Blog

Dogs and Honda Element Bed Platform

• May 2014
• Simple Living Dogs Training

Hi Steph!
I have been loving reading your blog, and seeing all of your beautiful (and fun!) photos. From my reading, I keep wondering about two things:

1. I have a 1.5 year old mutt who is an awesome little crag dog… loves his doggy “sends,” loves to jump on high rocks, etc. He’s even really good at recall at this point. BUT I was wondering what you do with Cajun when you’re either doing longer multi-pitch climbs, or jumps. Do you have any special training tips on getting pups to stay at the base of a climb, etc.?

2. Any chance you could share what you did to make your Element into a sweet car-camping-mobile? I have the same car, and LOVE it, but my husband and I are both pretty tall, and at 6’3″, he can’t stretch out in the back of our car unless the front seats are slid forward. Any tips on how you made it work?
Thanks a ton!
Gretchen

Hi Gretchen,
Cajun is a very smart critter, and we trained her incessantly from the beginning when she was just a few months old. This included taking her everywhere for everything. Fortunately she is the kind of dog that never wants to be away from you, so I think this made things a lot easier. When doing multi-pitch routes, she just waits at the base. If the climb turns into a base jump, she starts running to the bottom when she sees parachutes in the air. When I do a base jump with a normal walk to the top, she runs back down the trail after I jump off. She has to do different things for all the different activities, so I have to say I think she is just an unusually smart dog. When she waits at the base of a long climb, I do tell her to stay, but I think she mainly just wants to, so I’m not sure I can take training credit for it. One thing I would say is I have never liked tying a dog up at the base of a multi-pitch route so if she didn’t stay I would not bring her. And if I ever need to leave her in the car while going for a climb or jump where she can’t come along (only if it’s not too hot or too cold for a short car bivy), I leave the windows open enough that she could get out if necessary, and a vast amount of water and food–because you never know what’s going to happen.

My Honda element was originally my husband Mario’s car, and he was really good at coming up with clever building ideas and making them happen. He built a very good sleeping/camping setup for it which allows you to have a full-size futon and some good outdoor cooking space. It’s also nice because you can prop up the futon as a couch if you want, or have it folded flat for driving. If you attach 2-3 milk crates together with zip-ties, it makes very nice drawers that you can pull out from under the shelf area–usually I fill these with cooking things and food. It’s relatively easy to switch back and forth between the original back seats and the bed platform–very easy with 2 people and a little more of a struggle if just one person is doing it, partly because those back seats are so heavy. I switch it between passenger mode and camping mode pretty regularly, because I use the Element when I’m guiding base jumpers in Moab and need all 4 seats, but I also use it when going on camping trips that the Fit won’t make it on (if there will be dirt roads and a little bit of clearance required). The metal pipe legs with the screw-in fittings are the real trick for making it easy to assemble/disassemble and also to keep the whole under area open for storage.

You’ll see that he made cutouts on the sides of the plywood platform for the back storage bin areas that are built into the Element so you can still put things there–that’s kind of optional if you don’t think you’ll need those when the bed is down (I don’t usually put things in there myself). The hinged shelf over the tailgate was something I wanted, because I found it hard to cook on the tailgate because it’s too low and hurt my back bending over all the time, and also because you always get the stove set up on the tailgate and then need something from the milk crate behind it. And things always tip over on the ridged plastic on that tailgate. There still needs to be a way to put a flat surface over that plastic tailgate surface.

The only downside to this setup is that you can’t cook inside the vehicle, which is a big deal when it’s cold/raining/windy–that’s one thing I’ve always valued with my old Ford Ranger setup, and my one person Honda Fit setup. But it’s very comfortable sleeping for 2 people on a good sized futon, and as you know the Element is an excellent travel vehicle that gets along well on dirt roads (even the 2wd, which mine is) and gets pretty decent gas mileage. I’m attaching about a million photos in case you want to build this setup yourself.
Steph