Pet Auto Safety

If you’re like me you think of your pet as a child. You feed them, give them shelter, and most importantly—you keep them safe. My cat Puppet Master is an orange tabby. He weighs 19 lbs and goes everywhere I go. The other day I was headed to my cousin’s house for dinner, it was raining, and had snowed the night before. I hit a patch of slush and had to slam on my brakes. Puppet Master flew forward, hitting the dashboard. He was stunned for a while, but it turned out he was just fine.

When I returned home I surfed the web for a cat car harness that could safely strap him in when we were on the road. It turned out there were several available—they weren’t even that expensive. Since then I always keep Puppet Master harnessed in the car, at first it bothered him.  But I let him wear the harness around the house for a while and he soon got used to it.

Best for small and medium sized dogs, a pet car seat is the perfect way to pamper your dog AND help keep them safe. We love to take our dogs with us when we travel, but sometimes the seat of the car just isn’t comfortable. The dogs tend to lose their balance when we make those turns or make those stops. The seat belt works great for helping to keep the dogs from being thrown on the floor, but the car seat adds comfort. And comfort is great if you are taking a long road trip for summer vacation.Most car seats are plushly padded and some even provide a boost so the dogs can still look out the window. A good pet car seat should somehow attach to the seat of a car. Some will hang right over the front passenger seat. (But be sure that the airbags for the passenger side is turned off before you use a pet car seat in the front seat. Air bags are safe for adult people only.) The best pet car seats have a connecting strap where one end clips onto your pet’s harness and the other somehow utilizes the car’s seat belt.

Sephi, short for Persephone (per-sef-ony), is seven years old and Maya is 9 months old.  I have had both of them since they were at least three weeks old.  I don’t know how many times Sephi flew forward and hit the dash when I had to make a sudden stop.  Luckily, she was never seriously hurt but I was concerned that someday she might be.  So when I found out there was such a thing as a pet car harness, I bought it for her.  Then I bought another one when I got Maya.  When Maya was little, she wanted to climb in my lap while I was driving.  If it wasn’t for the dog safety car harness, it would have been very difficult for me to drive safely because Maya would have been distracting me.

Did you know that dogs can wear seat belts too?  Maya is shown here wearing her dog seat belt.  It fits just like a harness.  But instead of a leash, a strap is attached that buckles directly into the seat belt receptacle.  Maya can sit, stand, or lie down comfortably while she is in the car.  And best of all, it helps keep her from flying forward in the case of a sudden stop.