Safety First

Travelling with pets can bring up a lot of anxiety, especially when you hear them fidgeting around in the back of the vehicle, nothing to keep them really secure. As you have most likely experienced, being in the car even with a seatbelt on when the brakes are applied quickly can throw you forward. I know it always made me nervous thinking about what would happen if we were to hit a deer or something and my puppers were in the back with nothing to keep them at least sort of in place.

This worry was definitely on my mind for a while but I finally decided to actually look for a solution. As someone with a Guidedog, my pup is with me more than not so especially for longer trips, I wanted something he would be comfortable with and would ideally fit under his harness for when we were having to get out of the vehicle for stores and such.

There are two things I discovered; one, there are quite a few dog seatbelt harnesses to pick from, so reading the reviews is important; two, the belt that comes with the harness is not likely the most secure belt, so purchasing a better one might be the better option. I did find one that had really good reviews, I ended up getting four of them, three for our dogs and one spare, and about six of the leash connectors for various vehicles and backups. This seatbelt harness comes in a great variety of sizes and colours so will fit any puppers you have. As I mentioned, our family felt that the leash belt that came with it wasn't as sturdy as we would have liked, so we got ones that were a lot more heavy duty and made us more confident that the puppers were secure.

Finally, we are a family that doesn't always have a seat belt buckle free, and I found that our dogs were more comfortable in the back anyway, so I purchased these carabiners that worked great for connecting to the seatbelt tab that would have inserted into the buckle, but with the carabiner could clip onto the floor anchors (like for a carseat). These three simple tools make travelling with puppers much more stress free, and it keeps them in the area you would like them to be in as well.

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