[MaggieRoseLee]

What do you want it to do?

If you want to put your dog in the rear, and hope that will help in an accident, it will not. The dog is still loose and can easily be injured or killed (and come thru the barrier).

If you just need it to keep some gear in back, you'll be ok.

For dogs, they need some kind of confinement/belt system. Just like what keeps kids from being injured in our cars. Except you can crate a dog and probably not your children.

Good site about what we should all be using to secure our dogs, for our safety as well as the dogs...

http://www.agilepooch.com/dogstuff/dogbelts/dogbelts.html

 

[MaggieRoseLee]

Quote: Brenna chews through leashes when she's in the car (only in the car for some reason) so I'm afraid putting her on a seatbelt harness would result in my seatbelts being eaten.

You can start with this as a training issue. It's the same as when kids can unclick themselves if they don't like their belts. We love them and know their safety is #1 so we TEACH them to keep the belt on.

We can teach our dogs not to chew thru the belts. We are right there in the car with them, and a 'no' should work. Squirt bottle of water may help with the aim.

The SAFEST place in our cars are always the middle row of seats. Why we are supposed to keep the kids there. All the traffic studies and strength in the car is centered around there. If you get rear ended, the back crumples. Hit something with the front and we get it as the driver (though engine compartment is there).

People FAIL TO CONSIDER broken windows and popped doors. A car accident than can be fairly minor can still cause that and a scared LOOSE dog can and will jump out to be either free to run off or get killed in traffic. Letting our dogs be free in the car cause it's easier for us, and we think they like it, isn't doing the dog a favor in the end.

The seatbelts I see for sale in the petstores generally aren't the safest to really help one of our large dogs in a real accident. For those that are more responsible out there, a good site with comparisons and features to look for are on http://www.agilepooch.com/dogstuff/dogbelts/dogbelts.html

Here are my girls all belted up and safe!