When our Leonberger took a Car for a Test Drive

Esther’s writing prompt: August 5th : Test

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This AI generated picture shows two people sitting in the back seat of a car. A Leonberger is driving the car, and the man is holding a leash to the dog.
Photo of us taking a car for a test drive.

Today we started looking for a new car for our daughter, so we visited some dealerships and she test-drove some cars. This reminded me of when we bought our Subaru some years ago. We felt that it was very important that our Leonberger dog Bronco, or Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle, which was his full name, was happy with the car. So, we let him take the car for a test drive. My wife and I sat in the back seat. Naturally, we had him in a leash. There are leash laws here in Dallas and we are not crazy.

More recently the Texas Legislature passed HB64 and SB14, which made Texas the first US state to allow dogs to drive. Any dog of any breed is allowed to drive a car as long as they are two years or older and are facilitated by a DDAD, a dog drivers assistance device. The Texas legislature isn’t crazy after all.

A DDAD is a device that reads traffic signs for the dog and takes cues from the dog’s body language to turn the car and control it in other ways. DDAD utilizes a multi layered neural network (deep learning style neural network, like LLMs) that has been trained using several thousand dogs that included all of AKC’s approved dog breeds as well as 100’s of mixed breeds. Rollo, our mini-Australian Shepherd, passed his driver’s ed test and now he has a driving license. In the picture below he is coming back from a visit to grandma and grandpa. He drove there all by himself.

Rollo our mini-Australian Shepherd behind the wheel.
Rollo coming back from a visit to grandma and grandpa. He is driving our old Toyota Prius. We are not letting him drive our new car. We are not crazy after all.

The True Story

OK, I must confess, the stories above are not entirely true and the picture of the Leonberger driving a car, that is not a photo of us. That is a picture I generated with the help of ChatGPT. So, the top part of this post is not 100% truthiness. However, below is the true story of when we bought our Subaru and our Leonberger Bronco was part of the decision.

Do you remember the old joke about the man who heard a woman speak to her cat as if the cat understood her? He thought it was so funny that he went home and told his dogs about it, and they laughed and laughed. Well, it sorts of happened at the Subaru car dealership. We had our Leonberger dog Bronco with us. He was going to help us test cars. We wanted him to be comfortable in the back seat.

Well, the salesman at the dealership told us a story about a woman who kept talking to her dog as if he was a person. He was laughing and told us that she was probably crazy. He put his finger to his temple and twirled it in circles to underscore his point. But we didn’t think his story was funny. I mean, what dog owner doesn’t talk to their dogs?

Anyway, that day at the dealership, we let Bronco walk in and out of the various cars we were considering, and he sat in the back seats. The salesman didn’t seem to mind. But at the end we told him that Bronco had told us which car to buy. I mean in practice, you can say that it was Bronco who chose the car we bought. Maybe the salesman thought we were crazy too. Below are some photos of Bronco.

Our Leonberger dog is standing on a red sofa. He is stretching to give me a hug,
Very young Bronco is giving me a hug.
A big Leonberger head between the front car seats.
Bronco in the back seat. Going for a car ride. He is almost 13 years old.
A big Leonberger head between the front car seats.
Bronco in the back seat again. He is almost 13 years old.

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

53 thoughts on “When our Leonberger took a Car for a Test Drive”

    1. Yes you are so right Esther. He couldn’t talk of course, but he hopped in every car we tried and then came back out again and we could see how easy or difficult it was and whether he was comfortable. We were probably driving (pun intended) the salesman nuts, but he let us.

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  3. Fun story, both the fiction of the dogs driving here in TX and the real story of choosing your car with Bronco’s help. Of course he needed to be comfortable in the car, as he was a large dog. He wouldn’t like a small car. Cute photos, too. .. One time our neighbors had two Great Dane dogs, and they had a tiny Volkswagon Bug car. Yep, they all went in the car and it looked so funny. The dogs didn’t seem to mind, though. 🙂

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    1. Thank you so much Barbara. You are right. We had to see if he could get in and out easily and whether he was comfortable. At that point in his life putting him the cargo area of a van/suv was not practical anymore. He was old and would no longer accept it. However, we had a dog seatbelt. Two great Danes in a volkswagen bug, I can imagine.

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    1. Yes you are right Jacqui. They are coming, slowly emerging on the scene. One of the cars my daughter tried yesterday had a self parking feature and we tried. She selected a spot on the screen and the car parked there on its own, perfectly. I was thinking that it could save us from some future door dings and scratches.

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    1. Ha ha you are right Denise. We had to check that Bronco, who was starting to get old, easily could get in and out of the car and that he was comfortable. He seemed to think it was fun to jump in and out of every car we we tried. He couldn’t tell us verbally but it was easy to see what he liked and didn’t. I am not sure if the car salesman had fun, but we bought a car.

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  6. Bronco was a big dog so it makes sense to bring him to see which car he was most comfortable in. I think people who don’t have that connection with pets don’t understand how big of a part they play in our lives. It becomes normal for us to speak to them like you would another family member but I guess it looks a little nuts for other people lol.

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    1. Thank you so much Pooja. You are so right. Bronco was beginning to get old at the time and we wanted to make sure he could easily get in and out of the car and that he was comfortable in the backseat. He no longer wanted to be in the cargo area of the van (or a new car). He showed us what he liked and wanted. Dogs may not be able to talk but they can communicate with their face and they understand a lot of what you say. Bronco did and our mini-Australian Shepherd know several hundred words. You tell him “go look out window Rollo” and he goes and looks out the window. You tell him which car to go to and he picks the right one.

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        1. Yes I think you are right Pooja. They can’t talk, so we underestimate what they understand, but they’ll surprise you. Like you say they have their special ways of showing us what they want too. Rollo’s come rub my belly is lay down in the middle of the room and one single loud bark, then wait until one of us comes and rubs his belly. When he wants to play he stands in front of the toy bin and barks one time.

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          1. Exactly, they have their own way of communicating with us the best they can. Our cat has passed on now but when he was still around he meow loudly right next to our face when he wants to be pat lol.

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            1. Yes you are right and I’ve noticed that they are very attentive to your emotions. They look at you and smell you and they know how you feel and what you are going to do. I am so sorry about the loss of your cat.

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    1. Ha ha you are right. That car salesman was a bit clueless, making fun of people talking to their dogs. We probably drove him nuts with Bronco testing getting in and out and sitting in the backseat of every car we tried. You are right it is important that they are part of the decisions that effect them.

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  9. How I loved this Thomas! So funny. and our pups have to be comfy! I could just see it…………..
    Maggie enjoyed a ride as long as she was in close proximity to us. Our Hyundai I10 was OK as she was a smallish dog, weighing 14.5kg. When we lost her in 2020 and then decided to get another dogover a ear later , the I10 was useless as it was so small with little boot space, so we got a Citroen Picasso. Maya fitted in the back quite nicely………….. until she was about a year old and we had to put the back seat down so that she could lie down comfortably. We have a Dacia Duster now, slightly bigger and plenty of room in the back for her without encroaching on passenger space.

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    1. Thank you so much Di. It can be challenging to find a car big enough for a big dog. Maggie was small but not Maya. I have to admit I had to look up the Dacia Duster. It is not very common here, but it looks a very nice smaller SUV.

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      1. It’s a good choice for us, economical to run being over 1000cc and a petrol engine and the alternative of LPG. We have been able to maintain it at reasonable cost too which also helps. Sadly we have just found out that the cost of tyres for it has almost doubled!

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        1. It is great that it has been a good choice for you. It is too bad about the tyres, well I say tires. I guess larger tires in combination with import taxes and higher fuel prices have driven up the costs. I guess there’s some economic chaos around the world.

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          1. Us drivers get hit one way or another, but we’re doing OK. I had our tyres checked today and we have plenty of tread on them. They’re not that big really, nothing like basic SUVs have, but on a par with the Citroen.

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            1. I am glad you still have threads. What I fear with tires is when you run over nails when passing by road constructions. That has happened to me so many times. I wish the construction workers were more careful with the various sharp objects. Sometimes you can repair it, and sometimes you need a new tire.

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              1. I have had a few encounters with sharp objects at the local tip, but luckily they have managed to repair the tyre rather than have to replace it. We are lucky in that we have a good garage for service maintenance and MOT and also a good team for tyres and batteries elsewhere.

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  10. You almost had me believing Rollo really had a driver’s license! The AI story was hilarious, but Bronco’s true story was my favorite. Every dog owner talks to their dog, so I don’t think you were crazy at all. Bronco was simply the most important member of the buying committee!

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  12. Some cars are definitely better than others when it comes to transporting dogs. For example, when we first got Tucker and Trixie, my wife still had her two-door Celica, which was let’s call it “suboptimal” for them. Fortunately the two of them put together probably didn’t add up to one Leonberger. Of course, not all two-door cars are created equal; much much later, while my car was in the shop, I temporarily had a two-door convertible Volvo as a loaner for several weeks, which Dennis thought was simply fabulous to ride in. (He was buckled to the seat of course.)

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    1. Yes two door cars are not ideal for dogs but I am glad the volvo worked for Dennis. For Bronco we needed four doors, a roomy backseat, and air conditioning in the back, and that it was easy to get in and out of the back seat.

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  14. Hi Thomas, this is a very entertaining post. Of course I knew the top part of your post wasn’t true as I read it BUT I did wonder if dogs wouldn’t make better drivers than people with AI assistance. It makes sense you wanted your dog to be comfortable in the car as he also travelled in it. I talk to my cat all the time 😹. In fact, she gives me a lot of sympathy 😉

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  15. Dogs driving cars was a fun bit! 😆 But it makes perfect sense you would want Bronco to be comfortable in your car. And that salesman? Obviously not a dog person! 🙄

    what dog owner doesn’t talk to their dogs?

    Exactly!

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    1. Yes you are right Debbie. He is trying to sell us a car while making fun of dog owners, which we obviously were. He needs to realize that all dog owners are crazy and that is the best way to be. He should try to be a bit crazy himself.

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    1. Yes you are so right Carla. They understand a lot of what you are saying even though they can’t talk, amd even so, they pick up on your tone and facial expressions, so why not talk to them. You are right, they need to be comfortable and be able to get in and out easily, especially a big dog. Thank you Carla.

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