If you’re often hitting the road with a doggo in tow, you need to invest in a car seat cover. This goes double if you’re taking a lot of road trips or longer-term drives. Dogs are often scratching about, chewing up, or making their muddy-pawed marks all over the passenger compartment of a car. And the longer you keep a fur baby on board, the more chance they will have to compromise your plush or leather car interior.
Car seat covers are your best bet against a well-intentioned yet dirty or disruptive doggo. A barrier between your car and your canine may make the world of difference. In this post, we’ll discuss everything car seat covers and why you need one in your life.
What Exactly is a Car Seat Cover?
The name is fairly self-explanatory—they are covers for your car seats—but to dig into specifics, they’re waterproof, stain-resistant, and available in varying styles. Among the most common types are the dog hammock and the bench seat cover.
Dog hammocks are shaped like their namesake. Unlike those flimsy crocheted hammocks that you hang in the backyard, though, these are durable and provide full coverage. What makes them like a hammock? They have handles that you hang from the front and back headrests. This means the dog hammock lightly rests atop the passenger seat and blocks off the front seats and footwell. This style of car seat cover is ideal for dogs who haven’t mastered the Stay command.
A car seat cover in the hammock style (with a dog car seat on top). Image: Stylish Hound
Bench seat covers are like dog hammocks minus the coverage. Rather than casting a wide protective net, these covers focus on protecting the individual seat. They can attach to a headrest like a dog hammock, or they can cling to every corner of the seat. These covers protect your seat thoroughly without blocking off the whole back seat section of the car.
For more targeted protection against dirt and doggo destruction, you can also invest in front seat covers, car door guards, and boot liners. Respectively, these are designed for fitting in the front passenger seat, extending protection to the car doors, and doggos riding in the boot of a station wagon or SUV.
Why Are Car Seat Covers So important?
They are designed for dogs, but car seat covers can be beneficial whether you have a dog or not. If you’re especially protective of your car, you may appreciate having a barrier between your pristine seats and your kids, food and drink, direct sunlight, or anything that gets dumped in the back—the worst offenders being dirty clothes or damp beach gear. When you’re riding with a poochy passenger, you can add dirty or muddy paws, dog fur, and dog slobber into the mix. (Unlike kids, canines have the canines to rip through plush seat setups, too.)
Life will happen, and no one can keep a car in its original showroom condition. (In fact, the moment you drive out of the car dealership, you’ve already lost some of the original value.) However, car seat covers can take the worst of the wear and tear. Let’s say someone spills a coffee or your dog leaves stubborn, white drool stains all over the passenger seat. Removing and washing your car seat cover would be strongly preferable to cleaning stains from the car itself.
Image: Stylish Hound
On another note, anyone who’s ever owned a cat or dog will know that fur is inevitable and never completely removed from a surface. A car seat cover can be a godsend throughout moulting season. Overall, this product will protect your car’s resale value, as well as your passenger seats.
Where Can you Buy one?
Because these double as car and pet accessories, dog car seat covers are available in car and pet accessory shops. You can also get cheapies at places like Kmart, but we would recommend investing in something more high-quality and long-lasting. When choosing a dog car seat cover, consider things like brand, quality, comfort, safety, and ease of installation. Also, be sure to buy something suitable for your vehicle. If you drive a truck, for example, don’t invest in a standard bench seat cover. You’ll need truck bench seat covers, which exceed the typical 140-centimetre width.
Finally, have a bit of fun with it! If aesthetics are important to you, choose something with a bright colour scheme or pleasant pattern. Choose something the whole family will enjoy. If you’ll have kids sitting on it, you might want something comfortable, too.
Car seat covers are just one of the many travel accessories you should buy for your dog, but it’s a pretty good place to start. Find your favourite now.