Welcome to another episode of People with Passion for Pets! This is season 3 and our first episode
of the year has a very special guest. I am so honored to welcome Dr Roger Mugford.
He is Britain's leading animal psychologist, author of 3 books,
and has a lifelong quest to explore, teach and learn more about the human animal relationship,
and he has also created a company called the Company of Animals.
Welcome to the show Dr Roger I'm so excited to have you today!
and it's my privilege to be with you, so I dressed up especially for you. I thought I
put on formal collar and tie . look we're matching!
So I'm able assisted by my dog Dave. oh wonderful hi Dave! And my son Harry. we're
a family business. We've got some video lined up that we might be able to feed into this podcast.
I came across your company which is called the Company of Animals because
I was looking for a car crash tested harness for my pets and you are actually - should
I say the inventor of such a device. It's called the Carsafe harness - I have one here.
I can see it has a huge chest plate so that is what would hold up most
of the force during breaking or in a car accident correct?
right yeah I mean clearly the bones on the chest are well engineered by nature to be
strong. the force of an unscheduled stop or a crash will be taken by the strongest part of the
dog body which is very similar to a seat belt. right if we think about it if I wear a seatbelt
in the car that's where the seat belt is basically bracing the human body in a vehicle.
correct yes exactly so whereas a lap belt which used to be popular in an
old manufactured car offered very little protection and probably cut people in half
So Dr Roger you said that you actually have a little helper there with you that can show us
the harness in action. I flew Dave over
from a dog meat farm in South Korea Hi Dave! Dave is one of my principal
test subjects. He does so with a third degree of reluctance.
he's like what is this a car crash harness??? Am I cashing?
So Harry, can you show it's a two points of attachment harness. so
there you go there you go. I think Dave you deserve a reward for this
Harry can you show the film of us taking Dave for a ride and I emphasize that this
product was actually tested in a setup like this they actually have a dummy dog not a
real dog that was tested at 30 miles an hour. so here I'm putting Dave into the car, he's fitted
and I'm saying: "Dave I love you I love you I would never do anything to hurt you"
getting off in a state-of-the-art modern vehicle my Land Cruiser designed to go around my farm.
This is my bull Mozart he's a handsome boy!
yes I never clean my cars - never buy a used car for Roger Mugford!
I'm driving it at some speed about 30 miles an hour
you actually did that? I actually did that _ cleverly edited
oh Harry don't give the secrets away!
I did actually drive into the into the tree and oh my goodness Dave hopped out of the car.
Was really good Dave is like going back in he's like okay I'll trust you :)
So he gets paid by me in kind not in cash. the serious point is that we have dogs we
love dogs all my colleagues have dogs and we use them mercilessly for testing our products.
absolutely wonderful and what are some of the things that you went through to design
the product that you currently offer as the carsafe harness?
well until I got on to this issue I was content to drive a big old Volvo and tied the dog,
big old Labrador in the back of the car with a leash attached to the luggage anchorage point in
the in the back of the Volvo which is fine. however if you have a crash it'll hit the
rear seat and and if you have a dog protective gate over the arrangement that will prevent
the dog coming forward but of course the dog himself is at considerable risk of injury
Particular if he's tethered by a lead on his collar and pretty significant damage to his
neck even to the point of strangling him or dislocating his neck can occur.
so generally speaking collars are not the right point of attachment for a dog in a car.
Then I looked at all sorts of options. I've been making harnesses because I'm a great believer in
harnesses for walking dogs particularly front control harnesses which I introduced
the concept about 15 years ago and it's been widely adopted by other manufacturers.
now any kind of harness that restrains a dog in the car is better than none.
we need to look to generating harnesses which are specifically designed to withstand the remarkable
High force which occurs when the car is crashed. I totally agree with you I can see where if
you just simply put a leash on a dog in a car but you attach it to
a collar then obviously a force of a crash even just hitting the brakes you know abruptly could
really do some real damage to the dog. what do you think about putting dogs in crates in the vehicle?
I think for small dogs that is a very practical solution and there are crash
tested crates. A Swiss manufacturer which as you'd expect is you know armor plated
seriously strong and it's fine but a flimsy sort of pop-up fabric construction crate is
not an adequate protection for a small dog. I mean if you have a you know a miniature
pincher or a Chihuahua and it's very difficult even for my own company of animals designs to get
a car harness that is suitably adequately and fitting to protect that little dog.
so for those dogs its better that they're in the equivalent of a child's safety seat
meaning a padded strong secured crate in the in the middle section of the car
if I understand correctly then we're using the actual seat belt to secure the dog in the
back seat. with the harness and keep them secure in the back seat is that correct
Exactly the point of attention is through the seat belt material with really heavy duty stitching
all the way along it's multiple stitching um there are four layers of material here so this
is a really strong hard piece and and equally this is a really strong resilient material
you think that a metal d-ring welded will be very strong but actually it's only strong to
about 200 kilos so that is not an adequate point of attachment for a seat belt or a dog in the car
during a crash and and a lot of people buy little tiny short leads with a trigger hook
on each end well those trigger hooks break again and about 150 to 200 kilos in Breaking
strains are about 400 pounds and that is way exceeded during the actual forces of a crash.
so it's really important that the the dog is restrained through this Loop here in on the
back of the dog's body and this seat belt harness is tested to about 2 tons so that's quite a lot
and it's the same tested material that restraints humans in their event of an unfortunate accident.
We've applied all of the same safety expectations
to the dog that we would expect from a responsible car manufacturer for humans.
yeah and I like that the harness is really usable for walking the dog as well so you
don't have to like switch it around you don't have to take one off and put one on
so you're using the same harness that you're walking your dog with to restrain them in the
vehicle but it is safe and tested. for walking the dog we have a rear
point to take it for a walk and also a front point to thinking for a walk.
It's little, obviously hidden second point of control.
we've had in mind the Practical thing you're in a hurry you're going to drive to the woods
or the park um because you don't have a nice big farm like I have here and
say you throw the dog in the car he's already wearing his walking harness you arrive at the
journey's end and you take him for a walk and you don't have to remove or add the harness so it's a
multi-purpose two function. This is all reflective
it really glows in the dark so if your dog gets to be walked at night or get's
hit by headlights of a vehicle then it really shows up brightly so again a safety feature.
Of course the harness comes in different sizes so depending on your dog's size
I know that on the on the website and we'll share the links to your
website of course where people can get this wonderful device
um but there's a particular way to measure to make sure you get the right size for your pet.
there is a small degree of adjustability in the harness. comes
in extra small, small, medium and large. We're in process of making one for the very big dog for the
something bigger than a typical German Shepherd or Labrador
so a Dogue de Bordeaux or other giant dog, we've neglected that sector of dog. But we can
fit 90 plus percent of all dogs out there and I repeat little dogs are probably safer in a crate.
Your company is named the Company of Animals and I read the story on how you
came up with the name that I'd love for you to share it for our audience as well
well James Circle from the University of Pennsylvania he's a Britisher,
you know, a Cambridge professor of Companion animal ethnography or something
like that at University of Pennsylvania. he wrote a really lovely book called the
company of animals and it's about the history of animal keeping from prehistoric times to today.
My starting point in Psychology practice was actually working with and for people and mental
health and dogs are not just dogs of course other pets are such great normalizing influences upon
human behavior you can talk to an animal and you can say things even outrageous things and secrets
that you wouldn't dare share with another human even a close family member especially not with
a close family member I come down in the morning hey Dave you sad old dog, did you have a bad dream
last night or something? come on get out of here! there's a cat in the garden that he's chasing off
that you know and I say things that are really stupid and that I don't mean at all but Dave
looks at me with his loving eyes oh Roger you're the most wonderful person as well well to get
that level of adoration you have to try pretty hard to get another human to adore you in the
way that a dog adores you my interest has been in elderly people, isolated people, lonely people and
that's really the epidemic of the way we treat our elderly in society on both sides of the Atlantic
and you know the presence of pets is really such a big life-saving part of their lives simply the
the physical activity that they bring into our lives you know getting people out of the house and
walking two three times a day is so important and through those walks through the exercise we meet
other people that again would be isolated from us so they're great social normalizes they level us
down regardless of the status Queen of England with an example it's just the same as somebody
who's homeless and lives on the on the Streets of London or New York that dogs specifically but
perhaps in general are really one of the most important physical and mental health positives
that we can imagine so animal keeping is not something that is a prerogative of rich people in
America and Europe and I've seen the development of pet keeping pet Love of Animals in China.
Poor countries I work with. indigenous people in South Africa where they also extend love
to the animals that don't have to achieve any economic gain for them but they're just companion
animals just animals that they have around so it's a worldwide feature of human nature
so as as more and more people are finding the company of animals and
really enjoying it you know my husband and I we wrote a book it's called "Keep Your
Paws on the Road" it's about traveling with dogs. You talked about traveling and bringing a dog all
the way from another country. I think it kind of brings it all nicely back together that we really
want to keep our pets safe as we take them with us especially in the car but in other ways as well.
We think so much about how we care for them obviously they do so much
for us in so many different ways and any pet owner knows how much a dog contributes not
just to their lives but to their mental health and their their physical health.
I think I just want to really go and ask everybody that's listening to this: take
a look at how are you traveling with your pet. Can you find a safer way to keep your pets safe
in the back seat and make sure that they are safe. Hopefully nothing will ever happen but in case of
an accident think about how could you make sure that your pet would be just as safe as
you are in the vehicle. The price of getting it wrong is very high it could be your injury
or serious hospitalization if this heavy dog hits you at the back of your neck at half a ton force.
Expensive vet bills to repair your dog and of course just as bad as if the doors have
been caught and fly open and the dog runs off unrestrained, maybe at night onto a highway.
What do you do to collect your dog that's running scared on the road? so multiple reasons to have
your dog safely restrained and and the car safe harness retails at about fifty dollars.
yes small price to pay to keep your pets safe. Of course, we'll be sure to
share the link in the description below our video to be sure that anybody can find you.
again the company is called the Company of Animals it's the companyofanimals.com
website is that correct? that's right yep
I'm better known as the inventor of the halti head collar but we
do a line of muzzles called Baskerville. Rehabilitating aggressive dogs has been
my lifelong ambition. We also make, as you can tell from my lovely hairstyle,
a fine line of pet shampoos called Pet Head which is a US-based brand
Although my origin is in the UK we sell across the world and including Asia and I tell you I
have the best lifestyle of any because I have to go around visiting people all over the world!
I can be in Central Park or I could be in the center of Peking and see one of our products
on a dog and I'm bound to go out there and say well excuse me that probably looks a bit cruel
a bit harsh and they said no no no no it's really not! it's from the Company of Animals
it's really nice it makes me feel really good! Genuinely all of these products were tested
on real dogs by real people who love their dogs as much as you love yours.
that's wonderful yeah you truly are a person with Passion for Pets!
I'm so grateful that you came on the show The the biggest things that you brought to the world is
the Halti and I'd love to have you back and talk about that a little bit another time.
I appreciate you so much and I appreciate what you do you got some great products but
you really do a lot more than that in a lot of charitable organizations for both humans
and pets. so thank you again for being on the show today it was my honor to talk to you today!
and I've enjoyed talking to you and especially I want to get to read your book...
if you enjoy our content then please like and share it with your friends and family
and check out this next video over here and until next time keep your paws on the road