Not to be a bummer, but it’s always possible that something terrible is going to happen, and it’s usually when you least expect it. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and unfortunately we don’t even know what today is going to bring. Oof, well, I did say I’m not trying to be a bummer! But those are facts.
I’ve been thinking about this all the more recently, as several friends have had completely bizarre medical events with no prior warning or history. I’m talking seizures, I’m talking passing out while driving, stuff like that. Everyone is more or less okay, but it did get me thinking.
I’ve always been a dog-riding-shotgun kind of person. Our family dogs always rode loose in the car. And when I was fostering Eleanor, at the beginning of the pandemic, when I wasn’t working and there was nothing to do and gas was dirt-cheap, she and I would just drive all over. We saw parts of my home town I’d never explored. It got her from terrified of the car to enthusiastic about car rides in a short amount of time, and it was just fun. It didn’t occur to me to worry about her being in the front seat.
When preparing to bring Delia home, I did tons and tons of research and second-guessed everything probably at least as much as your average expectant mother. And that’s when I was made aware of the dangers of dogs in cars. Well, duh. Loose dogs in car accidents do not fare well.
So I started looking into dog car-seats and dog seatbelts. Unfortunately, in most cases those weren’t much better, or they simply had not been tested. In some cases, it’s even possible for them to harm the dog. So I decided to pass on those.
The refrain I kept seeing repeated was “The safest place for a dog to be in the car is in a crate.”
Well, that was just not fun though! Part of what I missed about Eleanor was having a sidekick to ride shotgun with me. I envisioned all the road trips my future pup and I would take, and I wanted her to be next to me, not in a crate in the back.
Besides, I had just come from Yangon, where seatbelts often had not been available as I put my life in the hands of cab drivers who sometimes were not-so-sober, in traffic conditions where it had at times seemed that the only law of the road was to honk to let other drivers know where you are, and otherwise just try not to crash. I had ridden side-saddle on the back of many a motorcycle with no helmet. I had also ridden in the open back of many a truck, and once, even in the trunk of a car. I had stood in buses packed so tight that I had nothing to hold onto, comforted that if we crashed our bodies would all cushion each other. And I walked barefoot to school in the snow, uphill both ways….Okay, that last bit isn’t true. There certainly was no snow.
So, in such tame American traffic, why on earth would I worry about my dog being loose in the car?
And that’s how I felt about it, though I would occasionally have a twinge of guilt when I’d come across something reminding dog owners to crate their dogs in the car.
So, even when she was an itty bitty baby, Delia rode shot gun. She learned immediately that she wasn’t to crawl across into my lap, and she was good in the car.
More recently, I decided to put her in the back seat. She would hop back there anyway on longer drives so that she could stretch out and nap, so I started just putting her back there. It felt a little safer. But she was still not secured in any way.
And then last week Delia and I were dog/housesitting for my Aunt. (I’ll talk about that in my next post, which will be our little update post.) And on Sunday we drove around 2 hours each way to go hiking. Both dogs were in the backseat, but Delia was kind of restless having to share the space with Dutch.
At one point during the drive home, she did something she has never done before, which was to jump in the front seat and into my lap. I didn’t see her coming, so it startled me. While I was on a 65mph 2-lane highway.
Thankfully, I was able to tell her to get off, and she quickly jumped into the passenger seat, where she curled up and slept. But of course I realised how bad that could have been. If there had been a car on-coming and she had caused me to swerve. If, if…
And then I started thinking of how, like several of our family friends just recently, at any moment I could pass out or have a seizure, who knows. A semi-truck stupidly tried to pass me on the 2-lane road, and as he was taking forever to pass, I thought about how a car could come zipping over the hill just ahead, and his choices would be a head-on-collision or running me off the road. How would my loose dogs fare?
When it comes to things like this, I’ve always tried to live my life by the balance of these principles:
- “Who of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his life span?”
- “Time and unexpected events overtake them all.”
- “The shrewd one sees the danger and conceals himself, but the inexperienced keep right on going and suffer the consequences.”
Yeah, undue worrying does no good because sometimes stuff you can’t plan for and can’t do anything about is gonna happen. But. If you do foresee a danger, and there is a practical step you can take…take it!
As Delia is over a year old now and we’ll be doing more hiking, as well as likely travelling for different sports, and because even around town you just don’t know what might happen, I decided it was time to take some reasonable steps to make my car a little safer for Delia.
And yeah, maybe sometimes we’ll go to a back road, put her doggles on, and let her feel the wind in her face. You gotta have fun once in a while. But day-to-day, we’ll be making safer choices.
Well, it’s not Com(pemb)dium unless I give you a long-winded and unnecessary backstory, right? But now that’s over, let’s get into the practical steps!
Why Dogs Truly Are Safer in Crates
If you have to brake suddenly, your dog can hit the dash or the seat in front of them. That has proven in some cases to be enough to kill a small dog, unfortunately. If you turn sharply, it can fling your dog sideways. In a crash, dogs that are loose become projectiles. Even if a loose dog survives a crash, what happens then? All behavioural bets are off in the face of trauma. A normally calm dog may bolt in a panic, and the friendliest dog might bite first responders out of fear. At the scene of an emergency, your terrified dog is a potential danger. To himself, if he blindly flees down a highway full of drivers who are distracted by the accident ahead. To first responders, as he may lash out at them. And to you, as he could delay your getting the help you need. Whereas a dog that is in a crate will be contained safely until someone can turn their attention to him—and we’ll get to that.
Additionally, there are always dogs who jump out of moving vehicles through open windows—and if you say your dog has never done that before, yeah, it’s usually a dog that has never done that before! Or you get to the park and open the door for your dog like you always do, but today he has smelled something exciting and barrels past you before you can react, maybe darting into traffic. Or, your dog could jump into your lap or nudge your arm or do something else to distract your driving. Just so many scenarios.
So please just crate your dog. A dog that has been trained to love their crate will actually likely feel more secure and calm in there. I noticed that Delia settled much more quickly as we took our first crated ride. Usually she paces back and forth along the seat before settling down, and I hear her panting more. In the crate, she was immediately calm.
What Kind of Crate Should I Get?
This truly depends on your vehicle, your dog, and your budget.
I have zero expertise in this, and I’m not trying to make any statements that would get me in trouble.
One thing I would probably not recommend is a wire crate. Nothing against wire crates—that’s what Delia has for at-home, and I love how light-weight it is and how quick and easy it is to collapse it and bring it with us when we travel to a hotel or to house-sit. However, those are the same reasons why I would not feel comfortable using it in the car. Now, if that’s the only option you have, it would at least contain the dog while you’re driving and possibly prevent them from becoming a missile in a minor accident.
You can do your own research. The fact is that, as I understand it, North America does not have any regulations for crash testing of dog crates the way there are for people. There are organisations that perform crash testing, and there are companies that independently crash test their products. Probably more valuable, you can find people’s real-world examples with pictures of their car crash and how the crate and dog’s fared. Some of these were quite severe. But there are so many variables at play (how the crate is secured, the type and severity of crash, how big the crate is compared to the dog, etc. etc.) that, especially with no official guidelines for crash testing, and without proper dog test-dummies, I just don’t feel the crash tests are of the scientific rigour necessary to matter as much more than marketing.
The other fact is that these high-quality crates can get insanely expensive. And if you have multiple dogs, that’s definitely something to think about. Another issue can be getting them to fit in your car. I have a sedan, and though the back seats fold down, there still isn’t much room.
So, if you can afford one of the high-end metal or one-piece plastic crates and you feel good making that investment, go for it. For me, of the commonly touted safe crates out there, only Ruffland was truly in my price range, and for all the glowing recommendations, I have also seen some concerning things that made me not feel that it was worth it. I ended up going with a plastic vari-kennel style crate. I chose one that had nice thick plastic, metal bolts, and good ventillation. Is it fool-proof? No. But properly secured, it’s just going to have to do for now. She’s certainly much safer than she was when she was loose.
Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for not dropping hundreds of dollars on a crate, especially if you have multiple dogs. We’re all doing the very best we can, and at the end of the day, many people sadly do not survive car crashes even with all the safety measures and crash testing in place to keep humans safe. So we secure our dogs reasonably well, we buckle our seatbelt, and we hope.
My Setup
This is not perfect, but it’s what I have for now. It’s a little harder to achieve a great setup in a sedan than in a hatchback. There are crates that are designed for the backseat, and those can work. I wanted to potentially be able to use my backseat when Delia isn’t there, without having to move the crate in and out. Since my seats fold down, this is what I came up with.
I folded down one side of the seat and opened up the pass-through for extra ventilation. And I added a fan to make sure the air circulates back there. It’s designed for cars and plugs into the car outlet that’s in the backseat. You can also get fans specifically made for crates. Some have rechargeable batteries.
Here’s another picture of the crate from the trunk. I thought about facing it forward so that the crate’s door opened into the backseat, but I thought the trunk would be easier for loading and unloading her when there are cars parked to either side. And thanks to the ventillation holes, she’s still able to see into the car. She usually faces forward and looks calm and content when I glance back there.
You may notice that plastic protector thing clipped to the front. That’s the next thing I want to talk about.
In Case of Emergency Packet
If the worst were to happen and you were not able to speak up for your dog, it’s a good idea to have one of these for each dog that travels with you. There is a group on Facebook called “Dog Sport Vehicle Ideas & Set-ups” where you can find lots of inspiration on how to do these and what to put in them. I’m still reading through all the information there, so I’m sure I’ll add more to this, but here is what I have for now as an example.
I think the key is to make it very obvious as to what it is to ensure that in an emergency it will be read by responders or helpful bystanders. Also make sure the most important information stands out to someone reading quickly.
One important thing is to instruct that the dog be left in the crate if possible. This way the dog will not bite or flee in a panic. So this is what someone would see on the front of Delia’s crate door:
Those little trigger snaps hold the sheet protector to the door and hold it closed. If you unfold it, this is the inside page:
The yellow clip at the bottom is holding the sheet protector shut, and inside of that is are scanned copies of Delia’s health record showing her primary vet and her vaccine status, her rabies certificate, and her AKC registration (which also proves that I own her.) This packet can be easily slid out when the clip is removed.
Again, I’ll probably be adding to this further, and I will probably post an update when that happens. If not here, then to our Facebook page. But for now, it will do the job.
While we’re on this subject, it’s critical to plan for what happens to your dogs if something happens to you. But we can discuss that another time!
And that’s all I have for you today! It’s not pleasant to think about these things, but once we do and we have a plan in place, it really does bring such peace of mind.
I’ll be back soon with a little update post full of some fun Delia stories. Until then, please stay safe, friends!
And have a lovely day.
