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How To Keep Your Dog Safe When Driving

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How To Keep Your Dog Safe While DrivingHow To Keep Your Dog Safe When Driving

If you have a dog and like to take it traveling with you in the car, your truck, or my pet hate, on the back of a Ute, then you need to read this article and watch the video below and how to keep your dog safe when driving.

The Life Threatening Dangers Of Dogs Traveling On The Back Of  Trucks

Firstly before I go any further, according to experts and I concur; to date there is NO SAFE WAY FOR DOGS TO TRAVEL ON THE BACKS OF TRUCKS!

  • In the USA in the American Humane Association reported that an estimated 10,000 dogs die each year from falling off the back of trucks!  I have no idea what the statistics are in Australia, but I am guessing they aren’t great.
  • Dogs all too commonly are tethered to flat bed trucks by a thick rope, or chain collar around their necks and many dogs end up getting strangled when the truck stops suddenly or in accidents.  Many a dog has been found dangling by its neck hanging over the side of a truck or being dragged behind.
  • Dogs traveling on the back of trucks are exposed to extreme heat, cold and pollution. They often end of with burns on their paws from the scorching sun-baked metal of the truck.
  • Dogs tied onto the back of trucks also risk serious injury, even death, from all the other equipment that is also sharing this space with the dog. All the driver need do is to brakes suddenly or turn too sharply.

The only way for a dog to travel safely on a truck, is to not travel on it… BUT IN IT and harnessed in with a secure dog seat-belt.

How To Keep Your Dog Safe While Driving

While we all know that dogs just love hanging their heads out of a moving vehicles, I have seen with my own eyes the tragedy that can happen.

I once saw a car driving at around 60km down a suburban Melbourne street with a little terrier hanging three quarters of the way out of the back passenger window. Next thing I knew the barking dog lost its balance and tumbled head first out of the window, rolling over and over  and over across the road. I felt physically ill and when the drivers stopped to get pick up their badly injured, yet still alive little dog,  I don’t think that I have ever yelled so crazily at a stranger.  I was shaking and appalled that anyone could be so stupid!

If you want to take your dog with you on road trips then you must use at least one of the following methods for securing your dog. Dog who are free to roam around a moving car, can easily sustain serious, often fatal, injuries in accidents and when the car brakes suddenly and they can seriously, even fatally, injure the other human passengers in the car, especially younger kids and infants.

  • Your dog should always wear a body harness that can be clipped into a seat-belt when traveling in any type of moving vehicle. Most pet shops have these and they are worth every dollar.
  • Do not tie your dog’s lead if it is attached to a neck collar and not a body harness to the seat-belt. If you stop suddenly, or are in an accident you can choke your dog.
  • Windows should only be lowered to a level where the dog cannot stick any part of itself out of them. Even if your dog doesn’t fall out, a car passing too close can decapitate him.
  • For S UV’s and station-wagons that have a grate that allows you to keep the dog in the back part of the car, then ensure the dog is wearing a harness (not a neck collar)and the harness is attached securely to the car. Also importantly make sure their is good air-flow and the back of the car is not too hot.  Dogs can die extremely fast from heat-stroke!
  • Another option for the S UV’S and station-wagons is to crate you dog and secure the crate inside the back of the car securely. Again ensure air-flow and temperature.
  • Smaller dogs that are nervous travelers, can be secured inside a small travel crate that has been securely fastened into the car seat.
  • For very small dogs who like to see out the window, but are too tiny to reach window levels, then check out my video below.