Does anyone know of a good value retailer that would sell a dog guard for a Saab 900?  (I have tried google, but I can only find them for about £85 and upwards!) We haven't had one until now as Molly always lies down in the boot and the gap between the roof and the backrest of the back seat is small enough to keep her in her place... or so we thought: Molly has started to panick abut lorries and trucks coming up behind us and will force her way through to the back seat, which is not safe at all. A crate that would be big and comfortable enough for  a Giant Schnauzer won't fit into the boot, so a dog guard is the only option. So I would appreciate anyone sharing any info about reasonably prized guards.

Thanks,
Soph

Have you tried ebay? Im sure it will have some available for good prices :)

I don't know the prices of them but what about the universal ones you can get?  Will they fit the saab? 

I hadn't thought of a universal one! Where do you think I should look for one? (any recommendations?)
Thanks,
Soph

Mine came from Halfords, quite cheap about £20 I think, and it fits pretty much any shaped boot space, can be expanded to fit any width too!!

Hi you could try a Saab dealers maybe they can order one for you.

LOL :p I just read that as 'where can I get a guard dog for a Saab?' I though it was the biggest WUM yet!!! I'll wake up in a minute, twas a late night training yesterday. :rolleyes: :-)

http://www.dogcages.net/index.htm

Please invest in a made to measure guard that is robust enough to stand up to a giant schnauzer hitting it with force in case of impact.

I am afraid the £20 versions from the likes of Halfords are NOT adequate.

Agree completely Tohme. Those cages such as Argos etc are not designed properly for car use. If someone drove into the back of a car with one in it would collapse around the dog crushing them too. The proper ones are reinforced so anyone drove into the back of me, my Bargo cage would still protect the dogs even though the car crumbled around it. They also have emergency escape doors in case you can't get to the back of the car.

Some of these cages do look stronger than others but when I last investigated a new one I found there was no testing carried out to British Standard, or any Standard come to that.  I would doubt very much that a collision that could crumple your rear end could not crumple any cage on the market when I spoke to Barjo, Lintran and all the rest of them nobody made any bones about that. I think we have to regard them as just a means of securing the dog against flying through on a front end shunt or when the boot is opened but if you want greater protection than that the cage really has to be located within the body of the vehicle to benefit from the passenger protection.

if someone drove into the back of my car, the dog would be crushed anyway.  Sorry but disagree...  for the amount of times my dog is in my car, it is perfectly adequate thank you...
edited to say, i'm talking about a gate type contraption, not a dog crate, which I use for long journeys.......

I you are talking about something to stop your dog accessing :) the back seat then yes the Halfords type guard would be fine.  They work on a principle of expanding to fill the gap as they are not custom made so you will need to have a good look at one and judge whether your dog is capable of pushing the expansion piece aside and squeezing through as mine is :)

hi isabel, yes that's what i am talking about, i thought we all were.....  Anyhow, yes that's why I responded because we have found that one to be very good.  Its pretty robust but and does expand to fill in the gaps well enough to contain the dog and she is safe in the boot, I'm sure.  Believe me, I wouldn't put her in there unless I really thought she was, she's my babe!!!  :)

As the boot of a car is the 'crumple zone', designed to crumple in a rear shunt, I doubt very much whether any cage would remain intact. :(

sad fact of life eh, it could happen to any of us.  Human or animal..... :(

My thoughts exactly jeangenie - I thought most of us got a crate to keep our dogs restrained and to stop them flying over the front in a situation of a front collision or in fact an emergency stop - never even thoguht about the crushing aspect :(

if you paid £20 or £200 I dont it will make much difference in car crash crash terms

it all depends on

a.what you can afford!
b.how much travelling you do
c.what else you want to use the car for

Thanks for the all the info. I have always been a bit suspicious about claims that a guard/cage would protect the dog form impact- if there is enough force to crush the boot (and let's face it, this Saab we have is no spring chicken, but boy is it strong: we have actually been hit from behind, and the other car completely destroyed their front bumper, but there was not a single scratch on our Saab! :D  Sadly they don't make these with same specifications any more, otherwise would definitely splash out £25 000 on a new one.), then I doubt a cage/guard would do very much. I do worry about having Molly in the boot, but I do feel it is on the whole the safest place for her. She is very good in the car, only when she panicks she tries to come over the back rest. I  think just a simple block would stop her coming over, I doubt she would literally try and bulldoze her way through a physical obstacle (thank goodness for her limited brain power! :D ), and when she is left alone in the boot she has no interest in coming over the back rest, so I might go and have a look at these cheapie versions first and see if they look like anything that might do the job.

Thanks again everyone,
Soph

Let's face it, if a cage is going to remain intact while the car's being crumpled from behind, the cage is going to be shunted forward and destroy the rear seat, severely injuring any passengers.

my bargo tail gate,waas made for my astra,then i squeezed it at a angle into my sierra,now with abit of DIY (it sits in a wooden frame) its in my van!

in the front of the cars,i just have a basic,universal pole wotsit,again in the van its customised with a wooden base.

it amazing what you can sort out with abit of thought!! :)

re crashes, a.you can make sure that the "cheaper" ones are fitted xtra securely,
b.ive heard of some crashes ....well ,dogs....cheese....wire :(

thats the risk we take transporting them. (& us!!!)

Re. how cages stand up in a rear collision and more importantly how the dog(s) come off obviously depends on each individual car involved, the quality of the cage and vitally the severity of impact.  I've seen people unloading dogs from the cage of one vehicle to another after being rear-ended on the M6 and not in slow moving traffic the dogs may well have been bruised and certainly would have been shaken but fortunately they were not seriously hurt - such stories have been relayed before in the canine press after all, including the incident I'm referring to.

As to an earlier reference by another poster about the type of cheap adjustable dog guards being OK, I'd strongly recommend against them.  Better surely if funds are limited to try and source a second hand guard custom made for the vehicle by the manufacturers.  I've witnessed a 13 week old puppy transported for all of about 50 yards before it had worked out how to move the adjustable guard and heard countless similar tales :P  I know for sure none of mine would ever be contained by those things too :D   Another advantage of getting the guard which was *made for the specific vehicle* is that they generally cover in mesh form the floor to roof height, effectively preventing the chewers from eating a hole in the rear seats!  The other kind definitely don't help with that scenario either :P :D  Teri   

I'm talking about a double cage, not a dog guard or tail gate guard. It is designed to withstand some force as it is clipped together in a way which means it doesn't just fold down in on itself like the Argos one. My ex-bf once stood on it to reach something off the garage wall while I had it out of the car and it didn't even bend and he weighed well over 16 stone! I was told by Bargo that it would offer considerable protection if an accident happened such as a car driving into the back of you and have actually seen it do this for myself. Someone drove into the back of a friends Escort at about 30mph and crushed the back of the car in - it was a write-off. The cage remained completely intact. (there were no dogs in it at the time, fortunately) This cage cost me £325 several years ago.

Personally my dogs are in a cage for this reason as much as keeping them still. As Michelle says, it depends on what you want from a car. My car is for my dogs. It is completely fitted out for them with cages, dog guards, water bowl holders, first aid kit, leads, spare collars, bedding and foam padding on anything they could bang themselves on, etc, etc. But then I do miles every weekend travelling to shows as well as going to training in the evenings and don't have to worry about fitting the kids in for school runs and so on like a lot of others do. ;-) 

If the back of the car was crushed what space is the cage going to occupy?  I really don't see that any cage could withstand the sort of impact that would cave in the rear end of car.  Even if it is a noncollapsable type it can only be as strong as the mesh and the joints allow and I'm afraid they are very flimsy when you compare them to the structure of a car protecting the passenger body these are usually metal bars more than an inch thick.  Perhaps if your bf had jumped down on to it from a six foot height it may have gone a tiny bit towards the sort of impact it would suffer with several hundredweight of car hitting it at 30mph.
Barjo did not offer any such reassurances to me but then our conversation did start with an enquiry about British Standards ;)
I carry my dogs in the back too but I think we have to be realistic about how safe they actually are and don't think we should encourage people to spends lots of money on untested boxes when something else will do just as well and there is no other reason for getting a high spec one.  My box is a Lintran which also cost a pretty penny and I chose it purely on the basis I think they contain the dog hairs a bit better :)

isabel!!! re dog hairs!!! brilliant!!!! :D :D

Oh eck! does that come across as a joke about what the boxes are capable of containing :D  Really I just meant I'm not saying people shouldn't spend much money on a cage/box for meanness sometimes there are other reasons than safety when you might consider it :)

Well, as I said, I witnessed this myself and yes the car was a write off and no the cage did not collapse.

Having had an insurance company try to write off a car for the cost of a headlight and a wing (yes, it was old, but it was still roadworthy), I know the degree of damage is sometimes minor! ;) However, I didn't see this particular accident, so I'm perfectly happy to take your word for it. :) In what condition were the rear seats after the shunt?
:)

The rear seats were folded down, I didn't see what they looked like. None of us have our rear seats up. The double cage goes in the back and then there is a dog guard, again a properly fitted version, not something from Halfords, behind the front seats. I think the difference with these cages is in the way they link together. They sort of clip back on themselves so they cannot be just pushed in; they have to be unhinged in and then lifted over the hing. It's certainly not the same as a crate you would have a dog in indoors, that much I do know.  

Sorry, I assumed the rear seats were up, and I was concerned how they'd withstand an impact from such a solid metal object, especially if children were sitting in them.

Ch...ch...children, in a dogs car? Never! ;-)

Plus the cage is attached to the metal bits that stick out in the back of the car, although I have no idea what they are meant for! So the cage won't go anywhere.

>Ch...ch...children, in a dogs car? Never!

ROFL! :D :D

>Plus the cage is attached to the metal bits that stick out in the back of the car, although I have no idea what they are meant for<

psssst:  attaching your cage to :D :D :D

LOL :D

JG - with regards to putting children in the car, I always thought thats what my car had roof bars for.

Nice of Vauxhall to provide me with metal bits for attaching the cage wasn't it. :p

Metal bits=cage
Roof bars=children

Yes it's all making sense now. ;-)

LOL! I suppose they're most aerodynamic stapped on facing forwards - as long as the keep their mouths shut! :D

Yeah but just think, with all those flies they wouldn't need feeding for a while and you wouldn't have to hear, "Are we there yet?" repeated every 30 seconds. :D

Good point .......! ;)