Very interesting, thought provoking article on car safety for dogs, written by Claire Harris, founder of Pets 2 Places

What do you know about car safety for dogs?

What the highway code says? 

What the government guidelines are? 

Those cover the current law, and are centred on ensuring your dogs do not distract you whilst you are driving.

Here’s an interesting fact though, children’s car seats were created in the 1930’s also to stop small children from distracting the driver. If you haven’t seen them try Googling a picture, I personally have no idea how they got the kids in them!! 

Another interesting fact, it wasn’t until 2006 that it became law that children must be travelling in a car seat. That’s 70 years before someone said ‘lets worry about child safety not just distraction.’

Did you also know that even though seat belts have been in cars since the 60’s it didn’t become law for seat belts to be worn until 1991! Since then there’s been a huge reduction in the amount of fatalities on our roads, especially with the introduction of air bags and crumple zones in modern vehicles.

As you can see it takes a very long time for things to change.

Here’s the thing though, like seat belts, child’s car seat and car safety have evolved over time (painfully slowly apparently). So, whilst the highway code tells you to secure your dog to prevent it being a distraction – this is just one part of the story. 

Safety as at the forefront of modern vehicle design alongside comfort and reliability and it is vital we give those same considerations when we are selecting pet travel equipment for our dogs.

Selecting the wrong restraint not only puts your dogs life at risk, it can jeopardise the life of everyone on board and the wider public. Imagine a 5 stone dog loose on your back seat that’s going to come flying at you from behind in an accident! Ouch!

So, if you are travelling with a dog, here’s our expert guidance:

• - Small to medium size dogs on the back seat with a crash tested harness
• -        Small to large size dogs in a crash tested crate if you have space
• -        Large or extra large breeds in the boot with a crash tested dog guard and tail gate

And here’s some crash tested equipment to look out for:

Harness: 

• -        Sleepy Pod
• -        Ruffwear
• -        Kurgo
• -        Ezy Dog
• -        Easy Rider

Crate:

• -        TransK9

Dog Guard/Tailgate:

• -        Travall

This is a very basic overview, I could talk about the the in’s and out’s of safely transporting pets all day.

I will leave you with this thought - next time you’re out and about take a look at how other people are transporting their dogs, how many people do you see without their dog secured? I think you will be shocked.

If you’d like to know more about transporting animals pop on over to our website. We also offer a pet taxi service and are looking for franchisees across the UK to join us

https://pets2places.co.uk/