CAR SAFETY TRAVEL FOR YOUR BEST FRIEND
When you welcome a dog into your home to become a member of your family, you want to ensure that he or she travels safely when riding in your car with you (the same as you would if you were travelling with a child). Placing your best friend directly onto a car seat comes with serious concerns for both your dog's safety and your vehicle's interior. Both hazards are avoidable by using our Luxury Car Seat Protectors.
Our Full Size SLINGGUARD Car Seat Protector allows your best friend to travel in safety and luxury by covering the length of the back seat of your car. It zips up at the sides with non-slip zips to make a snug and comfortable large basket, so you do not have to worry about him/her falling down and getting stuck in the footwell gap and possibly hurting himself. This also gives him the option of either stretching out or curling up in a larger area in comfort. Because it is very thick, it does not slide, and when your dog walks over the footwell gap, it doesn't twist and turn and make your dog feel anxious.
If your dog travels in the back area of your SUV or Station Wagon, then the SLINGGUARD helps to give him a non-slip base and total comfort - and you can use either the luxury soft side or the 100% waterproof side (with the added comfort of a dense foam middle insert).
It is also important that he wears a very strong H frame harness when being secured in your car. (It is now the law in Australia that dogs be secured so as to prevent them jumping onto the driver and causing an accident). It has nothing to do with the safety of your dog, because if it was, there would be laws for their car safety the same way as there are laws for transporting children! You are allowed to secure your dog in any way to comply eg a piece of string tied around the headrest and attached to your dog's collar, so long as it cannot reach the driver.
Walking harnesses are not designed for car safety - they are designed for walking. They have not been strengthened for strong support and safety when braking suddenly, and often straps pull out from their stitching, and plastic clips break - causing a lot of harm to your dog as the harness swivels around your dog fast pulling tight over areas that are not strong. Our harnesses use metal clips, are sewn with parachute thread and have been strengthened throughout for safety.
For human safety, our own seatbelts go across our sternum and across our hips - which are the strongest bones to protect us when our seat belts lock into place. It should be the same for your best friend. He needs to have a breastplate that is firmly fitted - the rest of the harness needs to be firm around the neck and around the body, so that when braking your best friend has all his weight taken by his sternum - and not his neck, and the harness does not slip around into an incorrect position.
To attach to the harness to your car, you can use either a car safety lead that clips into the seatbelt holder, or use a headrest lead . Again, these need to be made from quality materials!
We have found that the headrest lead is generally the best to use. Many dogs figure out where to stand to unclip themselves. It will happen by accident at first, but it does not take them long to work out what they did to make it happen again!
Our Car Headrest Safety Leads are extremely strong. These are designed to take the weight of both very large dogs and very small. The carabiners are made of human mountain grade space metal (used for abseiling etc) which is very strong, but also extremely light. You would not use an ordinary alloy metal here, as it is not strong or designed for this use. On a lead maybe - but not in a car. (Our own seat belt clips are made of solid stainless steel). The circular ring is also made of solid stainless steel which has been welded together - not a cheap alloy which looks like stainless steel, is a lot heavier and can break very fast.
All our products have been designed by us for the safety of our own dogs, and we are very happy to now be able to share them with you.
