At the risk of turning this panty blog into a doggy blog I’m going to tell you about my old boy Wes. Wes is 12 which although not ancient by doggy standards is getting on there a bit. He’s fit and well and much to his disgust never been overweight. He has treats but generally he is fed the correct food. Due to his advancing years he’s slowing down and steps are a bit tricky at times. As part German Shepherd his back legs are starting to look pretty feeble. On the actual walk he is fine, he trots ahead and mooches about and occasionally attempts a slow sprint after Sadie if she wooshes past him on one of her mad gallops.
The problem is when we get back to the car. Sadie bounces into the boot often with a little pirouette whilst Wes just stares forlornly at the height of the boot. Poor old lad is tired, and his back legs just can’t launch him up into the back. On occasion he jumps up, but can’t get his back legs up and he hangs off the back bottom straining like mad. If he does this I can give his bum a push and in he falls. Sometimes after a particularly long walk he just looks at me. Picking up a big heavy mud covered canal scented dog isn’t fun by any stretch of the imagination so I started to consider options. A stool? A step? I had to figure out something…Steps are no good because of course dogs don’t step do they, they launch off their back legs and I just couldn’t find a sturdy enough step that would fold down and stow away in the boot…and that I could train Wes to use.
Then ta-daaa…I found a pet ramp on ebay. Lightweight, telescopic, holds up to 400lbs, rubber non-slip feet and non slip ramp. Designed to fit into the boot. All I’d have to do is train Wes to walk up the ramp into the boot. Fan-bloody-tastic. A eye watering £70 later I took delivey of the snazzy new ramp. I unpacked it. Unclipped it. Untelescopicallyed it so it was full length. Placed it betwixt ground and car boot and hey…it looked good. I had images of pulling out this snazzy ramp, Wes trotting up it into the boot and lots of admiring glances from other dog owners who have to manhandle mud covered dogs into their bar boots. No way would Wes go up that bloody ramp. It felt funny on his paws. I eventually had to drag him up it by grabbing his collar and dropping dog treats under his nose. So. Both dogs in car. I fold up the ramp…..where do I put the ramp?
Oh bloody hell. When the dogs are in the boot there is no room to put the ramp in too!
Bugger 
Filed under: My dogs
no room in the boot for the ramp and dog! ROFLMAO oh Anna, what else can i say??
ops.*dogs
awww. Can the ramp attach to the top of your car? If you don’t have a bike rack atop your vehicle, will your seats fold down?
That’s a toughy
Can’t fold seats down as I need the back seat but yes, I am having to think about how on earth I attach it to the roof rack. How do you make sure things won’t fall off? I personally hate driving behind cars with stuff on their roof rack. The driver could be a right numpty.
Oh dear, Anna, how disappointing! Obviously a literal instance of “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”
But surely it’s not impossible to tie the ramp to your roof-rack? Yes, I know it’s easy for me to say such things when I don’t have to do them myself, but people seem in general to transport bigger and heavier items on their roof-racks quite safely. Or, if it telescopes, will it really not fit on to any of your unoccupied seats? So far as the roof-rack is concerned, I can imagine that, for one thing, it would be a bore for you to tie and untie knots at the beginning and end of every dog-walking expedition.
However, all this still leaves the problem of Wes’s refusal. Could he maybe be eventually persuaded to change his doggy mind?
People make these things but don’t think about the space .. I would have thought it would fold up. Can you not re-flog it on ebay and buy one that is smaller and foldable? I wouldnt put anything on your roof either - seen too many accidents.
It’s telescopic so it does reduce to half its size after use, just not very much. Even the ones that fold aren’t much smaller, they do fold into three but hold half the weight, but weigh more than the telescopic ramps. I just don’t think they thought it through properly because obviously big heavy dogs which are hard to carry take up lots of room in the boot don’t they?
Unless - since it’s called a pet ramp, not a dog ramp specifically - the makers had ageing cats (or gerbils, or something?) in mind, which obviously wouldn’t need so much space. Or small dogs, like pekineses.
LOL .. Tim I have seen Wesley and I think he eats pekineses for breakfast - one foot on a gerbil ramp and he will fall through it LOL
Ramp is designed to carry up to 400lbs. Don’t think I’ve ever seen a gerbil or a cat reach that weight.
400lbs was the weight of my horse! I am sure you can get away with a smaller, lighter one Anna .. but obviously one not for sick cats or gerbils hahaha