Dogs and baby in the car, safe travelling advice please

[rinkydinker]

Hi,
I have a small car, with three dogs and a baby. This has presented a challenge!

I have tried various configurations. I have had a steel mesh grill (out of a horsebox - v strong) in between front and back, with baby in front with me and dogs in back seat and boot. I have dog seat belts. If dh is there one of us squeezes the dogs up and sit behind the grill in the back.

I have had baby in the back, one dog in boot, two on front seat or one on frontseat and one in backseat. With the grill removed so I can access the baby but this is unsafe.

The trouble is; it is safer for baby to go on the backseat but for some odd reason dog seatbelts do not work on front seatbelts, I have tried several cars and my dog seatbelts will not go in any frontseat buckles. Which is very odd! I don't like the idea of loose dogs in the event of a crash. Can anyone recommend some that do?

One of the dogs is an old lady and she probably is on her last legs so really being sadly realistic in future I will have two. They are collie x and one is the size of a collie the other two are a little larger.

What do others do? I imagine most people have all the dogs in a large boot safely crated up! I am not sure how that works with larger dogs!

I guess if I had enough money I would get estate car but these are expensive and expensive to run....

[JadeJ123]

I've got 2 12 stone mastiffs and a 8 stone American bulldog so very large muscly dogs, and a DSD who's live with us 90% of the time. I've got a small ish car not overly small but not overly big, and usually DSD sits in the back and two go in the boot and one on the back seats.

[TeaPleaseBob]

Baby is perfectly safe in front seat if rear facing and airbag is off. This is a much better idea than in the back with a dog in my opinion.

Can you not have 2 dogs in the boot? I've had 2 collies in boot of a corsa and they were fine, not huge dogs I realise.