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Travelling in a car with puppy/dog

12 replies

mintchocchick · 09/09/2013 09:40

I'm not sure how best to take my 8 week old puppy in the car. We brought him home in a washing basket with me on the back seat to mind him and it worked fine.

But not safe without that person in the back as the washing basket would be all over the place. Our crate is too big to put in the boot.

Wondering about a collapsible travel crate but this feels a bit like having your first baby and feeling like you need specialist equipment for every different activity! I need a short term solution as hoping to pop out in car this afternoon for school run and longer term once I can get to pets at home. What are those car harnesses like for a puppy?

OP posts:
Cheddars · 09/09/2013 09:59

How about a cardboard box in the passenger footwell? Grin

mintchocchick · 09/09/2013 10:01

That might work though I'd worry he'd climb onto the seat.

The only cardboard box we have I cut one side away so he could have it as a bed with a cosy bit of vet bed inside - he ignores it completely and prefers to sleep on the floor! Despite the floor being cold tiles.

I need a box and a way of keeping him in the box.

OP posts:
EmpressOfTheSevenOceans · 09/09/2013 10:04

We've got dog seatbelts for ours that clip onto their harnesses and plug in to the normal seatbelt sockets. They lie on the seat on their fleeces and normally end up going to sleep.

moosemama · 09/09/2013 10:07

It is advisable for a dog to be restrained in some way in the car, both for their safety and your's as the driver - so either a crate, travel harness and seatbelt loop or decent quality dog-guard.

There is no law in the UK for them to be restrained, but they are required to be under control, so if there's someone with you it's fine for them to be on lead in the footwell or on someone's lap, but that's not not ideal in the event of an accident, iyswim.

If he's still tiny and would be unable to jump out - the cardboard box idea is actually quite a good one. Some people use cat baskets when pups are tiny and then seatbelt them into the back seat so they're held securely.

Cheddars · 09/09/2013 10:18
mintchocchick · 09/09/2013 10:36

Thanks.

As a short term solution, I'm going to try the box in footwell and attach his lead to the box somehow so he can't climb out.

In the longer term the harnesses look OK though I'd imagine it will take a while to get him used to wearing one.

OP posts:
EmpressOfTheSevenOceans · 09/09/2013 10:53

Getting used to it hasn't really been an issue for our two, mint - they always wear harnesses instead of collars, and the seatbelts just clip on where we'd normally put the lead.
Your puppy is gorgeous, by the way!

moosemama · 09/09/2013 11:02

Aw, I missed the photo!

He's gorgeous mintchock - like rl teddy bear. Grin

mintchocchick · 09/09/2013 12:52

Thanks to you both. He is just like a fluffy puppy toy, can't really believe he's real and he's ours! But I'm a bit nervous about everything to do with him and I'm a bit stressed just wanting to get it all right and not cause problems down the line.

When I was a teenager we had a dog who had been badly treated by its first owners before it was abandoned obviously causing even more stress and although we loved him, he had behavioural problems and had a reduced quality of life because of it. So I feel this huge burden of responsibility. But day 3 and so far so good!

OP posts:
elastamum · 09/09/2013 12:58

To be safe you must restrain your dog in the car with either a seatbelt or a crate / dog bars in the boot, as in an accident you could be killed or seriously injured by an unrestrained dog - or the dog could cause an accident messing about. Our dog is 40kg - imagine being hit by that at 30mph!

Start as you mean to go on. Decide how you are going to travel your adult dog and treat the puppy the same way

moosemama · 09/09/2013 13:07

Best advice I can give you is to relax and enjoy him mintchoc. So many people try too hard to do everything perfectly and find it takes a lot of the fun/joy out of having a pup.

Basically all you need to do is:

1.) Decide on your house rules (eg is he going to be allowed upstairs, on furniture etc) and be consistent from the off.

2.) Carry him out and about as much as you can to expose him to the world and reward him for being calm and/or reacting appropriate to new and novel sights, sounds and smells. Then get him to puppy classes as soon as he's had all his jabs.

3.) Make training part of every day life and make it fun. So for example, sit and wait and come can all be part of meal times, down can be incorporated into playing with a favourite toy etc. Lots of very short sessions are the way to go, you don't need to do great big complicated, planned training sessions at this age.

4.) Distraction, redirection and reward are a million times better than telling off or any other form of negative intervention and actually help build and reinforce your bond with your pup, rather than damaging it like punitive methods do.

Sometimes it can seem like such a huge, scary thing, especially if you're trying to follow puppy books to the letter. (Something akin to trying to follow one of the myriad of baby books there are on the market and finding you have no time to have a life around the routine, iykwim.) It doesn't have to be like that though.

billybobbatman · 09/09/2013 15:44

We have one of these:www.amazon.co.uk/Rosewood-Options-Seat-Carrier-Medium/dp/B005ERK784/ref=pd_sim_sbs_petsupplies_31
keeps the dog safe (he is restrained by a lead in the carrier) and seats clean.

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