In Hawaii, there is a law that your dogs be buckled up in the car. This Honolulu News Now article describes it in more detail. We have known about this law for a couple of years. Nathan got pulled over for a speeding ticket in downtown Honolulu and Titus was riding shotgun. Apparently the police officer informed Nathan that he was lucky he wasn't going to take Titus and give Nathan another ticket because the dog was not buckled in. So obviously we went right away to get them seat belts... three years later. Normally our dogs sit, quite safely on one or both of our laps in the passenger seat of the car. Titus puts his front two, maybe three paws out the window and sometimes tries to paw at the rear view mirror. He calmly growls and barks and runs from the front seat to the back seat, to the front seat, to the back seat, only when he sees a skateboarder, or a black dog, or a german shepherd, or a person smoking a cigarette on a street corner, or a person in the next car over talking or drinking a beverage from a cup, or a chicken on the side of the road, or a child in roller skates. Safely.
We bought doggie seatbelts a few months ago. And then the other day we finally sized them and put the dogs in the back seat. It appears to me that they were less than enthusiastic about this.
Titus had a difficult time at first. The picture above shows him looking very sad because he had spun himself in a circle, restricting his movement. He couldn't even put his head down. After I got his belt all squared away correctly, he lay down and was quite happy actually.
We will just continue to give it time. As sad as it makes me, it is much safer for them to be in the back. They will get used to it.
Has anyone ever used the doggie seatbelts? Do you have a better version? We bought the first ones we found, and I'm pretty sure there must be better ones out there.
