Some of you may have seen the idle chat about Rufus our flat coat retriever who has been in a horrific car accident. He was in his crate in a Land Rover but nevertheless suffered extremely serious injury - a broken back. We still do not know whether he will survive. We live in hope and want to be able to transport him home in the safest possible way.

We have ordered a custom-built crate and will meet the builder on Monday. We hope eventually to transport 2 dogs in the future, it will therefore have a removable partition. What would be the best way to build this crate from a maximum safety perspective? Its sole purpose is transport, i.e. not a show/home crate.

Alice and Thøger

Thoger
I think it's a hard balance between allowing the dogs freedom of movement and keeping them confined in the event of an impact .
I would imagine if it is a permanent fixture in the car it would be attached to the rollbars but not impede the crumple zone
I'm sorry if this is no help -maybe speak to the manufacturer for their recommendations .
wishing you and yours a speedy recovery and fingers crossed for Rufus ,It sounds like he's making progress :)
Liz

Alice and Thøger,

Firstly, do you use your Landrover off road? If the answer is yes, then maybe you could consider fitting a roll over cage, if your finances can stretch to it? If not, then a 'made to measure', steel dog cage will do the trick. The advantage of having 'made to measure' cages is that they will fit very snuggly without needing permanent fixtures. Permanently fixing the cages to your vehichle can infact cause problems :-) I would recommend that you have rear escape doors fitted to the cages too, to cover a rear end shunt.

Dear Leigh

Thanks for your reply. what do your mean by a roll over cage?

Kind regards

Alice and Thøger

Hi Alice and Thøger.

A *roll cage* is steel pipework inside (or outside) of the vehicle, that strengthens and protects occupants of said vehicle, in the event that the vehicle rolls over in an accident. It will not contain your dogs in the event of an accident, but if you do a lot of off road driving, it might be worth the investment :-)

Do you not have a specialist firm such as Guardsman UK who make purpose built, steel dog cages?

Leigh

Back to the dog transporting itself...the best place in a sedan/compact car is behind the front seats on the floor. But most dogs won't stay there. I would have the box that is being built lined with foam padding and have it so it is NOT a square. That way there are more likely to stand with the body facing the same dirrection all the time. Now if the box is built like that, you pu the box sideways, so in an front or rear impact the dog will hit its' side and not its' face.

Welcome to the forum Bryan :-) How do you stop your dogs chewing the foam lining?