I love our Roadie harness! Every time our dog Saffron rides in the car with us, she’s in her Roadie and buckled in in the back seat. If you’re taking your dog in your car, you’ll both be much safer if your dog is secured by a strong car harness and seat belt. Find out why you should always buckle up your dog. If you have a dog who is nervous about riding in the car, a harness can make them feel more secure because they’re not constantly trying to keep their balance. RuffRider used to have different models of harnesses, but have trimmed down to one, which I think is just fine because that one model is awesome and WAY better than all the other car harnesses I’ve seen.
The Roadie isn’t just a regular harness. It was designed specifically to keep a dog comfortable riding in a car and safe in the event of an accident. It was independently tested and can withstand over 6,000 lbs. of force. (The Society of American Engineers standard for human seat belts is 5,000 lbs. of force.) Unlike a lot of car harnesses, the Roadie doesn’t have any buckles or clips that could fail in an accident. That does mean there is a certain way to put the harness on, but once you understand how, you’ll have no problems. You can check out their instructions. It’s easy to secure your dog in the car by threading the seat belt through the loop on the back of the harness. Or you can use a carabiner to clip the harness in.
It’s important that if you use a carabiner, get one used for rock climbing with a strength rating of at least 23 kN. We use a Black Diamond Dynotron which is rated 25kN. Don’t use some crappy carabiner you get at Wal-Mart—it isn’t strong enough.
(Note: I have no connections to RuffRider, I just really like thier product!)