Pet Safety – Car Harnesses Awareness
This month at Two Little Cavaliers we are celebrating Pet Safety Month as a way to give back to our readers and help pet owners keep their pets safe. We started the week off with 10 Summer Safety Tips. On Tuesday we discussed BBQ Safety since it is an activity that many of us will engage in multiple times during the summer months. On Wednesday instead of Fireworks Safety which we have discussed multiple times in the past I decided to take the opportunity to talk about Flash Flood Safety since many areas of the South had their 4th of July rained out and instead filled with Flash Flood Warnings. Today we discussed Pet Food Safety Tips.
I thought I would take the opportunity to talk about Car Harnesses Awareness. All of our long time readers know that making sure your pets are secure inside the car is something that we are very passionate about. We have discussed how to keep your pet safe in cars but we have not really gotten into specific brands or manufacturers. The Center for Pet Safety has a message for everyone – Just because you are securing your pet in the car does not mean they are actually safe. Some manufacturers claim to crash test their products which one would think means they passed. In fact there were no car harnesses tested by the Center for Pet Safety that passed their crash test. That is a very scary statistic – how can these companies claim their products are safe when some failed so dismally? How can these companies get away with making Car Harnesses that are so sub par? There is no regulatory body when it comes to pet safety car harnesses. Anyone can come up with an idea, create a product, market it as crash tested even if the only part of the product that passed was made by another company and then purchased or use in the car harnesses.
I think it is time that we as pet owners demand that any company making and selling car harnesses for our pet actually pass a crash test. Right now there are some car restraints that are better then others but honestly none are as effective and safe as we want to believe they are. Unfortunately this one is a buyers beware. There are some new car harnesses on the market but until the Center for Pet Safety releases their latest crash test findings you will need to use your best judgement and hope that the product you chose really truly has created a product that will help save your dog or cat in an accident or sudden stop.
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Really enjoying your safety posts this week! We are currently in the market for a new harness as Luna keeps getting her feet tangled in the buckle attachment.
Elizabeth recently posted..Luna Has Purple Paws
Hi Y’all!
Thanks for hosting another Saturday Blog Hop! Hoppin’ good fun! BOL!
I’ve gone through several car harnesses. Ate the seat belt in the car, ate the attachment…figured out how to unhook one that clicked into the attachment where the human seat belt attaches…sigh…all I have to do is wait for the Human to get busy driving and she can’t pay any attention to what I’m doing! BOL!!! Most of the time my Human takes the SUV where I’m stuck in a crate in the back…but when they need to take the car, I’m stuck with a harness.
Y’all come by now,
Hawk aka BrownDog
Yes, if we can protect ourselves, we can certainly protect our pets. Following from the Pets Bloggers Blog Hop!
For a long time I’ve preached that people need to secure their pets in a moving car or truck. Our harnesses are 15 yrs old, but they look nothing like the ones I’m seeing these days–especially the ones in the videos of the test-failures.
I wish I could remember the manufacturer’s name of the ones we have, but I can’t even find them after 10 pages of a Google search.
So many of the videos of these tests that I’ve seen have extenders, plastic buckles failing, etc. Ours have none of that. The seat belt actually has to go through the back of the harness itself. You’re supposed to set the seat belt in the locking position the way you do child seats. They don’t have a lot of movement, but I figure that if I can’t move from my own seat belt, then I’m not doing anything unfair.
I HAVE thought about getting extenders to give them extra room to move, but since these videos came out, I won’t be doing that. We FULLY agree with you! For the safety of the human alone, these items need to be proven as actually safe instead of giving users a false sense of security. I can’t imagine how awful it is for the people that wreck using these products & lose their dogs because they didn’t realize what would happen when these failures occur!!!
Great post! I use a regular harness for my kids in the car. I hook them to the metal ring on the side of my SUV that is actually for the seat connection. I used a coupler to hook them to it. It gives them enough room to sit, stand, and lay down, but it actually stops them if I stop suddenly.
Laura @ For the Love of Dogs recently posted..My Very First Awards!
Thank you so much for posting this information — I have been looking into all the different car harnesses available and trying to figure out what is reliable and safe. This was so helpful in my search 🙂 Car safety is so important to us too — and I want to make sure our babies are as safe as possible in the car.
Sarah recently posted..What is this rescue stuff all about anyway?
Great safety info! Thanks for the Blog Hop!
Jane recently posted..Hardly Wordless Wednesday
I saw a video about crash testing a while ago that showed a bunch of them failing. Now I see manufactures of such harnesses stating something to the effect that these harnesses are to restrain pets and keep them from being a distraction that might cause crash – not that they will protect your pet in the case of a crash. I agree the marketing has been, and still is, misleading in a lot of cases. It’s said because there are people out there buying them thinking that it will save their pet. I use a restraint on Chester and Gretel but it is to keep them from flying forward if I have to hit the breaks hard (not a crash). They are already trained to not get in the drivers seat with me so I am not worried about that. However, I am still not sure that tethering them to a fixed point is not going to make things worse in a crash. Yes, they may not run into traffic but I feel like it makes them kind of like a pinata 🙁
Jessica@YouDidWhatWithYourWeiner recently posted..Saving Animals Doing What We Love – Petties Award
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