I don’t have a hatch back just back seat. I’ll need to drive to puppy class in the next couple of weeks. What is the best way to transport pup- travel crate or harness and seat belt?
I have an suv so a nice big boot, but I also have a puppy who gets car sick. My advice, regardless of whether you choose a crate or to have the puppy on the back seat, is to make sure you have an easy to clean surface under the dog! I’m sure I read that car harnesses should not be used on puppies? I could be wrong though. We use a tied down crate. After much research it seemed to safest thing for the dog and human passengers, and as it turns out, it keeps the mess contained very well! She will outgrow it at some point but hopefully she will be better in the car by then (the vet said she should get better as she gets used to it) and we will just have her in the boot with a dog guard.
Probably a crate. Harness and seatbelt they can get tangled up. I speak from experience as harness and seatbelt clip is what I use. You can buy a cover that creates a 'cradle' of the back seat too. That looks interesting and they are relatively inexpensive. I'd like to try one sometime. There are different designs. If you try one of those I'd watch it is designed well enough so puppy can’t get stuck between it and the sides of the car.
I have never used a crate with Mia so I can't really speak for that but Mia's absolutely FAVOURITE thing is to ride in the car! So much so that she doesn't even care about getting out at the other end. I drive a Corsa so my boot is really deep but not very wide so Mia has always ridden on the back seat with a seatbelt attached to her harness. I got a waterproof seat cover that hooks over the headrests of the back and front seats so it essentially looks like a hammock across the back seat, which works really well for keeping the hairs from sticking to the seats, I think it was about £20 from Amazon. If I go out with my dad and his lab then Mia will ride in the boot of his estate car with the other dog and she's equally as happy there, I think it is primarily about just making sure that your dog enjoys being in the car and doesn't see it as something to be wary of.
We rehomed Mia at 4 months old, we took our other dog to meet her when we were bringing her home so she rode in the boot that time and it was the first time that she had been in a car. I had to take her into our vets for a check up a couple of days later as they wanted to see her before changing her onto their records and I quite quickly realised she was not going to go in the boot of my car so that time I sat in the back seat with her and got my boyfriend to drive down there and she was completely chilled out so I made the decision then that she was better off in the back seat with a seatbelt than having to get my dad to ferry us round in his estate car. We have never looked back, Mia loves coming with me at any opportunity. I'm not really sure if there is any sort of guideline as to what age they should be doing that but for me, I felt comfortable with travelling her that way knowing that she had a correctly fitting harness and that she was happy to be doing it. I think the earlier you can get dogs accustomed to things the better they seem to take to it, but that is only my opinion.
Since my initial reply, we have ditched the crate as the dog was getting increasingly stressed every time we went in the car. We now use a Kurgo car harness which has been crash tested and she’s much happier. She just lies down on the back seat, and her car sickness seems to have resolved too... although we’ve stuck to short journeys so far to get her used to it.
