AD for the Travall Dog Guard
We are always taking Hendrix the Labrador out on new adventures in the car, finding new walks around the gorgeous area of the Cotswolds that we live in, and on longer journeys across the country. I’ve always put him in the boot, thinking that was the safest place for him but I was really shocked to learn recently that in the event of an accident at 70mph, a 30kg Labrador can travel forward with a force of 2,100kg, the weight of a Mercedes -Benz M Class Estate. Source.
This really scared me! Even smaller dogs can cause dangerous impacts by flying forward in a sudden stop, not to mention if you have big suitcases or a buggy and all the other paraphernalia that comes with young children. There is also a big risk of the driver being distracted by a dog moving around in the car and this can also cause a serious accident as your attention is diverted.
Enter Travall, they got in touch and asked me to work with them on a review of their vehicle specific dog guards. They are custom made for your model of car and are very sleek with clean lines and a lovely scratch resistant dark grey finish. On their website, you enter your car model and answer a series of questions to ensure you get the exact right product for your car. The parcel arrived with all the parts neatly packed so no chance of losing anything. There are illustrated instructions with handy steps to follow to build your guard. I would recommend building it next to your car so that you can check which way around it goes, as we built it inside and put the arms on the wrong way so had to switch them quickly when we were at the fitting stage. I won’t say there weren’t a few head scratching moments but it made much more sense standing by the car.
No tools are needed, it just all screws together, and it is a very simple process once you have figured out the instructions, I called in reinforcements in the form of my lovely Dad as he enjoys things like this! (Well, I think he does, he might just be being kind!) Each part for the dog guard is labelled with it’s own letter and number combination to make it easier to follow the steps. As the guards are built specifically for certain vehicles, you might get some extra parts in your pack for a slightly different model, for example, we had some shorter arms for the model of my Mini that has back seats that fold. We just disregarded these.
Hendrix seems to be really happy with his new seating arrangement behind the dog guard, it hasn’t bothered him in the slightest and a big unforeseen bonus is that he can’t dribble on the back seat which he used to do when he got excited and stuck his head through! He also isn’t panting his ‘yucky dog breath’ over the children which is probably what has improved the car sickness on the last few journeys!
As well as a custom dog guard, Travall also have a wide range of other products to keep your car in great condition including boot dividers which you can use to have one side of the boot for luggage and one for the dog, boot liners to keep all those muddy paw prints in check and mats to name but a few. As my car is usually a big mess of wellies, boots and towels and sometimes Hendrix struggles to hop in, (see above pic!) I can see why a boot divider would work well!
I’m looking forward to feeling safer on our long journeys once we can travel again and for now, it’s keeping us safe on our shorter local trips with him.
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