Pets On Board

August 28th, 2023

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Go on – admit it.  Your pet is definitely one of the family.  One of the reasons why you chose the car you did is because you knew that you wanted to fit the dog in the car.

On the other hand, some of you may not consider your dog or cat to be a “fur baby”, even though you’re very fond of them, but you’ll still want or need to take your pet in the car with you at some point – to see the vet, for example.

However, are you carrying your pet in the car the right way? Cars have been designed for humans and to keep humans safe during a crash (if this happens) or a sudden stop, and the designers didn’t seem to think much about animals, and with good reason – there aren’t, to my knowledge, any crash test doggies… and now I’m curious and want to look this up. Back in a minute… Turns out there are canine crash test dummies after all.  More on them a bit later. However, distractions and fascinating new facts aside, there is a right way and a wrong way to carry a dog (or a cat) in a car.

The one thing that you shouldn’t do is to have the dog loose in the cabin. If the dog is feeling in the least bit insecure, it will come and lean on you and try to get close to you for comfort. It is impossible to drive safely the way you should with a large dog panting and slobbering in your ear, or with a small to medium-sized dog bouncing up and down on your lap and yapping. Your dog should be restrained. At the very least, you should train your dog to ride in the footwell of the back seat – and even that’s not ideal.

If you have an SUV, hatchback or stationwagon, there is an obvious place to put the dog: in the boot.  However, some dogs may try to climb out of the boot to come and join you in the cabin, and then you’ve got the problem of the large dog drooling down your neck or the smaller dog yapping on your lap (or, in the case of my brother’s dogs when they climbed out of the boot of his Subaru Legacy wagon, both). If you can get one of those screens or shields, that sits between the rear seats and the boot, this is ideal, as the dog can’t climb over or through these. These guards aren’t restraints, so your dog may be injured if a crash happens.

If the dog is in the boot, you will probably want to make sure that you don’t have your lunch or other food supplies in there with it. Otherwise, when you open the boot, well, the food will technically still be inside the boot but it will also be inside the dog.  Either keep the food in a very stout esky or put the food in the cabin of the car.

But what if you have a sedan and you’re not quite prepared to go out and buy a new car even though you’ve just acquired a dog? Is that new car essential? Well, the dog may be a good excuse to get a new car, especially if you’ve been wanting one for a while. However, if the budget doesn’t quite stretch to that yet, then you need to look at restraining your dog in the cabin. You shouldn’t put a dog in the boot of a sedan, as the dog may become distressed and some may become carsick.  Dogs, like people, like to see where they’re going when they’re travelling.

There are two ways you can restrain a dog in the cabin. The first is to buy a harness for your dog. These are compatible with most five-point seatbelts, and the idea is that you put the harness on the dog, then get the dog into the car and onto the back seat (try bribery with treats if your dog isn’t keen), then clip the seatbelt through the harness. Never try to slip the seatbelt through the dog’s collar, as this could strangle your dog if an accident happens.  These harnesses are properly tested and they are designed to keep your dog safe if a crash happens. You guessed it: this is why crash test dummy dogs exist and it’s how they have managed to ensure that these harnesses actually restrain dogs if the worst happens. 

Dogs like to look out of the window, so if your dog is on the smaller side, then you can also buy booster seats designed for dogs.

If your dog is restrained on the back seat of your car with a harness (with or without a booster seat), then it can be wise to put down a blanket to protect the interior upholstery from dog hair, dribble and scratches. You can buy specially designed hammock sorts of things that fit over the seat and protect the upholstery (the dog sits in the hammock thing), or you can put down a blanket. The blanket will slide around the place, but it’s easier to wash than the big hammock thing. Your choice as to what you prefer.

The other main way to keep a dog restrained in a car if it’s small (meaning the dog, not the car) is to use a carrying crate. It’s best to restrain the crate or you have the risk of a loose and heavy object inside the cabin that could smack into you from behind in a crash. You can do this by slipping the seatbelt through the bars or handle of the crate before fastening the seatbelt. The other advantage of a carrier crate is that you can lift the dog into the back seat and put him/her where she/he needs to go, without any need for orders, cajoling or bribery.  You can also, in the case of chunkier smaller breeds that can be a bit harder to pick up (e.g., Staffordshire Bull Terriers), train the dog to enter the crate once the crate has been clipped in place.

In the case of cats, a carrying crate is an absolute must. Of all the many cats I have known throughout my life, only one of them actually enjoyed riding in the car, and even the one that enjoyed the car could be a menace, as she would try to jump onto the driver’s lap or onto the dashboard. Most cats, however, hate riding in the car and will fight like fury to get out. I think it’s the engine noise that freaks them out, although I haven’t tried to take a cat in an EV yet.  Make sure that the crate is very securely closed and that the door can’t be prised open, or the cat will do exactly this, and then you have the problem of driving with a very frantic and frazzled cat screaming around the interior of the car (yes, this has happened to me). If the cat does get out of the crate in transit, pull over, stop the engine, climb into the back seat (don’t open the door or window) and put the cat back in the crate. Then apply first aid to your scratches.

If you want to carry other animals in a vehicle, use common sense. Birds, rabbits, chickens and the like go in a carrying crate. Sheep and goats can go in the back of a stationwagon or SUV, but make sure you have a guard between the cabin and the boot or the goats will climb out and investigate the cabin (personal experience speaking here). However, if you transport this sort of livestock, then investing in a crate that goes on the back of an old-fashioned farm ute is a must – leave the boot for haybales and bags of feed instead.