Hi everyone

I've been googling round in circles as to what to put in my car :) I am looking at Barjo, Barnesbrook, Lintran or a Hamster Basket.
I have a Renault Kangoo - its the car version but I'm having the rear seats removed totally to make it more van-like, and my breed is Border Collies, so I need to bear that in mind - the car needs to transport a minimum of 4 of them at any one time.. Right now I have two large "great dane" sort of size crates in which they go in in pairs but they are really heavy and rattly so i'm keen to replace for all sorts of reasons!

I seem to be leaning towards Barnesbrook and Hamster baskets more for cost/versatility?
I am not so keen on Lintran for looks and cost
Barjo insist on you going to them for a fitting and I am in the channel islands so it automatically adds £200 to the cost..
Barnesbrook man has been very helpful but his pictures are hard to visualise
Hamsterbaskets - they look a bit flimsy and i'm not sure I like the style of the doors? 

If you have a cage from these manufactures would you mind pm'ing me with a pic (or putting on here if its allowed?) and how you find it?

Also pros and cons and opinions on them all welcome!! 

Isn't there a fabricator who could make some up for you over there?  Most fabricators have someone who's happy to do the bespoke stuff, just draw what you want and they'll do it....

I would say with your breed and the height of the van that you could happily keep your rear seats and have 4 double decker cages built in the load area, with your breed using them. 

I have seen quite a few of these in this type of van (Kangoo, Partner and Berlingo), and then with seats folded you could put in two standard folding crates when needed, for extra flexibility and keeop the option of passenger carrying.

With travelling from channel Islands the possibility of sharing travel costs woudl be an advantage.

of course cage sizes depend on the size of the dogs - border collies can vary so much it's difficult to say.  I've one who's about 18" at the shoulder and one who's 25" at the shoulder.  Measure up the space you've got and look at the dogs height and length to see what they need.  A word of caution on using fold up cages is that they're not very sturdy in an accident.  I haven't seen any Hamsterbasket cages for a while, but they weren't very strong when I did see them, and they had odd openings - top hinges rather than side hinges so you had to hold the door and the dog.  They've probably improved them a lot.

We do have a fabricator, but I haven't contacted them as I'm told he is mega expensive.

The door described seems to still be the same door the hamster baskets have, although they have hand holes so you can attach a lead first - i'm not so keen on that but if its the only negative to them, I can cope

My tallest BC is 21" at the shoulder, and even with him I worry that a double row wouldn't be big enough?

I have a Kangoo(with the back seats taken out) and have a Hamster Basket cage(with divider) which fills the whole of the back area.I love it as its sturdy enough for what I want(for 2 medium size dogs and 1 toy dog).Its lightweight so if I need to take it out thats easy and it doesn't rattle.It has side opening doors too.I paid about £300 for it new so it was by far the cheapest cage I could find.

I have Barnesbrook now, have had Barjo previously. Barnesbrook cheaper, but nowhere near the quality of the Barjo in my book. Was a bit disappointed at the space wasted, although he had my car there to measure, and I find them quite 'gappy' at the edges and nowhere near as robust as the Barjo. Escape doors at the back of the cage are tiny too, I'd hate to be trying to wrestle dogs out of those in a hurry.

If I were getting a long term car, it would be Barjo all the way for me, despite the cost and the long lead times.

M.

Helen could you pm me a pic please, it sounds like you have what I am looking at doing :)

If I thought I'd have this car for a while I'd go Barjo in a heartbeat but I'm considering going bigger and so it might end up being too expensive :(

the other aspect is that top speed here is 40milss an hour so accidents are typically less fatal or damaging which is why the Hamster baskets etc are in the running

Yes of course,Frenchfry,I will take some photos tomorrow and pm them to you.

I have had 3 bespoke car cages from Barnesbrook.  One for my Peugeot Partner (similar to kangoo) one for my Ford Focus Estate and one for my Ford Galaxy.

I like them because they

are strong
are high quality
are rattle free
unfold in the car so maximise height and width
can be stored easily as they fold if you take them out
can be posted to you
can have hooks put on for your leads and lines etc

I do between 30 - 40k miles per year (most of those with the dogs in)  so strong, silent and practical cages are vital for me.

Great service and nothing is too much trouble, eg my Focus had the whole back caged out with escape doors through the rear doors, not something other people do off the shelf and when I got quotes from other manufacturers they were ludicrous.

I am with Barnesbrook all the way, he tailor makes to your spec if you want bigger escape hatches he would make them. Totally agreement with tohme imo far superior to barjo. isnt it strange how different we are:)

Barnesbrook have been fabby with us in the past. He is a doggy person and an inventor by trade so will try to think of the very best layout for your vehicle and happy to add extras like lead hooks, a ramp etc. We currently have wooden cages that can travel 10 collies in one of the van, made by a neighbour at the last place I lived who was a retired engineer. They took him forever to make (because he was a perfectionist lol) but I love them to bits and recently paid a joiner £200 to transfer them from my old van to my newer one 'cos I love them so much. (It still worked out miles cheaper to do this than pay someone to make me a new set of cages all over again, the quotes were coming in at well over £1,000.) Perhaps a joiner could do the same for you?

Do you not find the wood gets dirty/stained and is hard to clean?

No the wood doesn't get dirty at all and is varnished/stained. Don't forget, the wood is only the framework bit, the majority is the mesh.

do you have a pic? I can't picture what you mean [blush]

I could take some pics and get you to message me so I can send them. The other way to imagine it is - think of a normal dog crate. Now think of all the edges of that crate being made of wood. So it's like having mesh panels with a wooden frame? Mine are a little more complicated than that as they have interconnecting doors, removable dividers, escape doors on two sides and the whole arrangement is an L shape with two rows of cages. 

> Now think of all the edges of that crate being made of wood. So it's like having mesh panels with a wooden frame?

My big worry with wooden framed crates would be if the vehicle was ever involved in an accident and the wood snapped and could impale the dogs on the sharp splintered ends. I did consider making my own crate in that way but decided against it for the reason stated.

I have a BarnesBrook crate fitted to my car's measurements and Dave at BB couldn't have been more helpful and would definitely - and have :-) - recommend his crates.

That is a good point, Harley, but I think it is also worth mentioning that, unless there is one I don't know about, there are no BSi/EN/ISO standards for crates or canine seat belts.
I can be very hard to tell by looking a crate just how it would behave on impact.  It will only be as good as it's weakest component which will probably be its joints but again they can look really strong and chunky but actually quite brittle under stress.
I really don't know why a manufacturer does not go down the testing route, yes, it would cost plenty but I am sure they would clean up on sales.

I personally think a crate that might crumple a bit might be a good thing - possibly along the lines of crumple zones that are built into cars to help dissipate the force of impact in the event of an accident. Of course it's getting the right ratio of strength to crumple that is the problem but hopefully any restraint is better than none in emergency situations. I tend to use my crates for two reasons - the first being that the dogs aren't going to be thrown around the car in the event of an accident which is not only dangerous for the dogs' health but can be fatal for any humans that the dogs are thrown into. The other reason I use a car crate is to be able to leave my dog in a secure place in an unlocked, open car whilst I am walking courses for agility - the crate can be locked but the car gets all the ventilation it needs to keep my dogs cool ( sun covers over the car as well).

For the last 20 odd years we have had Guardsman by Athag, in our opinion you can't beat them, (several different ones for different cars).  Before anyone says that they are very expensive we believe you only get what you pay for.  After being involved in a horrid accident on the M6 with 2 Boxers in their Guardsman crates we would not put anything else in our vehicles. The cages saved not only their lives but ours too.

Guardsman are another who want me to come to the mainland for fitting. I'm trying not to be cheap about it (since its my dogs safety), but when the ferry is £200 before you add in petrol and the crates and guards it bumps it up to silly money before you know it :(

I think there is one company who make crates that are crash tested (think I saw them at Crufts) but the cost is ££ from memory

http://www.safedog.co.uk/ I knew I'd seen them!

However, as previously said, there are no BSi/EN/ISO standards for cages or seatbelts, and many cages have been "crash" tested on the road, very successfully. ;)

> However, as previously said, there are no BSi/EN/ISO standards for cages or seatbelts, and many cages have been "crash" tested on the road, very successfully.

Exactly.  They can all produce pictures of cages holding out, it is unlikely they will publish any pictures where the particular stresses applied did not enable the cage to hold up.  Only independent testing is really of any value. 

I get what you're saying about maybe wood not being as sturdy as a metal framework but the maker was a retired South African engineer who took 3 months to make them because he was such a perfectionist. They are very robust so I'm happy they're as good as they can be. On the current van (lwb), the cages start about a foot or two away from the back doors so I've got that safety margin to play with as well. Since I never use the dividers and have the option to close/open the interconnecting doors, hopefully the dogs have got space to move to a safer place in the event of a collision. There are 10 doors in total so fairly good for being able to fish them out from either the back, the sides or inside the van itself.

Guardsman are probably THE most solid cages but they are soooooo heavy, making them more expensive to have in the back of the car all the time and less practical if you are wanting to take the cages out for any reason. They also show the rust more, being a silver colour, but very impressive looking cages. They come up on Fleabay quite often (under dog cage/dog crate) and you can get some real bargains.

> hopefully the dogs have got space to move to a safer place in the event of a collision.

I really don't think that is a possibility.  When a vehicle stops suddenly you keep moving in the direction of travel.  It is never a question of choosing where to move to. In fact the more space you have the futher you travel and the greater the force when you do come to a halt, hence we wear seatbelts.

Barjo will custom make the doors larger if you ask. I have an MMG tailgate guard which has a split top/bottom. Fantastic to open the top & grab leads before they pile out. They also made it wider than standard for me and sent it by "post."

We live in the far north of Scotland and have never been asked by Athag (Guardsman) to take the vehicle to them to be fitted - wouldn't have considered them if they had. We've had cages for every new vehicle we've had - Renault Estate, Peugeot Estate, Jeep Cherokee (twice), Renault Trafic etc etc.  We just phone with the details of the new vehicle, they make and send by courier.  They are certainly crash tested in our case, car was completely written off, looked like a triangle!!! Safety is paramount.

Having an accident is not the same as crash testing.  Laboratory testing would involve applying shock from all angles and at different speeds.

hopefully the dogs have got space to move to a safer place in the event of a collision.

I really don't think that is a possibility.  When a vehicle stops suddenly you keep moving in the direction of travel.  It is never a question of choosing where to move to. In fact the more space you have the futher you travel and the greater the force when you do come to a halt, hence we wear seatbelts.

Sorry, perhaps I should have written "hopefully the dogs have got space to move to a safer place after a collision" as they either have an L shaped arrangement of cages which takes up the whole back of an LWB van or a huge double cage (depending on whether I close interconnecting doors or not). So more options than a dog in a straightforward crate. Must admit this is not my reason for giving them so much space - you can't live your life on what ifs - I just like them to have lots of room and they choose where they want to lie and can change their minds as they wish.

PS Didn't mean to make this sound like a 'my crates are better than metal crates' debate, I just love my crates lol.

They are certainly crash tested in our case, car was completely written off, looked like a triangle!!! >

">Having an accident is not the same as crash testing.  Laboratory testing would involve applying shock from all angles and at different speeds.

To stooge - my remark above was made tongue in cheek.

Ooh, silent metal crates, I'll make a note of that for next time I need a crate. Actually the rattling doesn't bother me too much, but my hubby is TERRIBLE!! We have to have fabric crates in our car or he will stop time after time to get out and fiddle with them to try and stop the rattling. By the time we've travelled 10 minutes I'm ready to throw HIM out! :-D

Just seen this on fleabay, sounds like he will post to you

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dog-transit-box-hand-made-order-/270862056901?pt=UK_Pet_Supplies_Dogs&hash=item3f10a2fdc5

On the Agilitynet Fleamarke there are two lots of sellers who have the tailgate guard/dog guard and another seller who has a set of 3 cages for a Berlingo

The Safedog crates aren't cheap!  However, as well as being crash tested they're extendable to fit the length of your vehicle, so you don't necessarily need to change crate each time you change your car.  But they do need to be placed behind the rear seats in your vehicle in order to be safe, so not ideal for someone with a minimum of four collies.

had a look on agility net but a lot of people can't/won't ship to here.

have contacted barnesbrook who hve done a fab drawing of what i want and i've asked for a price estimate, and i've emailed hamster baskets tonight.

The car since I posted this has had a load of things die on it, so I'm thinking its likely to only be here a relatively short while before I upgrade it, and so for now I'm going for the cheaper options. Once I upgrade it, Barjo all the way I think :D