2010 Honda Element to Have Dog-Friendly Option

Honda has dog owners in mind with a new package available for the 2010 Honda Element called the “Dog Friendly” pet accommodation system.

You’ll have to buy the midlevel Element EX, which starts at $22,635 before a destination charge, to get the Dog Friendly package. This package secures the dog in the cargo area using a “nylon-webbed car kennel.” It keeps the dog from bugging you while you’re behind the wheel; if you’re in an accident, the kennel also helps restrain the dog behind the rear seats, reducing its chance for injury or injuring human passengers.

A ruff and ready playmate

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Dec. 19, 2004.)

I'm trying to convince my wife that we need a dog. I grew up with dogs, and am comfortable with their ways. If we're visiting someone's home, and I suddenly experience a sensation of humid warmth, and I look down and see that my right arm has disappeared up to the elbow inside the mouth of a dog the size of a medium horse, I am not alarmed. I know that this is simply how a large, friendly dog says: ``Greetings! You have a pleasing salty taste!''

I respond by telling the dog that he is a GOOD BOY and pounding him with hearty blows, blows that would flatten a cat like a hairy pancake, but which only make the dog like me more. He likes me so much that he goes and gets his Special Toy. This is something that used to be a recognizable object -- a stuffed animal, a basketball, a Federal Express driver -- but has long since been converted, through countless hours of hard work on the dog's part, into a random wad of filth. ''GIVE ME THAT

Terror on flight 611

(This classic Dave Barry column was originally published Dec. 17, 2000.)

Recently, my wife and I took our 8-month-old daughter on a trip involving five plane flights in one week. Many people would be reluctant to travel with a baby that small, but we had a compelling reason: We have Fig Newtons for brains.

An intelligent person, or even a reasonably bright fungus, would know that two people cannot possibly carry both a baby and all the supplies the baby needs, including stroller, car seat, clothes, diapers, industrial-sized bale of wipes, stuffed bear, stuffed tiger, stuffed frog, stuffed paramecium, etc. The total weight of all these supplies can be hundreds of times the weight of the actual baby. This is why your famous explorers rarely traveled with babies. If Magellan had tried to sail around the world with a baby on board, his ship would have sunk at the dock from the weight of the formula alone.

Device Would Block Driver's Cell Phone

Annoyed with the danger posed by drivers talking on their cell phones, UPS deliveryman Fred Wenz teamed up with a friend, John Fischer, to invent a device that could do something about it.

The two formed Try Safety First and filed a provisional patent on the Owner Compliance Key, an electronic device that blocks cell phone signals in a 5-foot radius, or the space around the driver’s seat. The device can be set to be active only on a secondary key — for instance, one handed to a teenager.

2010 Kia Soul: Weekend Athlete

Sometimes small cars surprise me by being capable of carrying unruly cargo, and other times I just find myself muttering, “Man, this thing is tiny!” When I saw the Kia Soul at the Chicago auto show, I thought it would fall into the “pleasant surprise” category.

It didn’t, and there are better cars its size out there for the weekend athlete crowd.