Category: Car Gear

As I mentioned in my other post, the other dog-related purchase to go with my car was a seat cover.  I have tried several seat covers over the years (as I’m sure you all have as well), and needed some special features for my big tripawd puppy.  I wanted one that had a non-slip bottom, and one that had a better way of attaching the bottom to the corners of the seat.  This last feature was a problem with every other seat cover I’ve had.  In some cases, these problems made the seat cover entirely worthless.

Bottom line?  Highly recommended.  I’ll talk first about some of the general features and then about these two issues. First up, the seat cover is a very sturdy canvas-like material.  I was genuinely surprised at the quality of the material.  It is thick and somewhat stiff; it seems like it could take a beating, although I have not tested it with dirty, wet dogs yet.  It has the standard attachments to the back headrests, but these can also be looped over the corner of the seat and attach on the side if you don’t have rear headrests or want to hook it up that way.  I’m not sure how well that would keep the seat cover back up, but I think most cars have headrests these days in the back.  It’s pretty big; I have a Ford Flex and it covers the entire back (bench) seat.  It also has a (slightly) padded, quilted bottom.  I really liked this feature as a little extra.

Now to the good stuff.  The underside of the bottom has some sort of non-skid mesh material attached to it.  It’s similar to those non-slip things you put under rugs, but more industrial looking and much thicker.  I have leather seats in my car, and the bottom of the seat cover *does not* move.  This is the best non-slip seat cover solution I’ve found, hands down.  The other thing that was amazeballs is the way the seat cover attaches to the outside corners of the seats.  There are large neoprene (think wetsuit) “straps” (they are very wide, so not really a strap, I just can’t find the right word for them) that grip the corners of the leather seats and stay there.  Between the non-skid bottom and these straps, the bottom of this car seat isn’t going anywhere.   It also has a nice “curtain” that comes down the sides and front of the seat cover, so it ends up actually covering all the leather.  Lastly, there are two small cylindrical foam attachments to the underside of the seat cover that wedge in between the seat back and seat bottom, which helps to keep the cover nestled into the seats.  There are slits for seat belts for 3 back seat passengers (canine or hominid).

I paid $73 for this from amazon (use the Tripawds link!), and it was worth it.  I can’t see myself buying another car seat cover, to be honest, and I can’t think of any downsides, except that it’s pretty big and may not fit smaller SUVs or cars.  I have a Ford Flex and it’s just a teeny bit (like 1/2″) too deep for the seats (which are big to begin with).  It comes in the usual tan, grey and charcoal colors as well as a couple of striped combos if you’re into a little flair.   Please feel free to ask me any questions if you have them.   Below are some photos with the whole set-up, and a couple of slots with the seat protector and seat extender.  Jennifer

 

See more at: http://tripawds.com/forums/hopping-around/review-of-petego-rear-car-seat-protector/#sthash.pEltt2qx.dpuf

Hi all,

I recently purchased a new car, as my old car was too small.  Not only was the back seat bucket-style, but its small size really became a problem when Dieter became a tripawd.  Also, I could not take both dogs and all my camping gear in the smaller car, and since camping is a priority, there you go.

As part of my new car purchase, I made two other purchases with the dogs in mind.  One was a seat cover, which I will review in another post, and the other was this inflatable seat extender platform.  There are a lot of back seat car solutions for dogs, but each of my boys are 100lbs, so it needed to be sturdy.  Hammocks were out, as were the flat boards that hang from the back of the front seats.  Just looked too unstable.  I wanted to give the boys as much square footage of flat, supportive and comfortable space, so I bought this inflatable extender and tried it out.

Bottom line?  Highly recommended.  Since it’s inflatable, it can be customized to the space in the back seat area.  I have a pretty big car (Ford Flex) and fully inflated it fits perfectly.  There are three air chambers, configured like a short pi symbol.  The two “legs” fit in the footwells of the back seat, and the top part extends all the way across the back of the car.  Inflated, this creates a huge back seat area for the dogs.  They’ve stretched out, curled up, laid side-by-side, and the platform does a great job supporting them both.   It has the standard pvc-coated plastic sides and bottom, but the top surface is a textured material.  I still thought it was too slick, so I’ve put dog blankets (from LL Bean, these are awesome, too) across the platform to create a cushion that has a little more traction for them.  This also keeps the dogs’ claws from possibly damaging the top, although it doesn’t seem like that would be a problem, the top material is thick and sturdy.

It comes with it’s own inflating pump that runs off a 12V outlet, so you can inflate / deflate on the go if you want.  It was $68 on amazon (you can use the Tripawds.com link to buy it!), but well worth it if you ask me.  The plastic is thick, so I feel pretty good about it not ripping, and it doesn’t move once it’s in. The only downside, and this is *minor* is that the little plugs are hard to get in their holes once you’re done inflating.  You gotta move quicker than with other things (like my air mattress) and you really have to push them in.  The good side to this is that they’ll stay in and you won’t have to worry about random deflation.   If anyone has any questions about this, please feel free to ask me.  The dogs have been on a few 2+ hour trips with it now and it’s been fantastic.    Jennifer

Here are some photos:

See more at: http://tripawds.com/forums/hopping-around/review-of-petego-car-seat-extender-inflatable-platform/#sthash.fNH9MZoJ.dpuf