Road Trips with the Furry Kids

As summer quickly approaches, families and friends are gearing up for summer road trip season! Many of these travelers will bring along their furry friends, as 38% of pet parents say they will not go on vacation without their pets. That’s no real surprise, since 69%of Americans see their pets as family members, with one in five seeing their pets as children. Pet parents are likely to splurge on their pets by throwing them birthday parties, taking them to day care, and buying them organic food. While it is obvious that our pets are well loved, are we ensuring their safety when we hit the road?

In a wide ranging survey of Americans, more than a third (38 percent) of millennial pet parents worry about driving with their dog. Among all demographics, nearly a quarter (24 percent) of pet parents leave their dog home because they worry the car is not safe enough for Fido.

The full results are published in Volvo Reports: Dogs, Cars and the People Who Love Them. Volvo Car USA teamed up with Harris Poll to release the first in a series of Volvo Reports that explore the ever-changing relationship between Americans and their cars.

Many of those surveyed indicated they lack knowledge about the safest ways to drive and travel with their four-legged friends. A few additional highlights include:

• A majority of Americans (69%) see their pets as “family members”
• 97% of pet owners drive with their dogs, but many practice unsafe driving habits, including:
  • 48% do not own any safety driving gear for their dogs
  • 41% let their dogs ride in the front seat
  • 23% buckle their dogs in to standard seatbelts
  • Only 5% have a built-in pet safety system in their vehicle
• Of the parents who do leave their pets behind when they are traveling—38% of millennials and 24% of pet parents in general—do so because they are worried their cars are not safe enough for their pets.
• 46% say vehicle manufacturers that do not have built-in dog safety features do not care enough about pet safety.
  • 71% of pet owners agree that vehicle manufacturers should proactively build more dog safety features into their vehicles.

“The safest method for driving with our pets is to keep them restrained,” said Cornell University’s Dr. Elisa Mazzaferro President of the American College of Veterinary Emergency & Critical Care. “Volvo has developed specific integrated safety mechanisms with pet accessories that latch into the safety mechanisms of the car. There is a rear steel grill and a cage. A protect barrier that doesn’t allow dogs to jump over the front seat. And there is safety harness that can be attached to a seat belt to prevent animals from roaming and those types of devices are very safe and their tried and true tested for safety to keep your pet safe in a car this summer.”

.Volvo Car USA recently expanded its presence in the pet community through a one-of-a-kind partnership with the Petfinder Foundation. For every pet accessory sold, Volvo will donate a portion of the proceeds to The Petfinder Foundation, an adoption organization that raises money to support animal shelters and rescue groups.

This report is the first in a series of Volvo Reports from Volvo Car USA and Harris Poll designed to uncover insights into the American opinion across four core themes: design, safety, technology and environment. Volvo Reports will distill and share these insights on a different topic each month.

Volvo Cars is the only vehicle manufacturer to develop pet-safety accessories that directly tie into the car, including a dog harness, load compartment divider, dog gate and protective steel grille, available at any one of Volvo’s more than 300 retailers in the U.S. and Canada, or at www.volvocarspets.com

More About Dr. Elisa Mazzaferro:

Dr. Mazzaferro is a graduate of Michigan State University College of Veterinary Medicine, completing an internship at the Veterinary Institute of Trauma in Wisconsin. She completed a residency in Emergency-Critical Care at Colorado State University, where she also earned her PhD. She was board certified by the American College of Veterinary Emergency & Critical Care in 2002. Dr. Mazzaferro was the Director of Emergency Services at a multispecialty practice in Colorado for 10 years before joining CUVS in 2012. Dr. Mazzaferro is internationally renowned and a leader in her field. She is President of the American College of Veterinary Emergency & Critical Care. She is also a prolific publisher, having authored four manuals as well as numerous chapters and manuscripts on a range of topics relating to Emergency and Critical Care Medicine. She lectures extensively nationally and internationally, having given presentations in more than 21 US states and 9 countries. Internationally, Dr. Mazzaferro is recognized for her accomplishments as a lecturer and author and was the official on-air vet for Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl!

Methodology

The national survey, Volvo Reports: Dogs, Cars and the People Who Love Them was conducted online by Harris Poll on behalf of Volvo among 2,000 U.S. adults ages 18+, including 1,342 pet owners from February 8 - February 11, 2018.

About Volvo Car USA

Volvo Car USA, LLC, (www.volvocars.com/us) is a subsidiary of Volvo Car Group of Gothenburg, Sweden. VCUSA provides marketing, sales, parts, service, technology and training support to Volvo automobile retailers in the United States. For more information please refer to the VCUSA media website at: http://www.media.volvocars.com/us.

Courtesy: Volvo

Photo Courtesy: media.volvocars.com