The Baseline Rule: No Pet Rides Loose, and No Two Pets Share a Crate
AVMA’s policy on non-commercial pet transport is direct: pets should not be transported loose inside a vehicle. Each animal needs either a secured enclosure sized for it to stand, turn around, and lie down comfortably, or a properly designed, species-appropriate safety harness.
That rule applies per animal, not per household. In a multi-pet vehicle, this means:
- No sharing crates. A crate rated for one dog wasn’t crash-tested with two dogs inside it, and a shared enclosure lets both animals collide with each other on impact.
- No tethering pets together as a substitute for individual restraint.
- No loose pets “keeping each other company” in the back seat or cargo area, even if they’re usually calm together at home.
For open cargo areas specifically (an SUV trunk with the back seats folded, or a pickup bed) AVMA’s language is just as direct: transport of pets, loose or tethered, in open cargo areas isn’t safe. Any enclosure used back there must be properly secured, sized for the animal, and ventilated, with suitable climate conditions maintained.
Vet-wins note: if a pet has a health condition that makes crate confinement stressful (severe anxiety, certain orthopedic issues, brachycephalic breathing difficulty in a snug enclosure), talk to your veterinarian about the right restraint approach before an emergency forces the decision. This page covers general transport safety, not condition-specific medical guidance.
What “Crash-Tested” Actually Means, and What It Doesn’t
Here’s the fact most product listings don’t lead with: there is no federal standard or mandatory industry crash test for pet carriers, crates, or harnesses in the US. None. AVMA’s own reporting is blunt about this gap, and it names the Center for Pet Safety (CPS) as the only independent nonprofit that conducts and publishes this testing. CPS doesn’t accept manufacturer funding for its results.
CPS’s original studies, run with Subaru’s sponsorship in 2015, used crash-test dummy dogs at 25, 45, and 75 lb, modeled loosely on the human child-seat standard FMVSS 213, at MGA Research Corporation, an NHTSA-contracted independent lab. That’s real engineering rigor behind the ratings that exist. But AVMA’s current policy language is equally direct that scientific evidence on these products overall remains limited, and the organization is actively encouraging more crash-test development, not treating CPS’s existing catalog as a finished, complete standard.
Two things follow from that for a multi-pet household:
- “Crash-tested” marketing language on a product page is not the same as a published CPS result. Check the actual CPS-certified list before trusting the phrase.
- A rating only covers the exact tested configuration: a specific size, a specific test-dog weight, and, for some products, a specific set of anchor hardware. More on that below.
What’s Currently on CPS’s Certified List
As of this research, fetched directly from CPS’s own live directory, the certified products include:
| Category |
Product |
CPS rating |
Test dog weight |
| Carrier |
Away Pet Travel Carrier |
5-star |
18 lb |
| Carrier |
Diggs Passenger Carrier |
5-star |
18 lb |
| Carrier |
PawsInCar Expandable Pet Carrier |
5-star |
12 lb |
| Carrier |
PawsInCar Multi-Window Cat Backpack Carrier |
5-star |
not detailed in this research pass |
| Crate |
Gunner G1 Kennel (Small / Medium / Intermediate) |
5-star |
75 lb (Intermediate) |
| Crate |
Cabela’s GunDog Kennel (Intermediate / Large) |
listed |
not detailed in this research pass |
| Crate |
Lucky Duck Lucky Kennel (Medium / Intermediate / Large) |
listed |
not detailed in this research pass |
Notably, no harnesses currently appear on CPS’s live certified directory, even though individual CPS-certified harness pages still exist online for products like Sleepypod’s Clickit Sport (tested in 2014, 5-star rating for that era’s protocol). That’s a real discrepancy worth flagging plainly: a standalone test page existing doesn’t confirm current certification status. If a harness’s crash-test claim matters to your decision, check CPS’s live directory yourself before buying, rather than trusting an older product page or a retailer’s marketing copy.
A Rating Doesn’t Transfer Across Sizes or Setups
The Gunner G1 Kennel is the clearest example of how narrow a certification actually is. The Small, Medium, and Intermediate sizes carry a 5-star CPS rating, but the Large size does not, despite sharing the same brand and construction. And the rating itself only applies when the crate is anchored with Gunner’s own strength-rated tie-down straps and built-in anchor pins; the crate alone, secured some other way, is not the tested configuration.
The same logic applies more broadly: a 5-star rating on an 18 lb-capacity carrier says nothing about how a 40 lb dog crammed into it would perform, and a rating tested with one anchoring method doesn’t carry over to a different strap, buckle, or seatbelt-latch setup you improvise yourself.
How to Anchor a Carrier or Crate Correctly
AVMA’s positioning guidance is consistent regardless of how many pets are traveling: place each crate or carrier as close to the center of the vehicle as your layout allows, and secure it so it can’t shift, slide, or tip. The enclosure itself needs to be large enough for the animal to stand up, turn around, and lie down.
In a multi-pet load, that center-of-vehicle guidance gets harder to satisfy for every animal at once, since you likely can’t put two or three crates all at true center. Prioritize:
- The heaviest or largest crate goes in the most stable position (typically flat cargo-area floor, low and centered), since a heavier enclosure that shifts does more damage on impact.
- Smaller carriers can go on a securely belted back seat if a seatbelt latch or strap system is part of that carrier’s design (like Away’s built-in latch). Check the manufacturer’s own instructions for how their attachment is meant to be used.
- Every enclosure gets secured against movement, full stop. An unsecured carrier, even a highly rated one, isn’t performing anywhere near its tested configuration if it’s free to slide across the cargo area.
Cargo-Area Heat and Airflow: A Multi-Pet-Specific Risk
Loading multiple pets often means the cargo area gets used, not just back seats, and cargo areas carry their own risks that a single-pet cabin trip usually avoids.
Heat builds fast, everywhere in the vehicle. A parked vehicle’s interior temperature can rise roughly 20°F in the first 10 minutes and 40°F or more within an hour, per AVMA and NHTSA’s own heatstroke-prevention data. That applies to the whole vehicle, not just the front seats. No pet, cabin or cargo area, should ever be left unattended in a parked vehicle, at any outdoor temperature, with windows cracked or not.
Watch for heatstroke signs during the drive, not just when parked. The ASPCA lists the warning signs plainly: excessive panting or difficulty breathing, increased heart or respiratory rate, drooling, weakness, or collapse. More severe signs include seizures, bloody diarrhea, vomiting, and a body temperature above 104°F. If you see any of these signs, stop and get the animal to a veterinarian immediately. This isn’t something to monitor and wait out.
A cargo-area reference point, used carefully. There’s no personal-vehicle-specific federal heat standard for pet transport, but the USDA’s Animal Welfare Act sets a commercial-transport threshold worth knowing as a reference: animals in a commercial holding or cargo context shouldn’t be exposed to air temperatures above 85°F or below 45°F for more than 4 hours, with ventilation required. That’s a cargo-hold standard for commercial carriers, not a rule for your personal SUV, but it’s a useful sense check for how seriously the industry treats sustained heat exposure in an enclosed space.
Open tailgates create a carbon monoxide risk, not just a heat one. Driving with a tailgate, trunk lid, or rear hatch open can pull exhaust into the cabin or cargo area. If a tailgate has to stay open for a load that doesn’t fit otherwise, open windows or vents to keep air actively moving through rather than letting exhaust pool where a pet is riding.
A Practical Loading Order for Multiple Pets
No named authority, AVMA, the Red Cross, or the ASPCA, publishes a specific loading sequence for multi-pet vehicles; that gap is real, and we’re not going to dress up general reasoning as an official checklist. What follows is our own practical logic, not an authority citation:
- Secure and anchor the largest or heaviest enclosure first, in its planned position, before adding anything else. It’s harder to correctly anchor a big crate around smaller carriers already in place.
- Load calmer, more crate-experienced animals next. An animal that’s already comfortable in its carrier settles faster and won’t destabilize a neighboring enclosure by thrashing against it.
- Separate predator/prey-type pairings and any animals with tension between them. A cat carrier and a dog crate shouldn’t be positioned where they’re pressed against each other if the pets stress each other out.
- Load the most anxious or reactive animal last, closest to a position where you can see or reach it quickly, since that pet is most likely to need a mid-drive check.
- Do a final walk-around: every enclosure anchored, every latch checked, nothing loose that could shift under braking.
Vet-Wins Reminders Before You Drive
- Never leave any pet unattended in a parked vehicle, in the cabin or the cargo area, at any temperature.
- A wrong-configuration “crash-tested” claim is worse than no claim. Confirm the exact size, weight rating, and anchor hardware match what CPS actually tested before trusting a 5-star label.
- If a pet shows heatstroke signs during transport (heavy panting, drooling, weakness, collapse, seizures) stop and get to a veterinarian immediately; don’t try to manage it in the vehicle.
- For suspected poisoning or toxic exposure during a stop, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control Center is available 24/7 at (888) 426-4435 (a consultation fee may apply per the ASPCA’s own page).
How We Chose
These picks are built from Center for Pet Safety’s own published crash-test results, fetched directly from CPS’s live certified-product pages, cross-referenced against manufacturer spec pages for dimensions and anchoring hardware. We did not test any of these carriers or crates ourselves, and we say so plainly.
Where an Amazon listing couldn’t be independently verified as live during this research pass, we noted it and provided a search query instead of a direct link. Full methodology at /review-methodology.
Once your vehicle-loading plan is set, the harder multi-pet question is often triage: our which pet evacuates first guide walks through prioritizing animals when time is short, and multi-pet go-bag math covers scaling food, water, and supplies per animal rather than per household. If cats are part of your load, evacuating multiple cats covers carrier and handling considerations specific to cat behavior under stress.