Best car for dog travel?

Borderreiver

Borderreiver

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What do you think is the best car for travelling with a couple of dogs? My Subaru Forester has a nice big boot and is easy to drive but it’s ten years old, runs on diesel and now there is no longer a nearby dealer. The size suits me fine but it’s a mine field looking for a replacement and a lot have poor boot space as too sloped for head room. Any advice please?
 
It may be worth looking at some of the dog crate manufacturers websites as the good ones such as transK9 and DT will tell you the type / size of crate required for your sized of dogs and which cars it will fit. I’ve had Subaru, Discos and Freelanders but newer cars seem to have much smaller boots and until you’ve a short list and can actually see them it’s sometimes difficult to work things out.
 
Suzuki s cross vitara. Honda crv Skoda yeti or Octavia or Kodiac. Or a good old fashioned white van? I loved my ford focus it has a huge boot but fords aren’t the best for reliability. Japanese all the way for that!
 
That’s a how long is a piece of string question…

My two travel happily in the boot of my RAV4 in a dogbox. We also have a Ford Transit Connect van - the second row of three seats can be rolled forward, taking the dog guard with it. OH would get his five working dogs in the space you can see in the photo though, with ease.

It just depends what you want (and how big your dogs are)!
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We had a VW Caddy for a few months and it was very car like, but the Transit Connect is more useful. The ability to roll those seats forward with the dog guard is brilliant - we recently transported a double mattress in there, flat. That’s a huge load space.

Video shows the same set up (not my video or van!) from 1:05
Mins

 
Having just done this hunt, if you dont want a van....

Dacia Bigster - square boot shape and acres of usable room. Comes in 4x4. Good ground clearance.

Skoda Estates - huge boots, nice to drive and economical

What I ended up with....Cupra Leon estate. Huge boot, does very good mpg, fantastic fun to drive. Much nicer interior than other 2 at similar price point.
 
I’ve got a newish Suzuki Vitara, the seats are always down and I have a dog guard behind the front ones (custom built).
In the shooting season I have a custom dog box that always goes in as well so I can put two and two in when they are overexcited.
 
I had a Honda Jazz for a while before a tailgater eventually wrote it off. The back seats fold down completely flat and I was able to get 2 ordinary dog cages in the back side by side, as well as loads of camping gear. In fact, I think I was able to get more in it than my 2001 Forester.
 
Having just retired my old BMW X3 with over 180,000 on the clock I was also looking at dog-friendly models and ended up with another X3, plenty of dog room in the back and a lovely car to drive.
If you don't mind heavier fuel consumption I'd imagine the X5 is even roomier.
 
Clodagh said:
I’ve got a newish Suzuki Vitara, the seats are always down and I have a dog guard behind the front ones (custom built).
In the shooting season I have a custom dog box that always goes in as well so I can put two and two in when they are overexcited.
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The seats don’t fold flat though do they?
 
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Our old Dogmobile was a Peugeot Partner. With Bernese Mountain Dogs and flatties it was huge with a high roof so they could sit up very comfortably. Most importantly it had a low flat boot entrance so easy to jump in to even for the 70kg ones.
We just have a springer now so not an issue.
 
CorvusCorax said:
Just to note, the Caddy comes an MPV and a panel van in both short and long (Maxi) wheelbase. The Maxi MPV is taxed as a car but takes commercial tyres.
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This is a good point, we are looking at the Maxi Life, so I have technically not succumbed to a van. 😆

Plan is for a 42” cage and two 24” double deckered, leaving an L shape for storage and training/camping kit.

ETA: If you’re involved in any sort of dog sport or activity, scour the car park at an event and see what set-ups other people have. Mad dog people are often very obliging at letting you have a look if you explain you’re looking to buy similar.
 
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blackcob said:
This is a good point, we are looking at the Maxi Life, so I have technically not succumbed to a van. 😆

Plan is for a 42” cage and two 24” double deckered, leaving an L shape for storage and training/camping kit.

ETA: If you’re involved in any sort of dog sport or activity, scour the car park at an event and see what set-ups other people have. Mad dog people are often very obliging at letting you have a look if you explain you’re looking to buy similar.
Click to expand...

The 7 seater Maxi Life can take a DT 1000 with clearance room either side and on top and bottom (if you want drawers or extra storage) with the last rear seat bench removed.
And there's room for an XL airline crate along the back seats.
 
We bought a Subaru Outback in the autumn. We looked at the Forrester but the bigger boot in the Outback sold it to us. The dealership is 80 miles from us but the salesman has offeredus free pick up for servicing and will leave us a courtesy car. We crate our dogs on the back seat because they are small but with bigger dogs the boot is a good size.
 
Just for comparison.....Grand Vitara. Seats up. 375L boot space, Seats down, 1160L. Dacia Bigster 667L and 2,000L respectively, Cupra estate 620L and 1500L....!

It really depends if you want to be able to use the rear seats and have dogs or sacrifice the rear seats to fit dogs.

ETA: for reference we took the GLP and 3 spaniels, comfortably in the dog box in mine. Will happily be doing 3000km in June with the GLP and a show bred ESS on a 10 day road trip.
 
HopOnTrot said:
Small terrier + car seat = any car!
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Small dog in small car (excuse the mess!)

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And on routine vet visits when we still had E cat, he used to travel the short distance in there with her, both happy (never got a photo of them together in the crate) and yes, I did clear out the leads and harnesses etc.
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Sorry, hijacking a big boot thread, with small car stuff 🫣
 
Don’t have the seats down, they do fold flat. Nissan X trail, old shape, very difficult to source and of course parts aren’t easy to find. Fits 4 springers well.
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As pp said, it’s very dependent on dog size. The Skoda Kodiaq is roomy, from what I’ve seen, or the Yeti.
 
Borderreiver said:
What do you think is the best car for travelling with a couple of dogs? My Subaru Forester has a nice big boot and is easy to drive but it’s ten years old, runs on diesel and now there is no longer a nearby dealer. The size suits me fine but it’s a mine field looking for a replacement and a lot have poor boot space as too sloped for head room. Any advice please?
Click to expand...
^^^ Ohh!! I had a Subaru Forester. A few years ago now. Loved it to bits, they are good cars, but its a shame they aren't ever gonna be able to tow a trailer.

I bought a Lintran dog crate for my Subaru; three 4X4's later on I still have it. If you don't need a lot of room for storage in your boot, these are absolutely ideal for dogs and I'd say you won't find a better crate. They are not cheap, but mine has done very well over the years for successive trucks (and dogs).

The downside of the Lintran is that they are bloomin' heavy if you want to remove them; yes I have done it solo, but right now I have a Shogun and need the space in the back for fetching feed etc., so I've taken out the Lintran and am using a folding dog crate.
 
We have Lintran, TransK9 and DTBox crates - DTBox are the easiest by far to handle solo. The Lintran came from the Met Police and has an odd divider setup that is useful but I think custom - you can split the crate in whichever split you want 50/50, 40/60, 20/80 etc. Useful if you have different sized dogs but I find it heavy to get out. The TransK9 is sitting in the shed, having been pulled from the Kia and just not being big enough for the new car/dog numbers.
 
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