard to fashion one.

 

That cover is really cool and I bet it works, but you always get slobber or hair somewhere. I have found the only thing to do is to clean up the car after taking the pooch for a ride.

My problem goes further: Not only do I get hair on the seats (even covering them) and drool but I also have to get rid of dog hair from the roof liner

(have a black great dane and a choco lab)

 

I had a yellow lab and miss her but not the hair she left on everything. Possibly you could get your dogs to put up with wearing dog coats in the car. Naw, mine would never put up with that. You must be a real sight with those two in your Mini. That is assuming people can actually see them through the drooled over windows.

 

>>That is a really cool platform, Dan. The one thing missing for my pooches behavior is a barrier between the seat to keep her from coming to the front and spewing drool and fur all over it. Then again, I put up with that from passengers and it shouldn't be hard to fashion one.

The "Cabela's" mentioned in an earlier post has this available:

 

I only problem I see is that MINIs don't have a back window that they can stick their heads out of, tongues flapping in the breeze.

 

Just found a "snoozer car seat cover" that isn't as big as the home made one in the pic but might have some promise. It's 58" x 52", has a no skid backing, and clamps in place. Here's the link:

http://www.carseats.theshoppe.com

 

Thanks Inioway, they really are great companions. Very different temperaments on both dogs (girls), very loyal. The lab is the sportswoman (even with pretty bad hyp dysplasia) and the Dane is my couch potato companion.

As big as they are, they are not so noticeable when riding in the car because it is so cramped they just lay down.

Over 5 years ago when I bought the Dane I used to drive about 50 miles each sunday to take her to training lessons. She was 8 months old and looked so funny riding on the back seat of my old (94 mexican model) beetle. She literaly stucked her big head out the passenger window while her tail wagged behind my head sticking out my window.

When she started panting the whole car shaked, it was so funny.

 

Labs are really sweet dogs. I miss mine every day. When she was alive if I raised my voice to the beagle the beagle would ignore me and Maggie would get upset: very sensitive dogs. The image of your huge canine in a Mexican Beetle is great.

By the way, there seem to be any number of dog hammacks on the market for back seats.

Mini Owners + dog lovers =