Car Safety Devices for Dogs are Important

The weather is becoming more conducive to road trips.  Most of us are unaware of the importance of safety for our dogs when it comes to taking car trips.  We love our dogs so much and they love us as well.  I cannot tell you how many people I know who drive around with their dogs on their laps.  A car accident can lead to the loss of your dog’s life.  A dog sitting on your lap is positioned between you and the steering wheel.  The impact during a car accident is likely to cause you to slam against your dog and right into the steering wheel.  I don’t even want to think about the what would happen if the airbag is deployed.  I made it a policy to keep my dogs off of my lap while behind the steering wheel.  I thought I was so smart.  I didn’t consider that a dog becomes a projectile when not appropriately secured.

After spending hours on end researching I collected a ton of products that looked great to me.  I looked at tethers that allow a dog to sit, stand and walk side to side.  I looked at safety seats and I looked at tons of safety harnesses.

Remember those crash test human dummies?  The 2013 crash tests have been performed with dog dummies in order to evaluate the efficacy of seat belt restraints for dogs.  Below you will see a video of some of the harnesses that performed poorly in the crash dummy testing.

Watch the Sleepypod Carrier crash test:

Most safety restraints that were chosen for the study did not pass the preliminary testing.  To participate in the study the following parameters had to be met:

1.  The manufacturer indicates that their safety harnesses had undergone collision testing and assured the safety of their product in the case of a collision.  Without those parameters satisfied, products were excluded immediately.

Products which passed that evaluation continued to the next step. 

2.  If the harness sizes were determined to be poorly fitted, they were excluded from testing.   

Only products passing those two evaluations were eligible to participate in the crash testing.  Out of the 11 products, only 7 brands met the standards to participate.  The results of the testing is below:

Sleepypod Clickit

The Sleepypod Clickit was a clear winner. It provides optimal protection, passed it the catastrophic Failure Test. Some might think that an adjustable tether is important, but I think it makes adjusting the tether to be longer can only cause more problems during a crash because it allows for more movement of the dog and less stability than restraints that are not adjustable. The Sleepypod had optimal performance. The information in the chart above was collected from the 2013 Harness Crashworthiness Study performed by the Center for Pet Safety organization.

Here are some of the awards that the Sleepypod Clickit has earned:

Sleepypod Air:

Watch the Sleepypod Air crash test:

  Sleepypod Clickit

  Sleepypod Carrier

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