Skip to content

People have seatbelt laws, what about our dogs?

If you have a dog in Saskatoon, you can’t leave it unrestrained in the back of a truck. Doing so will get you a fine of $100 for the first offense, which goes up if you’re caught again.

If you have a dog in Saskatoon, you can’t leave it unrestrained in the back of a truck. Doing so will get you a fine of $100 for the first offense, which goes up if you’re caught again. Regina is considering adopting a similar bylaw, and as more places begin considering dog transportation as a rule, we have to consider whether or not it’s a good idea.

The issue, as far as I can see it, comes down to restraint. Dogs need to get to appointments just like the rest of us – mostly vets, but a service dog has many important things to do – and it’s clear that there need to be some kind of way to transport a dog. For the animal, one can argue for or against whether dogs are safe in the back of a truck all they want, the dogs themselves never seem to mind. The problem with a dog unrestrained in a truck bed isn’t that they’re in the back, but there’s nothing really holding them there.

People need seatbelts because in a collision an unrestrained person can do heavy damage to themselves and any other passenger. The same rule basically applies to dogs as well. In an accident, the dog in the back of the truck won’t be in the back of the truck any longer, simple physics explains that, so for a dog’s safety having some kind of restraint seems like it might be a good idea. The dogs don’t have the same advantage as people, in that they can’t actually remove any restraints of their own volition, but it’s still something worth considering. If you’re in animal welfare, that’s going to be your primary reason for objecting to a dog being transported unrestrained in a truck, and given the safety issue surrounding being unrestrained in a moving vehicle for everyone, it stands to reason some form of dog seatbelt is going to be advocated.

It’s also an extension of leash laws. A dog can get out of the back of a truck relatively easily, whether or not they have any interest in doing so. Getting out of that truck could be bad for safety reasons, whether people are concerned about the welfare for the dog, as it leaps out in traffic, or of the people surrounding the dog, if it’s not a very nice animal. Leash laws exist for general safety reasons anyway, and extending them into the back of a truck seems mostly logical.

Whether or not it’s something that should be applied here is another question entirely. Given that this is a rural area, there are likely to be more unrestrained dogs here than perhaps in larger centers. From a position of practicality, a lot of people would find it more difficult to take a dog into the vet if they have to go through the effort of putting it in some sort of safety gear – this is especially true if the dog in question needs medical attention due to bothering an animal it should not have, a common issue for farm dogs.

It’s a safety question, both for people and animals in this case. The dogs can’t really decide this one, they’re not known to take serious debates on their safety and well-being particularly seriously. It’s for the people to decide, and if we need seatbelts it does stand to reason that they should be required for the animals in our care as well. After all, they’re still living creatures, and they still are at risk in any kind of accident. It might be worth considering an unrestrained dog the same as an unrestrained person.