Jump to content
BC Boards

Experience with Gunner brand crate for car travel? Other recommendations?


Recommended Posts

Looking for crash-safe kennel/crate for car travel

Walt is now 16mos old...and my youngest kid is 18 and headed off to college this fall.

That means I will be back to driving 4-5 hrs to/fro (also, my extended family lives near where she will be going to school, so hoping to bust out of pandemic isolation and visit more often).

Typically, Walt rides in the center of the back seat in my Subaru Forester for quick trips around town, secured with a harness and a short car seatbelt thing...and always with either my daughter or son next to him in the back seat.  But, for highway driving when I will potentially be the only human in the car, I want him to have a safe kennel.  (Our old man Kip/rescued as an adult was too much of a weirdo to like riding in cars.  Walt, OTOH, travels nicely...so this is not really a problem I had to solve before now...)

I have looked online at Gunner kennels.  Anyone have any experience with these?  Others?

Thanks in advance and here's a pic of Walt and kid.

Walt.JPG

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A slightly different perspective. I have crash tested harness for my dogs, prior to COVID we would drive from Mallorca, Spain to the UK once a year which is about 1400km usually I do either there or back on my own, plus I travel to the mainland to compete in agility in random towns I haven’t been to be before and I like having my dogs close, strange things can happen at highway service stops, and no one has ever come near my car with 2 sizeable dogs in the back, especially one that barks when people come near the car! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 hours ago, alligande said:

A slightly different perspective. I have crash tested harness for my dogs, prior to COVID we would drive from Mallorca, Spain to the UK once a year which is about 1400km usually I do either there or back on my own, plus I travel to the mainland to compete in agility in random towns I haven’t been to be before and I like having my dogs close, strange things can happen at highway service stops, and no one has ever come near my car with 2 sizeable dogs in the back, especially one that barks when people come near the car! 

alligande, would you give the name and brand of the crash-tested harness you use? I have been seeking one. Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 7/18/2021 at 6:50 PM, D'Elle said:

alligande, would you give the name and brand of the crash-tested harness you use? I have been seeking one. Thanks!

I use sleepypod harnesses. When we came to Europe I bought an Allsafe German harness with us, it’s very German and it doesn’t use any buckles and is a real pain to put on and take off, plus it just didn’t look that comfortable, but it was made really well. When I got my second border collie, once he was an adult I went looking for a new harness and found the US based sleepypods, and promptly bought one for my older dog as well. 
They are well made, much more comfortable for the dog, easy to take on and off, there are no buckles that can fail where the harness attaches to the seat belt. 
 

neither harness is a walking around harness, the sleepypods are fine for travel breaks but I wouldn’t want to use one on a walk. 
 

Both my husband and I feel that we want the dogs in the passenger part of the car and not in the crumple zone of the car, especially on the busy highways. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, alligande! I will look into those.

I have never been happy with the travel harnesses I have used and these days don't use them at all, as they are clearly uncomfortable for the dogs and don't look to me as if they'd do much good if there were a real crash. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, D'Elle said:

I have never been happy with the travel harnesses I have used and these days don't use them at all, as they are clearly uncomfortable for the dogs and don't look to me as if they'd do much good if there were a real crash. 

I hope you like them, we have modified how we use them which doesn’t make them as safe but we feel will still be effective in a crash, particularly with 2 larger border collies who weigh enough to make the seat belts work properly. 
 

What we have done is rather than have the seat belt feed through the back of the harness which keeps the dog secure to the seat but really restricts their wriggle room, which would be fine of shortish trips but not 14 hour ones. We use a short loop of rope that is called a soft shackle and link that through the back of the harness and seat belt, it gives them an extra 6/8 inches of movement, means they will move on impact but will be pulled up before slamming into the front seats and certainly can not become airborne. The shackle is a speciality piece of kit used on racing sailing boats and came of a 100ft boat so is certainly strong enough to restrain a border collie. They are comfortable and relaxed in the car, safe in the passenger compartment, and acting as faux body guards for me. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, allingande. I will definitely look into that, plus the modification you made. I wish I had time to do it before leaving Monday for a long road trip, but will look into it when I get back again. I have abandoned the use of travel harnesses, because I felt they were not necessarily that safe, and on a two or three day road trip with 10 hours of driving each day, it seems imperative to me that my dogs get to move around. We stop every two hours to get out and stretch for 5 minutes, and they have the whole back seat plus the foot well which I build up with luggage so that they get that extra 4" or so, but it's still not much room. They like to change positions, get close to each other, get far apart, and so on. The modification you talk about should work well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...