RSS
Home
Dog travel safety tips
Print
Email
RSS
Subscribe
.jpg)
Safe in a dog seatbelt and ready to go (C.Parker)
It can be fun to travel with a canine companion, but it’s important to ensure your dogs’ safety on the road as well as your own. The stereotypical view of a dog in the car is one with head out the window, nose into the wind. This is not safest way for your pet to travel, for a number of reasons. This article will talk about how to safely restrain your pet during automobile travel to ensure the safety of not only your pet, but the driver and passengers as well.
Reasons to restrain your dog while traveling
There are two primary reasons to keep your dog restrained while you are driving. The first is a driver distraction issue. If your dog has an active personality, is naturally gregarious, or is nervous about traveling in a car, it is likely to move about the vehicle while you’re driving. It is impossible to keep both hands on the wheel and control your dog’s movement around the vehicle at the same time. The dog could move where it impedes your vision, interferes with your ability to brake or steer, or gets into something in the car that is better left alone, like food, presents, luggage, or children’s toys. The other reason is for safety in case of an accident. In a sudden stop or collision, an unrestrained dog can become a projectile, and run the risk of injuring both itself and human passengers.
Options for restraining your dog in the car
There are only two methods of restraint that can prevent both the distraction and accident injury risk, crates and seatbelts. Barriers that keep a dog in a certain area of the car may prevent the dog from distracting you, but will not protect your dog in the case of an accident.
Crates come in a wide variety of materials and designs; the safest ones are substantially constructed wire crates such as the Kennel Aire Professional and airline-grade plastic crates, such as the PetMate Sky Kennel. Softsided crates and seat cover systems will keep the dog from distracting you, but will not provide much crash protection. If you have tie-downs hooks in your vehicle, tethering the crate will help keep it in place in an accident and prevent it from sliding or tipping should you brake or turn quickly in normal driving.
Not every car can hold a crate comfortably and some drivers prefer having their dog where it can see out and they can interact during the trip. For these situations, seatbelts are a good choice. There are a number of pet seatbelt systems available, they all can keep a dog from distracting you, but some are better designed to keep the dog in place in case of an accident. I prefer seatbelts that connect to a fastened seatbelt rather than those that snap into the buckle receptacle. Two brands that are especially sturdy are Ruff Rider and Champion.
Related Articles:
Comments
