By Allie Brawley
Most dog owners know their four-legged friends are happier when traveling with their owners. So when Brimley resident Chris Parish and his wife Lisa rode motorcycles, their dog Heidi was very upset to be left at home.
“One day I saw this Ural motorcycle with a sidecar and I bought it not knowing if Heidi would ride in it.”
His wife Lisa got in the sidecar and coached Heidi in for the first time. From that point on, Heidi became comfortable and did not hesitate to get in on her own.
“Now Lisa rides behind me in her motorcycle and Heidi gets the sidecar to herself,” laughs Chris.
Heidi, a seven-and-a-half-year-old “double doodle” (half poodle, one quarter Golden Retriever, one quarter Labrador) is very well traveled. Lisa is a locum family physician who works temporary assignments in various places, which gives Chris and Heidi lots of great places to explore.
“My wife used to work in Caro, Michigan which is all farmland and Heidi loves those back roads and the bike is made for slow going.”
For safety, Heidi is restrained in the sidecar.
“I put a small leash on her so she won’t jump out if she sees a chipmunk.”
Heidi even has her own canine goggles. However, Chris discovered he needed a better solution to the bugs that were smacking her in her face on their back-country rides.
“The shape of her head was too angled, so the air would still get under the goggles,” Chris explained, “so I built her a windshield.”
By truck, Heidi has traveled across the country and has ventured from Disney World in Florida to the plains of South Dakota. Once when Chris and Lisa were traveling across Western Iowa, they let Heidi out for a break. In no time, she managed to find a ditch full of water and was completely covered in mud head to paw.
Lisa shook her head and wondered, “what are we going to do with her now?”
Thankfully, Chris turned and saw a car wash across the road. “We ended up washing her with a hose at the car wash before we let her back in the truck.”
It’s times like that when the sidecar would be helpful for Heidi to air dry.
Chris estimates he travels about a thousand miles with Heidi each summer and likely a hundred spectators have taken Heidi’s photo over the years. A favorite destination is going to the Spectacle Lake Overlook in Brimley where Heidi loves to explore the scents throughout the woods of Mission Hill.
No doubt, the sidecar proved to be the ideal solution for Chris and Heidi to become great travel companions and explore many happy trails together.