Ute Safety for Dogs- The Tray Safe T

Ute Safety, your Dog and your Responsibility

According to the RSPCA, thousands of dogs are injured each year while travelling in utes. Many are receive neck injuries from choking or hanging from the sides of utes even leading to strangulation and death. 

Falling from the tray of the ute is another hazard that can cause serious injury or death to our furry mates, let alone the risk of them being struck by following or oncoming traffic. 

Road Transport Operations Regulations 1999 state that you cannot operate with an unsecured load and we as dog owners are legally required to ensure the animal is safe, secure and comfortable whilst in transit.

Add all that up and it hardly seems worth the risk, until you see how happy they are on the back of a ute.

Our family was faced with this problem, we had just bought a new generation ute and like most of these, the only tie down or secure points are on the sides of the tray, which of course means that our beautiful and playful black labrador would end up taking an impromptu exit from the tray at some stage.

This of course, not being an option, so we set about trying to work out how we could fix a hard mounted floor anchor to the tray, without voiding warranty of the lease, causing damage or making other bits unusable. Everything was either too difficult or too costly.

If only there was a product out there that we could use on the odd occasion to take the dog on family outings safely. So we decided to solve this problem.

    

Enter the 'Tray Safe T', this 'T shaped' webbing strap harness is connected either side of your ute tray with carabiners to the tie down points. It has two adjustable cam-buckles on the sides so you can adjust the length and location of the tie down ring to the left or right of the tray to prevent your mate from not being too close to the edge of the tray, but also be flexible to account for loading of other things in the back of the ute. 

We added an adjustable lead from the middle harness ring, just so we could control how much movement she had in the back of the tray and this worked out pretty well. We shortened it to allow her to get used to the back of the tray and to get her 'sea legs' if you will. We then extended it when we were sure she was not going to try and do a superman off the side of the ute.

This allowed her to enter doggy heaven with her nose out in the slipstream without the risk of falling out. I should also state that we use a chest harness so there is no load on her neck in case she unbalances in the back

  

Well Pipa, she seems pretty pleased with the results and so are we. She gets to be the happiest dog on the planet and join us on out family adventures in safety and I get to be that pet owner that still has to lift the back half of the dog into the tray when we go anywhere. She is still an embarrassment to nature like that, but who knows, maybe one day she will learn to jump into the tray like normal dogs.

The best part of it all, is that she is a secure load, so no $1,500 fine from the police or the $22,500 fine or the big house for a year for breach of duty of care under the Animal Care and Protection Act 2001, oh yes that's a real thing.

Really your responsibility as a pet owner for the safety and security of your dog cannot be dodged, but you can give them the gift of open air travel with the Skulldrag 'Tray Safe T' and best of all, the cost is substantially less than a fine, damage to your ute or the vet bills that come with any mishaps.

 Due to popular demand we have expanded to cater also for your second dog on the ute with the Tray Safe T Double Dog, extra dog, extra tough, extra value, extra dog happiness.

Order yours today and we will send you one, so you can load up the whole family and get out there on your own adventure.