Pets

Toyota The 2008 Toyota Highlander Hybrid Limited is spacious and easy on fuel consumption. Toyota

The Toyota Prius added a hatchback and more room for everything, but the popular hybrid is still awfully small if you're planning a family road trip that includes the dog.

That's why dog lovers should welcome the newest wave of greener sport utilities, including a quartet of redesigned hybrids: the Toyota Highlander and the Ford Escape/Mercury Mariner/Mazda Tribute cousins. They're all roomy and comfortable, are pricier than non-hybrid equivalents, but have cleaner engines that sip less gas.

I tested and liked them all, but I absolutely loved the biggest and most expensive of the bunch, the Highlander. (It was also the least fuel-efficient.)

Toyota's redesign for 2008 adds more usable cargo space. The third row of seating folds completely flat, and the second row almost flat, with a tiny gap between rows when the seats are folded down.

That gap, along with the $39,000 base price (for the well-equipped Limited I tested) was about the only fault I could find (Highlander hybrids start at $34,000). With gas prices continuing to climb, you can't beat a roomy SUV getting 25 mpg while powering up a steep grade at highway speeds.