Taking Your Dog for a Ride in The Car

As a dog lover, one of the things that gives me great pleasure is taking my dogs for a ride in the car. I have two dogs, and both are large breeds. One is an animal shelter rescue Golden Retriever mix. The other is full blooded Cane Corso. Both of them are very well behaved and loving companions. They dearly love to go for a ride in the car. Really, what dogs don't like to have a chance to ride down the road with their heads sticking out the open window and their ears flapping in the wind?

Something we pet owners don't always think about, though, is that the rules of car safety apply to ALL passengers in the car, not just the humans. A couple of years ago, my family was in Frankenmuth, MI at a hot air balloon festival. Knowing that there would be many people gathered together, the local shelter had set up a pet adoption area in hopes of placing some dogs with loving families. I will never forget one of the dogs we saw, nor her story. She was a beautiful yellow lab mix, but her body was scarred and she had several places where her hair did not grow. She also was missing part of an ear and had lost the sight in one eye. I couldn't imagine what could have caused such suffering in this docile animal. But as we got closer, we saw the posters on display near her. It turns out, she had been riding with her family in a car when they had a bad automobile accident. She had been thrown through the windshield on impact because she was not belted in. Miraculously, she survived, but her body bore the vivid reminders of the awful ordeal.

When we flew back home, one of the first items of business I took care of was to go to PetSmart and come up with some sort of improvised plan for protecting my dogs when they are riding in the car. THere isn't too much out there to choose from, but I did the best I could. While I have seen some "car seat" type products for small breeds, there doesn't appear to be anything like that for bigger breeds. I wound up buying a pet pillow for each of them to sit on, and a harness that slips around their chests. When they ride with me, I feed the seatbelt through the harness and clip it into place. It's not perfect, but I feel like it would help keep them from flying out of the car should the unforeseen happen and I have to slam on breaks suddenly.

These pictures were taken without them being buckled up. (We weren't in motion other than backing up the driveway just for illustration purposes). Because of their weight and size, it would be very dangerous if we had a collision and there was no restraint system. Think about it the next time you take your puppies out.