If you have a car and a dog, then you’ve probably let your dog ride along sticking its head out the open window, wind blasting its sweet little face. While you (and your dog) may derive joy from zooming along at 25 miles an hour with his ears popping about, is it actually a healthy practice for your dog?
“The quick and dirty answer is that [we] discourage it,” Amy Nichelason, a veterinarian and clinical assistant professor of primary care services at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine, tells Inverse.
She says it's not difficult to understand why dogs might enjoy riding with their heads out the window. With their keen sense of smell, “it really is just like sensory overload,” Nichelason says. “It’s like me in the candy store.”
But it comes with risks. The biggest danger they face is the chance they might jump or fall out of the car window. Nichelason, who previously worked in veterinary emergencies, can attest to this. “I've seen that happen in both small and large dogs,” she says, “and it can be fatal.” Indeed, she says that even if your dog has never tried to leap through an open window before, seeing another dog in a passing car could be enough to rile them up and jump out.
Dogs face the risk of getting run over or hit by another moving car, but if they’re wearing leashes they also could suffer strangulation. She also cautions against letting dogs ride freely in the bed of a pickup truck.
Another prominent risk comes from debris flying through the air at high speeds. “When you're driving, you think about rocks or pebbles that will crack your windshield,” she says. “If you think about that happening to your dog, that can cause damage, even just dust and pollen to their eyes.” She says she’s seen dogs develop corneal ulcers, or ulcers in the eyes, from dust and debris.
Letting your dog stick its head out the car window can also cause distractions for other drivers, she says. This display might steal attention for a split second too long, or even decrease visibility.
“I think the best way to safely transport a dog or cat is in one of the harnesses or carriers that have seat belts,” Nichelason says. But the most important change is to make sure it can’t fit through the open window. Opening the window enough that the smells pervade will satisfy their need to sniff without creating an opening for them to jump through. A window that’s slightly ajar will also keep pollen from shooting into their eyes. These precautions could also keep your dog safe in the event of a collision, as seatbelts do for humans.
Nichelason isn’t the only one who recommends some sort of protection in the car. The American Veterinary Medical Association endorses using proper, appropriately sized “enclosures,” particularly in open cargo areas. It goes so far to say that it’s unsafe for loose pets to ride in motor vehicles.
Perhaps you love giving your pooch the feeling of flight in the car, but understanding the threats from riding along at high speeds make precautions, even just by cracking the window, make abundant sense.
