Carriers
Carrier Training a Working-Brain Collie for Long Outback Drives
High-drive dogs and confinement argue by default. Here is the graded plan that turned a Border Collie's crate from a protest site into the best seat in the house.
Tom Riley
Adventure Dog Writer & Road-Tripper · Darwin, NT · 4 posts
Tom and Scout, his Border Collie, cover about twenty thousand kilometres a year across the Top End — camping, four-wheel-driving and testing exactly how long a dog will tolerate the back seat before the complaints start. He reviews travel gear the only honest way: on corrugated roads, in build-up-season humidity, with a dog who would rather be on the roof rack.
Credentials & experience
- Road-trips and camps across the NT and northern WA with his Border Collie
- Field-tests carriers, travel crates and car covers on rough roads
- Writes the long-distance travel and camping-with-dogs guides
Writes about
dog road tripstravel crates and carrierscar seat coverscamping with dogshot-climate travelPosts by Tom
Carriers
What Goes Wrong With Cheap Travel Carriers on Rough Roads
Three cheap carriers, one Top End dry season, and a clear list of the parts that fail first, written so you can spot them in the shop aisle.
Car Seat Covers
Fifteen Thousand Kilometres of Corrugated Road: What My Back Seat Survived
Corrugations find every weak seam a cover has. What lasted, what tore, and the buying specs I now refuse to go without.
Car Seat Covers
The Build-Up Season Test: Humidity, Red Dust and a Back Seat That Cleans Up
Between October and December the Top End turns a car cabin into a steaming swamp. Fabrics, cleaning routine and the gear choices that keep a dog back seat liveable.