Where to put puppy in vehicle?

[LostFrog]

Please help! We have a UK holiday booked in April, pup will be 7 months old (springer). Journey is approx 280miles.

We have a van and a car. There are 5 of us so no spare seat for the dog in either vehicle. We want to take our bikes and kayak so we need to take the van rather than the car. Normally he goes in the boot of the car.

Dh thinks dog will be ok on the floor by people’s feet in the van. I think we need to take 2 vehicles. What would you do? What do other people do?

Could he go in his crate in the back of the van? If he went on the floor by people's feet he needs to be secured for safety and I believe by law.

Not sure I'd be taking a second vehicle for a dog (and I'm a dog lover).

I wouldn't take a dog unrestrained or uncontained. Even a small collision could turn him into a projectile that injured someone else as well as injuring him. Not worth the risk IMO.

It is illegal to travel with your dog unsecured in the vehicle (crate or dog seatbelt thingy). The police have stopped people and fined them for this. Plus, as someone has already said, it is dangerous to all in the car (as well as puppy) to have it unsecured.

By law the dog has to be secured in a crate or on a seatbelt type restraint.
Is there anything he can be clipped onto if he's in the back on the floor?

My dog has a special harness with strap attached that clips into the standard car seatbelt mechanism.

I think I'd take two vehicles or reduce what you take with you. Can you hire bikes or kayaks there? Would that work out cheaper and less hassle that taking two vehicles?

We used to have vw camper vans and always took our dogs away with us. Smallest was on a harness on the front seat and the bigger two were in a large crate which was anchored in the rear floor space.

They are required to be restrained by law and as a pp said, I wouldn’t have them unrestrained/contained for safety reasons.

Thanks. Can’t put him in the boot because it is enclosed - there is a bulkhead between the boot and the back seats plus bikes are on the bike carrier on the back so we would have to take them off every time we opened the boot to get dog out.

I wondered about car harness but there are no spare seatbelt buckles to attach it to because all seats are taken iyswim. Can you fasten harness to something else??

There is no room for a crate in the back with us all in the van, there would be no room for anyone’s legs!

I think you’d need to take the second vehicle then or it doesn’t safe or comfortable

Yes to second vehicle. You need to have the dog properly restrained.

You can get seat belt thingies that loop through a seat belt as its plugged in round someone else. Like a baby strap on a plane. Could he be accommodated across laps this way? Our dog sprawls across laps but he is small

I’ve got a Bergan car harness which has a carabiner on the strap rather than something that plugs into the seatbelt slot if that makes sense. You can buy different length straps for it as well from memory. I just clipped mine underneath the seatbelt buckle. That might work.

If two people go in the van and three in the car doesn’t that leave an extra seat in the car ?

Could you put some sort of carrier on the car roof,or a trailer of some description, and re arrange some of the stuff from the van into it so you can have the crate in the van?

@LostFrog

Thanks. Can’t put him in the boot because it is enclosed - there is a bulkhead between the boot and the back seats plus bikes are on the bike carrier on the back so we would have to take them off every time we opened the boot to get dog out.

I wondered about car harness but there are no spare seatbelt buckles to attach it to because all seats are taken iyswim. Can you fasten harness to something else??

There is no room for a crate in the back with us all in the van, there would be no room for anyone’s legs!

Sounds like there is no room then. Dogs have to be restrained seat belts not just to bits of the car and being in the footwell is also illegal.

So long as it is restrained your obligations are met. Secure it to any cargo securing point on the van floor or seat runners. I would look for a point under the front seats accessible from the rear seats to secure the dog to do it can travel in the rear foot wells but be unable to get to the front.

It's illegal to take a dog unrestrained in a vehicle.

Also, even though it's technically legal, it's very dangerous to put the dog in the footwell because in an accident, the person in the seat will be slammed forward and may crush the dog with their feet.

It sounds like you have no room and need to take both vehicles. Put all the "stuff" in the van and put the dog in the car boot as noraml.

Does your van have an isofix point? If so you can get restraints on Amazon that clip onto that.

We use a crate for the back of our van to safely transport our dog. Best option, tbh.

We have a terrier about the same size, normally on a day to day basis he goes in the boot but when on long journeys (we do road trips probably 3 times a year, France or Northern Ireland from South East) he goes between the kids in the back seat. It is a bit of a squeeze but works fine usually, he has one of those clip in seatbelts and just crashes on one of the kids laps, could that be an option. Our car is usually full to the brink, so this is our only option