Independent Car Harness Safety Tests – Finally!
Until recently, there’s been no independent safety testing of car harnesses for dogs – only manufacturers’ claims in ads. Now the Center for Pet Safety, an independent nonprofit, reports and names names. Hang on to your seatbelts; it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
Jolanta Benal, CPDT-KA, CBCC-KA
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Independent Car Harness Safety Tests – Finally!
Looks scary right? But with a simple modification, this harness performed much better. Read on to find out.
As I’ve described in previous Dog Trainer episodes and blog posts, when it comes to keeping your dog and you safe during car travel – well, lots of luck picking equipment, because manufacturers make lots of claims but there was no independent testing to confirm them. Back in May, I reported on pilot tests done by an independent nonprofit, the Center for Pet Safety. All four harnesses tested failed catastrophically – but anonymously, because CPS didn’t want people to conclude that harnesses not tested were safe. Now the CPS is back with a more complete reportopens PDF file , and it names names.
The short version: most likely, if you want to travel safely with your dog in your car, you’re about to go shopping.
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What Makes a Good Safety Harness?
The CPS used its pilot study to set general standards for harness performance. In an accident, a good harness should keep the dog on the seat, of course. To protect the dog’s spine, it should also minimize “rotation,” sideways movement on impact. And it should limit “head excursion,” a term that might be familiar to those of you who’ve bought car seats for your kids. How far forward does the dog’s head move on impact? That’s head excursion. If the excursion’s too great, the dog’s (or child’s) head smacks the back of the front seat, causing potential injury.
How Harnesses Were Chosen for Testing
CPS chose to test small, medium, and large sizes of 11 harnesses whose manufacturers said they were “tested,” or “crash tested,” or “provided crash protection.” (One brand tested only went up to size medium, so the total number of harnesses tested was 32.) CPS bought the harnesses at retail, but they didn’t buy anonymously, the way Consumers Union does, and also they had the harnesses shipped directly to MGA Research Corporation. MGA is a crash-test contractor for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. So, theoretically, the harness manufacturers could have provided carefully selected samples for the testing. I don’t think it’s likely but it is, in my opinion, a slight weakness in CPS’s methodology.
The Preliminaries: Uh-Oh!
The 11 brands of harness underwent a preliminary “quasi-static” test. They were attached to a model of a dog, anchored to a fixture, and then pulled at. For any brand to qualify for more testing, every size of that brand of harness had to survive 5 seconds of pulling at a predetermined threshold. For instance, a harness for a 45-pound dog had to hold together for 5 seconds under 1,182 pounds of force. Lindsey Wolko, the director of CPS, explained the reason why, if any size harness failed this prelim test, that whole brand failed. The thinking was that failure at any size suggested either quality control problems or a problem with the manufacturing process as a whole. Makes sense to me.
All the harnesses that survived this part of the preliminary test were then pulled harder, until they broke apart or the force reached 4,000 pounds, whichever came first.
The Crash Tests: Uh-Oh, Revisited!
And now for the crash tests! CPS used the same conditions as the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard has established for child safety seats – the details are complicated, and probably the most important thing to know is that the impact takes place at 30 miles per hour.
Test dog strapped into harness on mobile test sled: check.
Harness properly secured: check.
“Test sled” equipment deployed: check.
And now for the results. Of the 11 brands of harness that made some safety claim, only 7 brands made it to the crash test. Next, 4 of the 7 crash-tested brands had a catastrophic failure of at least one size. And by “catastrophic failure,” we mean that the harness broke apart or that its attachment to the seatbelt came loose. Only one brand limited that “head excursion” enough to prevent the dog’s head from whacking into the front seat. And even in that brand, head excursion for the large size was pretty significant.
The Manufacturers Respond
Of the 11 brands of harness that made safety claims, only 7 brands made it to the crash test. Of the 7 crash-tested brands, 4 had a catastrophic failure of at least one size.
What’s the good news? When I spoke with Lindsey Wolko of CPS, she pointed out that these products don’t come from large, impersonal corporations but from small companies whose owners really do care about dogs (and the people who ride with them). Ms. Wolko called the harness manufacturers’ response “proactive,” and told me that at least one decided to reengineer their whole line after seeing the crash test results.
More good news: The top-rated harness, the Clickit Utility made by Sleepypod, performed even better when it was retested after a design modification. You can compare the performance of the large size in the “before” and “after” videos. (They’re the last two on the page.)
The second-ranked performer, the AllSafe made by the German company Kleinmetall, also did much better with a simple fix. Instead of using the tether supplied with the harness, you’d pass the seatbelt through the back of the harness itself. Result: The model dog gets banged around much, much less during the crash test, and so, presumably, does yours during an actual crash. I was sent a sample of the AllSafe by the pet supply company Mighty Mite Dog Gear, and I intend to use it with my dog – minus the tether. Check out the videos of how Kleinmetall modified the AllSafe repeatedly, here.
Plans for the Future
What next? CPS hopes to establish formal standards and to conduct retests on safety harnesses. To maintain its independence, it relies on private contributions for its work. Subaru of America, a company you may have heard of, is not a manufacturer of dog safety harnesses, and they funded this study. Subaru is obviously making itself look good here, but it doesn’t have a direct financial stake in the outcome. Lindsey Wolko tells me that CPS will not accept money from manufacturers of the products it’s testing, though it will take money from the American Pet Products Association. And, yes, from you!
And what about crates, I asked? I was remembering my very first episode on car safety for dogs, when I found plenty of scary exploding-crate videos online. Lindsey Wolko has seen those videos. Yes, she says, crate tests are on the agenda, as funding permits.
What About Dogs’ Comfort?
Another question that came to mind was comfort. Most dogs don’t voluntarily remain in a sitting position for long periods. The ever-reassuring Ms. Wolko tells me that all the tested harnesses permit the dog to lie down; it was simply convenient to use a model dog in a sitting position. So you don’t need to trade off comfort for safety. What a dog in a good safety harness can’t do is wander around the backseat. Well, neither can you when you’re strapped in. Tough. It beats making a very rapid acquaintance with the windshield if you’re in an accident.
Sometime when you’re not behind the wheel, write to me at dogtrainer@quickanddirtytips.comcreate new email. I get so many questions that I can’t respond individually, but check out past episodes – I might already have answered yours. And visit me on Facebook, where I’m The Dog Trainer. Finally, remember – if you’re texting or phoning while you drive, even with a hands-free, you might as well be driving drunk. So keep yourself and your human and animal family safe, and don’t do it!
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Dog in harness image courtesy of Shutterstock.
About the Author
Jolanta holds professional certifications in both training and behavior counseling and belongs to the Association of Professional Dog Trainers and the International Association of Animal Behavior Consultants. She also volunteered with Pet Help Partners, a program of the Humane Society of the United States that works to prevent pet relinquishment. Her approach is generally behaviorist (Pavlovian, Skinnerian and post-Skinnerian learning theory) with a big helping of ethology (animal behavior as observed in non-experimental settings).