Evidence-based approaches to safe and welfare-positive dog transportation in vehicles.
Dog car transport encompasses multiple welfare dimensions: physical safety in accidents, psychological welfare during the journey, and protection from heat-related illness. Most dogs traveling in vehicles are entirely unrestrained, creating serious injury and fatality risk in collisions while also constituting a safety hazard for human occupants. The welfare-protective approach starts with crash-tested restraints — very few of the restraints marketed for dogs survive crash testing, making product selection important. Travel anxiety is common in dogs, particularly those without positive early vehicle experiences, and causes genuine suffering during journeys. Gradual desensitization, management of motion sickness, and appropriate restraint methods that allow comfortable positioning can transform travel welfare for anxious dogs. Heat in parked vehicles kills dogs rapidly and remains a significant preventable cause of death.