Dog survives 110-mile ride under the hood of a pickup truck

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This blog started when my neighbor asserted that rats sometimes lived in cars.  I didn't believe him.  I thought, "Maybe YOUR car."

But he was right.  Since then, I've documented cats, rats, mice, squirrels, groundhogs, snakes, raccoons... and now a dog... hitchhiking under the hood of cars.

by Jaime Magana

"A 25-pound dog discovered in the engine compartment of a Chevy Silverado in San Clemente on Monday is doing fine, said to have survived a 110-mile journey on a hot autumn Southern California day with no apparent ill effects."

Why would a dog climb inside the engine compartment?

When a female is ready to give birth to pups, she may dig a burrow, if an earthen bank is available.  When I was a kid, we lived in an old house, with an exposed bank of soil in the basement.  One day we returned to discover that our dog, ready to give birth, had dug a burrow in the basement.

Small dogs, especially if they have no home, are at the mercy of larger dogs in the neighborhood.  So when pressed by "bully dogs," they might hide in a readily-available, dark place.  An engine compartment!

Likewise, when it's too hot, dogs seek cool places.   As it warms up in the morning, what better place for relief than an engine compartment, still cool from the previous night?  This dog hitchhiked in the morning on a hot day.

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