Product Walkthrough: Pet Travel Hammock
From Bellybuttonporn
Since I was getting a new car, with seats worth preserving, I started looking around for solutions to protect the seats from my dog.
I found This product on PetSmart.com. It covers the whole bench seat with straps around the headrests. Looks good. I ordered it before my car arrived, so I got to just look at the pretty box for a while. Here's the box, with Amica modeling it for us.
  
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Initial Impressions
In the box I found the hammock, some instructions, and a free water bottle. It's nothing to really write home about, but it looks like it'd hold water just fine if you were so inclined. The box is festooned with product feature blurbs.
Features
- Waterproof Material
- Machine Washable
- Durable Protection
- Slips on in Seconds
- Protects your vehicle's interior
- Allows use of pet restraints
- Prevents pet from falling on floor
- Fits most cars, SUVs, minivans, and trucks
- Handy pouches for organizing pet gear
- Includes FREE water bottle
- Allows you to ride in back with pet
- Easy to install or remove
I'll discuss each feature in-depth next.
Waterproof Material / Machine Washable / Durable Protection. On a couple occasions I had to put a non-dry dog into the car. After taking Amica to Ada Hayden Park to walk around the lake, she was panting heavily when we got in the car. She left a huge spot of drool on the hammock, but as far as I could see none leaked through to the seat. Then it was raining another day, rather hard. I put the dog in the car very wet. Aside from my car smelling like wet dog, the back seat did just fine. I haven't washed the hammock yet, so I can't really comment on that claim. I worry, though, about all the stitching on the pockets and the straps. The connectors are made out of plastic. So depending on how you store your pet hammock when not in use, they could get broken if it's just floating around in your trunk and something heavy bashes into them just right.
Slips on in Seconds / Easy to install or remove. Well, any period of time can be expressed in seconds. Once you get good at it, it will slip on in, oh, say, about 300 seconds. That's 5 minutes. Not a bad realistic time. Once you get used to it, it's not bad. It'd be even better with rear headrests (read on), but even without them hooking the hammock up to your LATCH anchors isn't a super big deal.
Protects your vehicle's interior. It's good insofar as your dog will mostly be sitting directly on the seat. However, the hammock does not extend down the sides of the seat. So your dog's paws might end up on the sides of your seat and whatever mud or water is on there will still end up on your interior. Be careful letting the dog jump in if it's been doing a lot of walking outdoors or is wet. Also it won't keep stray dog hair from getting on your interior; you'll always have a few. It's all just part of having a dog.
Allows use of pet restraints / Prevents pet from falling on floor. First things: By simple virtue of its shape (a hammock shape that covers the seat and goes up the back of the front seats) your dog can't fall off onto the floor. This is a non-issue. Your dog needs to be restrained in your car via a pet harness if it's going to ride in the seats like this, hammock or not. If your dog is restrained it can't move around or fall.
That said, the hammock has a few really nice features to allow your pet harness. There is a long velcro closure along the back of the seat to allow your seatbelt buckles through, but can stay closed to prevent stuff from getting through. Along the sides there are velcro straps which close around your shoulder belts. This lets you use them with your pet harness and keeps the corners of the hammock up against the seat for more protection. Rock on.
Fits most cars, SUVs, minivans, and trucks. Well, it didn't fit mine. For this hammock to work you must have large rear headrests or some creativity and child safety seat anchors. As you can see in the picture I don't have the proper rear headrests for this to work. I had to rig it up with bungee cord.
Handy pouches for organizing pet gear / Includes FREE water bottle. The pouches are pretty nice. They might interfere with folding the hammock up if you stuff them full, but I can still fold it up rather nicely with the supplied water bottle tucked into its holder.
Allows you to ride in back with pet. The front side of the hammock features a vertical zipper. If you unzip this the front will become 2 flaps. If you strap one flap around the headrest like normal, and leave the other one dangle, someone can sit in the seat. This is pretty good for those cases where you've got 3 people and a pet to move.
No rear headrests? Got LATCH?
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If so, you're in luck. The clips that the headset straps use to attach will fit very well into your upper LATCH anchors. Also, the plastic piece your clip clips onto is perfectly shaped for a short bungee cord running to your LATCH anchor also.
I found some short bungee cords at target. Most any bungee cord about 18 inches long should work as long as the hooks can get through the 1/4 inch holes in the straps. The hooks on the bungee cords I found are about as big as can work. It's kind of hard to get them into the LATCH anchors, but it works.
Storage
  
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The nice thing is that this thing folds up nicely. I'm sure it'll store out of the way in your trunk if you have a car, or if you're desperate it'd probably fit under your seat. Even with the free water bottle in its pocket it folds up flat. You might have a problem if you routinely stuff the pockets chock full.
Folded up, it fits nicely into the sub floor storage area in the back of my Magnum. It's exactly the right size, like it was designed to hold this hammock.
Action Shots
 
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Categories: June 2, 2007 | Car | Pets
