Maggiolina Grand Tour medium for 1 person and a dog?

[jerseyjeeper]

Hey Expo! I will be taking off to travel the TAT in early September in my 2 door JK with a Maggie GT medium mounted on the roof. I've always planned on doing this trip alone but I've been considering bringing along my Pittie. He's 3 years old and 70 pounds. I'm about 6'1 and 230 pounds. I plan on making my passenger seat into a comfy bed for him to travel in but I need a good place for him to sleep. I'd love to bring him up into the tent with me but I have 2 concerns. 1. How will he get up there? 2. Will his nails rip through the screen and or canvas siding? We're gonna a little tight up there but thats okay. I was really just wondering if you guys have any ideas how to get him up there and if any of you sleep with your furry friends in a hard shell tent. Thanks for reading!

 

[aearles]

I can manage to get my 60lb pit up the ladder under my armpit, I climb a few rungs until she can reach for the entry but she's pretty comfortable with me handling her this way. I recently discovered that loading her in from the rear door of my JB while standing on my tailgate works much better, not sure if you can pull off something similar on the JK.
[Edit] Oh right, no back door on the Maggiolina.

 

[jerseyjeeper]

eatSleepWoof, thank you for the thread recommendations! There was a ton of good info in them. aearles, I love the idea of loading your pittie up through the rear door off the tailgate. Genius idea. I might try to get a nice harness for him and carry him up that way. I also considered building something from wood that will lay over the rungs of a fully extended telescopic ladder. No dice yet though. Thanks for the help guys!

 

[aearles]

Haha, I considered building a wood ramp to go over the ladder too, I just got the tent and she's only been up a few times so we'll see how it goes. The tailgate is much easier because I can transition her from ground to tailgate, and then from tailgate to tent in stages. My tent is mounted at 7'4" so the ladder is already stretched and barely sufficient, and a ramp would have to be pretty long.