When driving your dog around town, you’ll not only want to make sure that you obey the laws, you’ll also want to make sure that both you and your dog arrive at your destinations safely. Here are some dog safety tips that will help you do just that.

1. Clean and groom your pet before going on a ride. As trivial as this may sound, your experience will be a lot less difficult when you don’t have to deal with shedding or stinky smells. You and your dog could be in an enclosed space for a long while (depending on how far you’re traveling of course), so there’s no harm in making the trip comfortable.
2. Pack your dog’s food, snacks, and bowls. You don’t want to feed your dog a traveler’s cuisine since the food might upset its stomach. (The dog might not eat what you offer it either because it’s strange to her.) Having access to familiar items, including food, will help the dog remain calm during what could be an excitable and/or threatening event.
3. Pack familiar smells. If you’re going to travel throughout the night, bring along the dog’s bedding and place it in the back seat of your vehicle. Your dog will appreciate the familiar smell. If the bedding is too big or oddly shaped to fit inside the vehicle, pack some blankets or sheets to use as bedding. If the dog can’t smell its own bed, it can at least enjoy the smells from home. You can of course skip this step if your dog is small enough to travel ‘a la crate.’
4. Secure your dog in a crate or doggy seat belt. Crates can offer secure and comfortable car rides for dogs too small for a seat belt, while seat belts do the same for dogs large enough to fill a car’s passenger seat . Never let your dog travel unsecured in any part of the car – including the bed of the truck. The danger of doing so is too great since even a small fender bender could seriously injure or kill a dog.
5. Don’t let your dog hang its head outside of the car’s window. Again, the danger of allowing this is also too great since flying debris can enter the dog’s eyes, mouth, or nose, and an accident could decapitate the dog’s head. (Yikes!)
6. In route, reduce the number of pit stops since they can increase the probability of your dog running away. When you have to stop however, never ever take the dog off its leash –especially since most pit stops are adjacent to highways. If you need to exercise the dog or let it eat or even relieve itself, do so with a strong hold on its leash each time!
7. While we’re speaking of relief, take the dog to a private area and let it relieve itself there. And don’t forget to clean up the mess. You’ll risk exposing your dog to disease spread through feces if you take to an area that’s shared by other dogs. Many young, sickly, and older dogs use these public areas, and they unfortunately deposit whatever illnesses that they're carrying there.
8. Keep your dog away and safe from a car’s exhaust fumes and leaks. These are poisonous substances that are very deadly to both humans and dogs. Don’t let your dog sniff or lick anything on the exterior of the car.
9. If you have to leave your dog alone in a car, try to park the car in the shade and crack the windows so it can get fresh air. Don’t leave a dog in a running car even if it’s just for a few minutes. Although the newer cars might have preventative measures in place, a dog looking for some action could accidentally put a parked car into gear and cause a serious accident.