We learned early on, a dog run­ning loose in the car is a dan­ger­ous dog. Whether they are hop­ping about look­ing out the win­dow, get­ting into your lap, acci­den­tally shift­ing gears, turn­ing on the win­dow wipers, or worse, get­ting in the foot well when you are dri­ving, just not a safe sit­u­a­tion. Plus, a dog on the loose is not only prone to caus­ing acci­dents, they often have acci­dents due to car­sick­ness or ner­vous bladders.

As a home solu­tion, we’ve mod­i­fied plas­tic crates by adding han­dles so seat belts can secure them bet­ter into place. The dogs are comfy, can lay down, and any acci­dents are mainly con­tained, easy to clean, and don’t ruin car seats. This method has served us well until lately. Our boy Ghost has not been able to fight off car­sick­ness, even with light or no food prior to a trip. After research­ing for a solu­tion, a booster seat seemed the way to go, and we’ve noticed other Frenchie peo­ple employ­ing them for their snub-nosed pals. Found one that seems to fit the bill for us: the Solvit Jumbo Taga­long On-Seat Pet Booster. Installed it in the back seat and have been try­ing it out for almost a month now. (We knew not to install it in the front seat as air bags can be lethal to dogs. Read more about that here.) The liner and pad has been bro­ken in once by one of the girls (Name with­held. Don’t want to embar­rass her!) and washed once. Came out okay. We also use a wash­able, absorbent pad for added acci­dent insurance.

Booster Seat

Ghost enjoy­ing his booster seat. There’s enough room for him to lay down when he’s tired of sit­ting up.

The booster seat includes a tether which attaches to your dog’s har­ness to restrain and pre­vent him/her from becom­ing a fly­ing pro­jec­tile in case of a hard stop or crash. Motion sick­ness seems to be a thing of the past for Ghost and it’s made the ride much more enjoy­able for all. Instead of hang­ing his head and look­ing dis­traught prior to a car ride, he now hap­pily walks to the car and waits to be lifted into place.

The rest of the crew enjoys their turn in the booster seat, because now they can look out the win­dow and inter­act a bit with us. In fact, it’s made for some amus­ing car rides with those big broad smiles and loud snorts com­ing from the back seat. They are obvi­ously enjoy­ing the canine ver­sion of a car­ni­val ride and you can’t help but smile along with them.

Even so, it’s very frus­trat­ing to know no dog booster seat has been through doc­u­mented safety test­ing (includ­ing the one we are try­ing out.) A few restraint har­nesses on the mar­ket are inde­pen­dently tested, but if baby seats are put through rig­or­ous test­ing, why not pet booster seats and safety restraints? It’s a truly odd thing, this lack of safety test­ing. Pas­sen­ger dogs as safety haz­ards is no secret.

Con­sumer Reports writes about the dan­gers, but no prod­uct test­ing reports from their lab yet. The clos­est to a review­ing body is Bark Buckle-Up. They offer video reviews of some prod­ucts, but don’t include safety effec­tive­ness rates. How­ever, it is a site full of good info about keep­ing your dog safe in the car. There is a group devel­op­ing safety stan­dards for auto­mo­tive pet har­nesses called V9DT. A page on their site promises test results later.

To learn more about the impor­tance of pro­tect­ing a dog in an vehi­cle, visit the fol­low­ing sites for more info and safety products.

Infor­ma­tion:
Bark Buckle Up
Paws To Click

Prod­ucts and reviews:
Bark Buckle Up Prod­uct Video Reviews
Oh My Dog Sup­plies
Orvis Dog Safety Products

This is a lim­ited list. Check your favorite pet sup­plier to see what else they may offer.


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