Dutch Shepherd Forum

This is kind of sad that only one of the harness's tested passed.

Article (Watch the Video):
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/10/do ... ss-safety/

Scope
In 2013 the Center for Pet Safety (CPS) and Subaru of America formed a partnership to further the CPS 2011 Harness Crashworthiness Pilot Study (size: Large) and evaluate the overall performance of harness products claiming “testing”, “crash testing” or “crash protection”. A combined testing approach including quasi-static preliminary evaluation and dynamic testing using the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 213 crash conditions was used by the Center for Pet Safety to collect baseline product performance data. This data collection will be used to develop a harness performance standard and test protocols to guide safety harness manufacturers.

Link to the study results:
http://centerforpetsafety.org/wp-conten ... _final.pdf

I do not, as we use public transportation, but my opinion is that if you consider it important enough for yourself and your children/family members, then, well... for me that includes all of my family members.

Human and dog bodies are not designed to be traveling around at the speeds we move at in vehicles, and when accidents happen, which they do, being thrown into solid objects at high velocity results in bodily damage.

I'd gladly suffer the damage caused by a seat belt to avoid the alternatives, and similar safety precautions for my companion is just common sense.

One statistic says the chance of being in an automobile accident is once every 12 years, and another puts it at 17.9 years.

Most of the available statistics only focus on accident fatalities, but even those numbers are staggering when comparing using seat belts to not using seat belts. I think we're all already pretty familiar with the facts.

So why would anyone not consider a safety harness that is dog oriented? For me, it's money well spent, and there really is no question. I've learned that in retrospect no amount of money I could have spent is now considered to be too much, as it may have at a time before when I thought, "too expensive." But for other people... not wearing seat belts, riding motorcycles without a helmet, and letting your dog run around in the open bed of your truck, or worse, having him/her attached to a noose... sorry, collar and leash, seems to be a no brainer. (Literally is my opinion.)

And crates don't count as far as I'm concerned. This is all just common sense. In review I see I already said that! Funny how people still don't get it though!

A good scare in a serious accident at an early age established my way of thinking. I've personally known many people who have been killed in car and motorcycle accidents. I miss them, and I feel bad for the friends, families, widows and children left behind. Wearing a helmet would have allowed for a mother and her two sons to still have their husband/father. Instead, she raised them by herself, and they grew up without their father who was a wonderful, fun person.

I'm a very safety oriented driver, when I drive. But because of my experiences, I'm more frightened of other people on the road than I am of my own driving. Just because a light is red doesn't mean that guy is going to not smash into me when I've got a green light. Because texting whomever about what to buy at the drive-thru liquor store is always going to be more important than watching where you're going in your two ton mass of metal. (Where I live, this is not so much a joke as it sounds as it is a reality.) Forty plus miles an hour into the back of a car stopped at a red light put a man into intensive care because some "person" felt his phone was more important.

Of course there is the argument of being trapped by your seat belt after an accident. But in contrast to this we have a Dutch Shepherd that went missing not so long ago after being in a car accident. Getting spooked, and rightly so, by the event of a collision, and then bolting, possibly into oncoming traffic is the first scenario that plays out in my paranoid mind, then comes the possibility of having to post a picture on the North American Dutch Shepherd Rescue Facebook page and hope I will have the ability to scour the country side.

This is not my dog. He is not my possession. This is my friend, and my family.

centrop67 wrote:This is not my dog. He is not my possession. This is my friend, and my family.

I am pretty sure that's how all the members of this forum feel about their family members. That's why I am a little surprised at how long it took to get a response to this post.

I think it's gross negligence on the companies making safety claims against their products that have been proven mostly false by this study.

Please check your product, and if you have one of the ones with catastrophic failure in the test, then you must demand your money back.

centrop67 wrote:

centrop67 wrote:This is not my dog. He is not my possession. This is my friend, and my family.

I am pretty sure that's how all the members of this forum feel about their family members. That's why I am a little surprised at how long it took to get a response to this post.

I think it's gross negligence on the companies making safety claims against their products that have been proven mostly false by this study.

Please check your product, and if you have one of the ones with catastrophic failure in the test, then you must demand your money back.

Sad but true, I dont use a harness I have four kids, but I dont buckle two in. Why? I realy dont know, maybe its the " it wont happen to me" syndrome.

I use pet harnesses....the ones I have aren't on the list. Roxanne doesn't care for being buckled to the car but she deals with it. Emmy doesn't care one way or the other. (Emmy has to be in one...I can't afford new window tint again!)