How a JOEJOY Booster Seat Fixed Our Small Dog Car Rides

Pico has never liked the first ten minutes of a drive. He is an 8-year-old, 9-pound Chihuahua mix, and the moment the engine turns over he starts to shake. Not a polite shiver. A full-body rattle that makes me feel like I am doing something wrong before we have left the driveway. For years I tried the usual things: a blanket on the back seat, a crate he could see out of, a hand on his chest at red lights. None of it lasted. He would settle eventually, usually after half an hour, and then spend the rest of the trip looking like he had been tricked into coming.

Ten months ago I bought the JOEJOY Deluxe Dog Booster Seat and put it on the rear passenger-side seat of my 2019 Subaru Forester. I drive. Pico rides in back, never in front. The seat is 16 by 13 by 9 inches and weighs 3.11 pounds. It has a metal frame, a thick cushion, adjustable straps, storage pockets and a safety leash inside. It is rated for pets up to 20 pounds, so Pico at 9 pounds has room to turn around without sliding into the footwell.

The first week told me most of what I needed to know. With the booster in place, Pico could see out the side window instead of staring at the back of my seat. He still shook when we started. But he stopped after about ten minutes instead of thirty. That has held for ten months. It is not a cure for anxiety. It is a better seat, and for Pico a better view was most of the battle.

I buckled the booster in with its own adjustable straps and clipped the internal safety leash to his padded harness, not to his collar. That last part matters. A leash on a collar in a moving car is a neck injury waiting to happen. The safety leash is there to keep him from climbing out, not to replace a crash-rated harness. I do not call this seat crash tested, and I would be careful of anyone who does. It is a booster and a contained seat, and that is how I use it.

The seat lives in the Forester. It stays buckled on the rear passenger side, and the storage pockets hold a roll of poop bags and a spare leash. The Oxford cloth wipes clean with a damp rag, which is the only kind of cleaning I am willing to do at a motel sink. After ten months it still looks like a car seat and not a dog bed, which is more than I can say for the blanket I used before.

He still shook when we started. But he stopped after about ten minutes instead of thirty. That has held for ten months.

Our test run was a drive up to Colorado, the kind with long empty stretches and rest stops where the wind takes your hat. Pico rode in the booster the whole way. At stops I put down a small bowl of water, let him walk, then put him back. The seat kept him from pacing across the back seat while I was merging. That alone made the drive less stressful for both of us.

When the booster is out to be wiped down, or when we are in my sister Dolores's car in Sacramento, Pico wears his harness and clips to a seat belt tether. I keep that tether short so he cannot reach the front seats. I never use the tether and the booster at the same time. The booster has its own safety leash, and stacking restraints is how you get a dog tangled.

The limits are real. The 20-pound rating is not a suggestion. A friend with a 28-pound terrier asked if it would work, and I told her no. The seat also sits up high, so a dog who hates being elevated may need time. I left it on the living room floor for two days with a treat in it before I put it in the car. Pico is food motivated. It worked.

I also would not buy this expecting it to solve car sickness or separation whining. It does not. It gives a small dog a stable, elevated place to ride and a view out the window. For Pico, that was enough to cut the shaking from thirty minutes to ten. If your dog needs more than that, this seat is one piece of the setup, not the whole answer.

Ten months in, the frame has not bent, the cushion has not flattened, and the straps still hold. The seat has been through desert heat and mountain cold, and it still does the one job I bought it for: Pico gets in on his own and looks out the window. That is about as good as a car accessory gets in my book.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If we were sitting at my kitchen table, I would tell you to buy this for the view and the containment, not for crash protection. Measure your back seat and weigh your dog. Use the safety leash on a harness, not a collar. Give the dog a couple of days to sniff it before you strap it in. And keep your expectations honest: JOEJOY is not going to fix a scared dog overnight, but it can make the first ten minutes of a drive a lot less awful. That is what it did for Pico, and ten months later he still climbs into it on his own.