Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

lol, that is sooo wrong :)

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

This was a reference to my perception that the poster of the BMW picture has a penchant for spirited acceleration. I've since been advised that this is not, in fact, the case and that the dog has nothing to fear from being driven at a "sensible 80 km/h". I retract appropriately.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

But surely, the issue is not the terminal velocity, but rather the weight of the foot on the accelerator pedal.

I think the poster of the BMW picture might have confused her physics.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

Well really, there is nothing confusing about the physics.

Stomp on pedal, car goes whizz, dog suckered into back seat. Scientific fact, although I accept that the makers of obnoxious cars can explain it much more thoroughly than I.

All much preferable to being crammed under an airplane seat.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

The makers of obnoxious cars are not necessarily obnoxious themselves, it's just the people who buy them.

With this in mind, the makers of said cars might stretch to expressing "car goes wizz" "dog suckered into back seat" more precisely by applying the formula F=ma, in which the backward canine acting force (F) is shown to be equal to the particular canine's mass (m) multiplied by the acceleration of the obnoxious car in the forward direction. Leaving the niceties of vectors alone, we won't be bothered about negative signs and all that.

Now, to return to dbd33's no doubt inaccurate reportage of your first remark, please note that the velocity of the vehicle plays no role and that by the time you are driving at a quiet steady 80 kph the damage has already been done by the "stomp on pedal bit".

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

I worked with this guy, Tom someone, a sad and geeky fellow, as so many of us in this business are. He was in his mid-thirties then and lived with his Mum. One day he came into the smoke room, his face a mass of bruises, his eyes blackened. He'd been driving and failed to observe that the vehicle ahead of him had come to a halt. He hit it at considerable speed. Not being restrained by a belt he'd used his head to bring forward momentum to a halt. We muttered sympathetically.

"And my dog" he said, breaking into sobs.

I remembered he'd had a non-dog, something of the sort Paris Hilton might forget in a bar. The dog had not done well within sudden deceleration. "Dog goes whizz" as one might say, followed by "dog goes splat". Tom's explanation was less technical and more heartfelt. At first we suppressed our giggles, but they spread in a wave, as they will. I don't recall now if that was the last moment of speaking to Tom but I no longer do.

In short then, rapid changes in rate of motion are not good for dogs.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

Given that it's not yet Friday afternoon, I'll resist the notion of comparing the damage done by a whizzing toy poodle under these circumstances to that done by a tortoise of similar weight. I fear the discussion could all too quickly get very controversial.

And we don't want that.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

we don't?

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

Of course there's always a bolshie element on this type of forum whose only goal is to stir the pot, having for example no sensitivity towards the deep feelings that other posters share with their tortoises and in-bred lapdogs.

But we're not like that, are we?

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

What about an unsympathetically shaven half-a-poodle? I assume that the dog's newly aerodynamic form would present quite a hazard to fellow passengers should they be in any form of collision.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

I would predict decapitation followed by defenestration.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

Is it legal to have deep feelings towards a tortoise??

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

If by half-a-poodle you mean Charlie, I prefer not to comment.

It was indeed the defenestration aspect that I was thinking of. Mhos and all that.

I believe you have to be in a common law relationship and that the tortoise must be at least 16 years old. However I think it's the anatomical issues which might be more, err, pressing.

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

It's an electric car?? Would it ever go fast enough?

Re: disappointment with petsaway.uk
 

But what if the car (electric or otherwise) was on a giant treadmill........