Exceptions To Securing Dog In Car?

[jourdan]

Avery is normally harnessed with a seatbelt attachment but dicky chewers through it while we were at a friends post training. Here in Germany dogs must be restrained while in the car. If there were to be an accident and the dog was unrestrained it is automatically your fault even if it was the other vehicle in the wrong.


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[huntergreen]

Originally Posted by jae

i refuse to use a harness to secure my dog, just based on something i read about a study that most harnesses had decapitated a dummy dog in tests. i don't trust wire crates or the airline crates, if i can break them with my own strength then a car crash would mutilate it and the dog. so, he sits or lays down in the back seat and i allow him to stand on the center console at times. sometimes he likes to curl up in the front seat. when i find an indestructible crate, i will use it.

eta this

Are Car Restraints for Dogs Just One Big Farce? | Dogster

i have read this also. i believe the restraints are for human safety, not the dogs. i will continue to keep them in the back seat with a barrier.

[Jo_in_TX]

What kind of barrier is strong enough that a dog won't fly through it on impact? Most don't seem that strong.

[Chowgal]

I don't see ANY reason to leave a dog loose in a moving vehicle. All of my dogs ride in kennels and always will.

[MaggieRoseLee]

Are Car Restraints for Dogs Just One Big Farce? | Dogster

Thanks for posting that article, it was a great read but for me had a bunch of holes in the research. Though some harnesses injured the dog at speed, without the harness the dog would have been equally or more injured PLUS a loose projectile in the car. So while I don't want the harness to injure my dog, the fact it will keep them in the back seat and IN the car (not out a broken door or window) makes it much better than NOTHING.

Other hole in the article (and it does mention it a bit) is that not all harnesses are the same, by a long shot. The vast majority of less expensive ones I see in pet stores are crap and clearly will break with 2,200 pounds of pressure suddenly put on it. There's a HUGE difference in the systems out there.

No matter what using NOTHING is, in my opinion, irresponsible for both the dog and passenger/driver in the vehicle. Doing my best to come up with the best thing for my situation to provide at least some safety for everyone in the vehicle is best for me. So crates (that also need to be fixed to the car somehow) or harnesses are the way for me.

For those that would like to see some of the better belt systems and the descriptions why, good articles are ---> Dog Safety in the Car..

[NWHeather]

Mine are currently not restrained. I don't take them in my truck as much as I used to. I have an extra cab Toyota pickup, that has the jump seats behind the two front bucket seats. There's just enough room for the two of my dogs to lay down back there.
I have a canopy on the back of my truck, but I feel they are more protected in the cab of the truck, also less room for them to be flying around, in the event of an accident. The front seats sit high enough that it's unlikely they would fly into the front.
I know it's not an idea situation, but it's the best I have right now.

At some point, I will likely get a 4 door Toyota pickup, so that I have room for three dogs to be in the back cab. I plan on adopting a third dog sometime after I buy a house, likely sometime in 2013.
I have been thinking about what kind of cage I can have installed, once I get a newer truck, to help protect them.

Edit to add: I would like to find a suitable harness that I can secure them with.

[Chicagocanine]

Personally I don't trust most crates or pet barriers to withstand the forces in an accident. I've seen some footage of crates which broke open or were destroyed in an accident and also heard of accidents involving show dogs in crates where the crates came apart and released the dogs. In some cases the dogs ended up loose on the highway and were struck by cars. Some crates are stronger than others but the standard airline or wire crates aren't very tough.
The problems with a barrier are that I don't know if the ones I've seen would stay in place if a dog were thrown into it with the forces that are involved in a car accident, they still allow the dog to be tossed around the back of the car, and also they don't prevent the dog from running from the car after an accident or possibly being thrown from the car through a window.

Originally Posted by MaggieRoseLee

Are Car Restraints for Dogs Just One Big Farce? | Dogster

Thanks for posting that article, it was a great read but for me had a bunch of holes in the research. Though some harnesses injured the dog at speed, without the harness the dog would have been equally or more injured PLUS a loose projectile in the car. So while I don't want the harness to injure my dog, the fact it will keep them in the back seat and IN the car (not out a broken door or window) makes it much better than NOTHING.

Other hole in the article (and it does mention it a bit) is that not all harnesses are the same, by a long shot. The vast majority of less expensive ones I see in pet stores are crap and clearly will break with 2,200 pounds of pressure suddenly put on it. There's a HUGE difference in the systems out there.

Yes, and they don't tell you which harnesses they tested. There are lots of 'car harnesses' out there that even state on the packaging that they are made for use under normal driving conditions, in other words they are not meant to hold up in an accident. So without information on what harnesses they tested, there is no way to know if those were the ones tested or if they are referring to some of the actual dog seatbelts.
If you look around you will find that there are some dog seatbelts on the market that say they have actually been crash-tested or have been strength-rated to withstand the forces in an accident. No info on whether that study actually tested any of those harnesses though, or which ones they did test. So that doesn't really help, or prove that all dog seatbelts are no good like the Dogster article seems to be saying.

[BowWowMeow]

Mine are never restrained but I have a pick-up truck with a topper on the back so they are completely separate from me.

[martemchik]

Originally Posted by jae

i refuse to use a harness to secure my dog, just based on something i read about a study that most harnesses had decapitated a dummy dog in tests. i don't trust wire crates or the airline crates, if i can break them with my own strength then a car crash would mutilate it and the dog. so, he sits or lays down in the back seat and i allow him to stand on the center console at times. sometimes he likes to curl up in the front seat. when i find an indestructible crate, i will use it.

So based on this reasoning...you'd rather have your dog fly through the windshield of your vehicle, or get thrown about in your car rather than possibly hit a crate wall that is 2 inches away from his body. As with a harness...no idea how they would decapitate a dog as they generally are around the body and not the neck. To each their own but I love having a crate in the back of my car, keeps the dog secure and not walking about when I'm out of the car, and also in case of an accident he is much much safer in there and not getting thrown 5 feet or more into the front windshield.

[Blanketback]

I use the seatbelt harness when he rides in my hatchback, and I was very surprised a few weeks ago when he was unbuckled! Thankfully, he must have stepped on the seatbelt by accident, because he hasn't done it again since. Just what I *don't* need, lol, is him unclipping himself as soon as we're on the highway.