Keep Your Pet Safe While Driving

Road trips with your dog are amazing! Let’s chat about adding crates and seat belt harnesses to future trips with your dog, as we want to keep him safe. Before you shell out hard earned cash, let’s discuss which crates and seat belt harnesses really work.

 Always secure your dog when in a vehicle even if driving around the corner.

Crates

With so many crates to choose from, which crate is safer? Crates are wonderful at containing your dog, preventing him from chewing car interior or luggage, containing accidents (vomit or diarrhea) and protecting car interior from a wet dog.

I’ll provide a few options, but first understand there are no rules for crash testing crates in the U.S. Scary, I know! With this in mind, I’ve done extensive research, which includes polling dog professionals, such as veterinarians, professional dog trainers, and renowned dog show experts. So here are the results:

Option 1:

• Variocage and Proline crates have been crash-tested in other countries and range between $500 -$1,300 depending on size of your dog.

Option 2:

Plastic airline-approved Vari-Kennel secured with 3 racket straps. Airline approval is earned, not just an attractive sales benefit, as the FAA has strict regulations on keeping pets safe.

• Plastic crate keeps items from penetrating the dog crate during accidents. During crashes, wire crates can crumble inwards and harm a dog. Fabric crates tear and are pretty useless if a crash should occur.
• Nuts and bolts securely hold plastic crates together. Interesting to note, snap-sided or latches are not airline-approved.
• 2-3 racket straps: Choose 1-inch wide straps and verify their web break and work load limit. Most are 400 lbs plus. Choose length depending on size of your crates.
• Secure to tie down hooks or tether straps located in most SUVs and vans. If you can’t find them, look behind the rear seats for car seat tether straps. Depending on size of crate, secure one racket strap across the top of the crate. Then secure the other racket strap around the width of the crate. If your crate is larger, you may need additional racket straps. You may also need additional racket straps depending on location of crate and tie down hooks in your vehicle.
• Smaller crates must be placed and secured on the floor of a vehicle. Studies have shown that smaller crates, which are seat belted in a car seat, have been known to crush during a crash. The seat belt constricts, which can crush a plastic, wire and most certainly a fabric-sided crate.

Seat Belt Harnesses:

Luckily, there are crash testing rules for a seat belt harness (woot woot!). Before strapping your dog in a seat belt harness, there are a few rules.

• Can not be used in the front seat
• Must follow manufacturer’s directions
• Made for dogs 75 lbs and under

Sleepypod Clickit Seat Belt Harness was the top performer during the 2013 Center for Pet Safety’s Crashworthiness Study. There were 11 different brands of seat belt harnesses being tested and Clickit rose above the others. It’s worth mentioning Center for Pet Safety (CPS) is a non-profit research and advocacy program so they are non-bias with results. To read the entire study’s results, click here.

Were you shocked by the results? I certainly was and will make some changes. Which car restraint will you choose for your pooch and why?