Dog cages for cars

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Discussion

zax

Original Poster:

1,033 posts

270 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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I started wondering... how many folks here use a cage when transporting their dogs in the car vs the standard load area?

Mine rides in the back of our Forester wearing a harness attached to the seat belt clip in the rear and there's a dog guard between luggage area and passenger compartment. He's pretty chilled in the car, enjoys the ride and likes to look out of the window. Usually to the rear where he can stare down cars following too close.

Thinking of getting a cage but since he really enjoys the environment right now my reasons are primarily safety related. In that case any cage would hopefully meet some sort of crash test standard. I do wonder how much protection most cages would offer over and above the car body, a rear end collision would be worst case scenario I guess.

Thoughts?


Smint

1,986 posts

42 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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Unless the cage had a serious steel frame, in which case it would weigh dozens if not hundreds of kgs, in the event of a rear end collision enough to penetrate the rear section then i'd have thought being confined to the cage could have worse results for the dog.
That's only my opinion, i'm far from an expert in these things and hope never to experience such an event with our 3 loose in the boot of our SG9 Forester.

To be fair they mostly ride loose in the boot of our 120 series Prado sized Landcruiser, both wifey and i feel they are safer in there due to the height of the back end and the obviously stronger rear section of the vehicle.

Tigerj

384 posts

103 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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We have a guard and splinter from these guys, http://guardsmandogguards.co.uk/?gad=1&gclid=C...

Made the spec, seems pretty solid (better than the universal ones). Best of both worlds not quite a crate but a bit more confined. We don’t belt the dogs in.

If you want a crate these are meant to be quite good. https://transk9.com/ Lots of shoots use them.


Pflanzgarten

4,901 posts

32 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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What’s the safety aspect, for the dog, for you or an attempt at both?

zax

Original Poster:

1,033 posts

270 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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Pflanzgarten said:
What’s the safety aspect, for the dog, for you or an attempt at both?
Rear seats are not used by people so with the rear seat space plus sturdy dog guard I'm not too concerned about the dog becoming a projectile and hitting us. In this case for the dog's safety.

As smint above also mentioned I do wonder if the safety aspect for the dog is overstated. So it's general wellbeing vs perceived safety - dog loves the car, but not super keen on cages. He'll do a bike trailer at a push but likes the roof to be open smile

Pflanzgarten

4,901 posts

32 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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zax said:
Pflanzgarten said:
What’s the safety aspect, for the dog, for you or an attempt at both?
Rear seats are not used by people so with the rear seat space plus sturdy dog guard I'm not too concerned about the dog becoming a projectile and hitting us. In this case for the dog's safety.

As smint above also mentioned I do wonder if the safety aspect for the dog is overstated. So it's general wellbeing vs perceived safety - dog loves the car, but not super keen on cages. He'll do a bike trailer at a push but likes the roof to be open smile
I get you, I use one of those black composite and alu things that you get on eBay and the like but it’s mainly to contain her in the huge depth of a pick-up truck, or allow me to carry tools and the dog so she doesn’t get squashed if something fell over in there.

Unless you needed to share the load space with other stuff and the dog I can’t see why you’d bother? As you say the dog is happy enough!

BigHeavy10

257 posts

78 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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As a dog handler, it's a requirement for me to have and use one. I have a number of crates/cages dependant upon how many dogs I'm carrying/taking to and from work. I mainly use my DT boxes DT1000XL with escape hatches.

The main idea behind them is safety - to prevent the dogs becoming a projectile in the event of a collision, they should be big enough for movement but small enough that in the event of a collision they aren't thrown around like a rag doll and the other reasoning for them is in the event of a collision should you be seriously injured or killed, they should keep your dog secured and not allow them to be thrown out of the vehicle or run around a crash scene. Having escape hatches is also a requirement for my work so that if I am rear ended and the boot can't be opened, I can get the dogs out from the interior.

Saying that, I only use the crates/cages for work. I rarely bother day to day. Dog usually gets clipped in on the back seat with a dog seat belt clip thing and quite happily sleeps while I drive.


pills

1,755 posts

244 months

Friday 1st September 2023
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I've got 2 for sale in the classified section. MIMsafe models.

Tomo1971

1,157 posts

164 months

Sunday 3rd September 2023
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I use Travall dog guard, their divider (splits the rear into 50/50 and then on each side a "gate" that stops them jumping out, and is lifted so that they can get in / out, plus folds back onto the divider if dogs are not there.

We could do without the gates and use harness straps to the tie down points but that restricts their movement a little, although I guess would be safer in the event of been rear ended as the 'gates' don't cover the full rear but enough to stop them jumping out.

SunsetZed

2,484 posts

177 months

Wednesday 6th September 2023
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zax said:
Pflanzgarten said:
What’s the safety aspect, for the dog, for you or an attempt at both?
Rear seats are not used by people so with the rear seat space plus sturdy dog guard I'm not too concerned about the dog becoming a projectile and hitting us. In this case for the dog's safety.

As smint above also mentioned I do wonder if the safety aspect for the dog is overstated. So it's general wellbeing vs perceived safety - dog loves the car, but not super keen on cages. He'll do a bike trailer at a push but likes the roof to be open smile
If you're worried about the dogs safety and the back seats aren't in use would the obvious solution not be to let him use those? That's what we do (with a seat cover to protect the seats).

Daveb257

1,010 posts

146 months

Tuesday 12th September 2023
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Having worked for Volvo in the early 2000s, (and seen an awful lot of crash test footage) Yoshi’s chariot of choice is a P2 V70, factory steel safety guard between rear seats and load area with the option of a load area fore/aft divider.
He has a bit of padding on the seat back behind the boot liner.
Why?
These cars were available with factory 7 seat option and can you imagine the swedes making an unsafe option for customers kids available? Of course not - the load space on a P2 is inside the safety cell not the normal philosophy of the boot/load area being a crumple zone


Autopilot

1,310 posts

191 months

Monday 18th September 2023
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I used my dogs for sport (Schutzhund) so had to have a crate. I had a TransK9, was a decent bit of kit and had a separator so I could keep both dogs in there.

When not doing sport, I’d only travel locally with the dogs so doubt I’d have bought the crate for just this task as I’d only travel a few miles on fairly remote roads so ‘less likely’ for anything significant to happen on the way to the various places I used to take them.

Wilmslowboy

4,316 posts

213 months

Monday 18th September 2023
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Wife uses them in her car.

In her previous discovery, a metal Transk9 box with the door taken off, stopped the dog rolling around the boot space, and also allowed us to still make use of the boot space.

In her ID buzz, she has two soft ones, again seems to make the dogs feel more secure and comfortable.

I only carry them for short local journeys in my own car, in which case they go “crate-less”.