VestHarness Review

Rating: 3 paws

The VestHarness is a sort of cross between a dog harness and a padded vest or chest protector. I bought the Vest Harness (made by Canine Friendly Products) mainly to use as a "seatbelt" for my dog. I have previously used other car harnesses and regular harnesses as seatbelts, but the main problem I had is they were uncomfortable for her to wear, and most were not padded. The Vest Harness design doesn't put the pressure a regular harness does on the dog's neck or chest in case of an accident or sudden stop, which I liked. Most of the harness is padded, so it's comfortable for the dog to wear. One thing which can be a problem: There is a space for you to thread a car seatbelt through the harness to use it as a car harness. This works fine if the dog sits still in the car, but if she tries to turn around, she will get twisted in the harness. What I did to prevent this is I bought a very short lead with a swivel hook, attached it to the harness, and threaded the car's seatbelt through that. Unfortunately even with this, my dog was getting tangled. I then tried a BatziBelt, which is a leash strap made for use in cars. This worked pretty well, but the dog still managed to get tangled fairly often, so I finally stopped using this seatbelt altogether and switched to the CARE Champion System (see review.) Please note also that the VestHarness is not an accident tested dog seatbelt, which I would recommend using for car travel.



The only problem I had with the VestHarness was fit. My Golden has a large chest and small neck, making it difficult for her to fit many products that have to go around the neck and chest. Due to this problem I was not sure which size to buy. The size I ordered turned out not to fit my dog, and when I exchanged it for the next size down that did not fit either. I ended up contacting the customer service of the company that makes the VestHarness, Canine Friendly Products. They were very helpful and they actually modified a large size harness to fit my dog.



I have used the VestHarness when bike riding with my dog. It works VERY well for this, and, unlike a normal harness, doesn't dig into her skin if I stop the bike suddenly. It would also work well in other situations where you want a dog to be comfortable while pulling, but it is not an actual "pulling harness" for weight pull or similar sports.

You can purchase the VestHarness at the manufactrurer's website www.caninefriendly.com

Champion Canine Seatbelt System

Rating: 4 Paws!

In my ongoing search for a good, comfortable seatbelt harness for my dogs that was also strong, I finally came across the Champion Seatbelt System. Before that I had tried a Four Paws seatbelt harness, Petsmart harness, VestHarness, and Ruff Rider Roadie seatbelt. The Champion is the strongest-looking seatbelt out of all of the seatbelts I've tried, and it also is the easiest to take on and off, and has a padded chest strap for comfort. I attach the leash strap to the shoulder part of my car's seatbelt, so it is higher up and the dog does not get tangled very often.

The harness attaches like a normal harness, and the strap part attaches to the harness using a bull snap (used to restrain large livestock) and to the seatbelt or cargo hook using a chainlink "quick link" which takes a few seconds to get on and off but is very secure when it is attached. The harness itself is made of 1 1/2" wide webbing (on the Large size) which is wider than the other seatbelts I've tried. It appears to be very strong. Unlike many dog seatbelts, this one does not rely on plastic buckles to secure the dog in the car. It does use very wide plastic buckles to attach the harness to the dog, however there are two large metal D-rings on the harness, one on each side of the buckle, which you hook the leash strap to so that even if the buckle were to break the harness would still be secured on the dog. According to the company, the Medium and larger harnesses can hold over 2000 pounds. The company also offers a special seatbelt system for dogs over 80 pounds, called the Survivor Big Dog Seatbelt System. The Champion Seatbelt is one of the few dog seatbelts on the market which has actually been safety tested to forces which it would be exposed to during an accident.



For information on how to use a Champion Seatbelt, please see "How to Use the CARE Champion Seatbelt System"


Note: Several people have reported problems with not recieving the product (after they were charged for it) when they ordered the Champion Seatbelt direct from the manufacturer.
For this reason, if you want a safety-tested dog seatbelt, I would recommend either the Ruff Rider Roadie seatbelt or the PetBuckle seatbelt harness. These are the only two dog seatbelts I know of which have actually been crash-tested.