Letting Your Dog Drive the Car

Esther’s writing prompt: February 11 : Drive

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A photo of a Leonberger puppy wearing a red scarf.
This is a photo of our Leonberger Bronco when he was three months old.
Our Leonberger dog is standing on a red leather sofa, and he is leaning over to give me a hug.
Bronco our Leonberger dog was a very affectionate dog.
On the left is our yellow Labrador Baylor and on the right is our brown and black German Shepherd. They are both lying down and looking into the camera.
Our Labrador Baylor and our German Shepherd Baby. Photo taken at the same time as the top photo above. However, we couldn’t get Bronco to sit still between Baylor and Baby.
Bronco is standing at the kitchen entrance, and our new little dark brown and white puppy is sitting in front of him.
In this photo our Leonberger dog Bronco is eleven and a half years old, and we had acquired a new puppy, a mini-Australian Shepherd by the name Rollo.

One thing all our dogs loved was going for a car ride. The big dogs loved sticking their heads out the window and feeling the wind in their faces. The little dogs loved going places. And they all loved looking at the passing scenery. Oh, the things you can see when you’re “ridin’ in the car, car,” as the Woody Guthrie song goes!

There were some sights that got the dogs especially excited. They would bark if they saw people working on roofs or riding bicycles, for example. They would become even more animated if we got close to a dog park or a McDonald’s drive-through window. (That might have been because sometimes we bought them snacks at the McDonald’s drive-through.)

One time when I was taking Bronco, Baylor, and Baby to the dog park, a car passing me slowed down and started driving right next to me. I looked over, slightly annoyed, and saw that the people in the car were pointing at us and laughing. I was thinking, “What is their problem?” Then I glanced back at the dogs and realized that we did look funny. Bronco was sitting in the front passenger seat with his head close to the roof, looking majestic. Baylor and Baby were sitting in their own seats in the back. They probably looked like human passengers from a distance, but as the people in the car got closer, they realized that the heads weren’t human heads but dogs’ heads and burst out laughing.

I can add that most of the time we put the dogs in the back of our van or SUV but since they preferred to sit on a seat like humans do, we started letting them sit on the seats. If you let them sit on the seats you need to attach them to the car seat latch using dog safety restraint (dog seat belt). Sometimes, the dogs wanted to drive but it is difficult to get a driver license for a dog in Texas. In the picture below Rollo did not really drive the car. I used that photo for an April 1st joke.

Our mini-Australian Shepherd Rollo is driving a car. He is coming back from a visit to grandma and grandpa.

From Pete Springer (see comments) I got this YouTube video featuring 13 funny and cute Subaru commericals showing dogs driving cars.

My Other Responses to Esther’s Prompts




Is it difficult to get a dog driver license where you live ?

Photos of Leonberger Puppies

This post features ten Leonberger photos. First there are two photos of our Leonberger Bronco from when he was three months old. Then there are three shutter stock photos of Leonberger puppies, who are probably about two months old. We did not take many photos of Bronco when he was a little puppy so that’s why I am including three puppy photos from shutter stock. Then there are five photos of our Leonberger Bronco between the ages 4-5 months to around one year old. He is bigger in those photos but still not an adult.

Color photo of Leonberger puppy. He is wearing a scarf.
Bronco our Leonberger three months old.
Black and white photo of Leonberger puppy. He is wearing a scarf.
Bronco our Leonberger three months old.
Ten Leonberger puppies sitting on a sofa. They are brown with black face masks.
Ten Leonberger puppies. My guess is that they are about two months old. Shutterstock-ID:561107710 by Akbudak Rimma.
Leonberger puppy running through green grass. The puppy has its mouth open, and he is looking straight into the camera.
Leonberger puppy running in the grass. My guess is that he is around two months old. Shutterstock-ID: 629624396 by TOM KAROLA.
Two sand colored Leonberger puppies playing in the snow. The play seems to be a little bit rough. Like all Leonbergers they have a black facemask.
Two light colored Leonberger puppies playing. My guess is that they are three months old. Shutterstock-ID: 2141564415 by AnetaZabranska.
Photo shows a black female German Shepherd on the floor on the left and our Leonberger Bronco lying on his back on the right. They are playing.
Our German Shepherd Baby is playing with young Bronco. Bronco is perhaps 4-5 months old in this photo. He is getting bigger, but he has not yet filled out and does not have a lot of fur.
Bronco our Leonberger is lying on his back. His head is tilted backwards, tongue out, he is asleep.
Bronco less than one years old. He is a Leonberger teenager. He fell asleep on the floor.
In the foreground a gangly looking Leonberger in the dog park. There are two dogs in the background, a white lab and a yellow lab. The yellow lab is our Baylor.
Young Bronco at the dog park. Our Labrador Baylor is in the background. Bronco does not yet look like an adult Leonberger. He will fill out and get more hair.
Bronco, our Leonberger is standing on our red sofa. He is leaning forward giving me a kiss.
Bronco is still young, but he is getting close to being an adult. In the photo he just gave me a kiss and he loved to dance on his back legs.
Photo shows our Leonberger Bronco standing by the kitchen gate. He is wearing a pilgrim hat with a large brim. Our kids put the hat on his head. Our oldest son is standing in the background.
Bronco, our Leonberger, is young but not yet an adult, which we can see from his swanky back. Leonberger sometimes have a swanky back before they are done growing. We had a gate to the kitchen to prevent Bronco from raiding the kitchen. The gate lever had a lock on it because he knew how to lift levers with his nose and open gate doors. The hat he is wearing is a pilgrim hat, the kind of hats the pilgrims wore. Well at least that’s what the pilgrims looked like in our children’s books.