COLUMN: Driving with your dog
Local dog trainer says it is important to consider both your and your dog’s safety and convenience when it comes to car travel.
• Nadine Whittal, dog trainer writes:
It happens more often than we think that we need to put our dogs in the car with us to go somewhere. Particularly if you train with your dog or walk with your dog, you tend to have it in your car on a weekly basis. As such, it is important to consider both your and your dog’s safety and convenience when travelling in a car.
The biggest ‘don’t’ when it comes to car travel is to allow your dog free rein in the car. There are a multitude of things that can go wrong. Firstly, if your dog gets excited and starts jumping around, or gets scared and tries to climb on your lap, it could impede your driving and cause an accident.
Secondly, if you need to hit the brakes particularly hard, you essentially have a projectile floating around your car. Just as children need to wear seatbelts, so do dogs need to be properly secured in your car.
There are a couple of different ways to do this. There is a wonderful invention called a doggie seat belt. Essentially it clips onto your dog’s harness and then latches into the seat belt mechanism just as a normal seatbelt does. The leash part of the belt is shorter than a usual leash so that your dog’s movement around a car is limited.
The other way to do this is to put a crate in your car. You can then put the dog in the crate whilst you are driving. The crate is nice and safe because it stops your dog from flying around or getting hurt, should anything unexpected happen. It is also very convenient because you can use the crate wherever you are going, should you need to keep your dog calm and quiet.
Travelling with dogs in the back of a bakkie requires far less restriction should the bakkie have a proper canopy. At no point should you secure your dog, by leash or rope, to an open-top vehicle. If your dog gets excited or gets a fright and tries to jump out of the vehicle, it will strangle or be dragged. Neither is a particularly good option.
All in all, you need to consider your safety, your dog’s safety and the safety of the other drivers on the road when travelling with your dog. That way, you are all happy and can get where you’re going with minimal effort.
