Product Review: Kurgo Loft Bench Seat Cover

The Kurgo Loft Bench Seat Cover is a waterproof cover designed to make the back seat of my car a little more dog friendly. It is waterproof, padded, and stays in place nicely. This seat cover is reversible and comes in two color combinations.

Photo by Erin Koski

Since I started using the SleepyPod Clickit harness for Brisbane, I needed something with seatbelt access for my car. My Fuloon hammock is perfect for containing sand after a trip to the beach, but its bucket-like nature prevents me from strapping Briz in.

I like dog hammocks in general because they prevent my dogs from falling into the gap between the front and back seats. That's not an issue when they're strapped in, so the Kurgo Loft seat cover works just fine.

Unlike most seat covers, this one seems to have been made for seats that have the ability to fold down. In addition to straps that go around the headrests, there is a big wid strap that goes all the way around the back of the seats. This helps anchor the cover and keep it in place.

Pros: Easy to clean, easy to install, stays in place. Allows access to seatbelts.

Cons: The standard size is a little small for my Toyota Matrix, which is not a large vehicle.

Bottom Line: I find the coolest stuff in thrift stores.

What do you use to protect your car seats?

DIY: Snoozer Carseat Hack

Ru has a Snoozer Console Car Seat that I got so he could be close enough to touch me in the car without actually riding on my lap. Bucking him in the back seat inevitably resulted in nonstop screaming, which was more distracting than having him sleeping in my lap, but this is a wonderful compromise. The thing buckles down on top of the arm rest between the front seats, and has a tether to attach to his harness. I'm still waiting for the Center for Pet Safety to test how well dog car seats hold up in accidents, but I'm cautiously optimistic about this thing being able to withstand the forces a 6-pound dog would exert in a major collision.

The stock Snoozer Console.

Anyway, after living in the car and serving as a giant cupholder and fuzzy arm rest along with its intended purpose, the sheepskin on the Snoozer was starting to look a bit gross. Washing the cover failed to improve the gray color or generally worn appearance, so I decided to make a new cover. As an added bonus, I could make an interesting and pretty cover that would go well with the seat covers in my car.

My first step was to visit the fabric store and pick out some snuggly fleece fabric. I liked the soft, pastel bubble fleece intended for baby stuff, but I'm pretty realistic when choosing fabrics. Pastel baby colors are going to get gross really fast. I needed a busy pattern in a predominantly dark color. The fabric pattern also needed to be of a small enough scale to show up on the seat cover. I found some lovely fluorescent dinosaur fabric, but each dinosaur was so big that they wouldn't be recognizable on such a tiny project.

Ru approves my fabric choice.

It's worth noting that Snoozer does sell replacement covers for their car seats, or at least they did when I checked their website a couple of months ago. Right now the product category is still there but empty, so they may be reorganizing the site or they may have abruptly discontinued offering replacement collars. I also found a few people on Etsy making replacement covers for some of the original Snoozer seats.

I did not disassemble my Snoozer seat cover, and I didn't make a pattern either. I just turned the cover inside out and measured the seams to determine how to cut my fabric. It's really just a fabric box with gathered elastic at the bottom. I cut five pieces of fleece (bottom rectangle and four trapezoid sides), and one long rectangle of black quilted fabric.

The skeleton of the Snoozer.

When I took the cover off the Snoozer, I was surprised at how simple the construction was. It's basically just a box of foam, with a little shelf built into the back to keep it from sliding forward during a fast stop. There are metal eyelets to keep the straps from sliding through the foam, and that's it. I could probably build one of these from scratch.

I like the strap construction of this seat. There are two big loops that hook around the bottom of the front seats, and those attach to the tether strap that attaches to Ru. Another strap clips around the console lid to keep the front of the seat down so it doesn't tip backward. I like that Ru is anchored to something really solid in the car. Of course, the plastic hardware and jewelry clasp aren't nearly strong enough to keep a real dog in place in an actual accident, but a chihuahua doesn't generate a whole lot of force even at high speed.

Very simple construction.

I've done a lot of sewing, but I don't really enjoy it because it takes forever. Cutting and sewing the fleece for this project took maybe 30 minutes total. The last step, sewing the fleece to the quilting, took at least two hours. It was a very simple seam, but I used the wrong stitch on my sewing machine so I had to pick it out and start over. It turns out that sewing stretchy fleece to unstretchy quilting requires a specific unstretchy stitch, otherwise the fleece stretches and ends up significantly longer than it should. The solution for this problem is apparently to call my seamstress sister, who has the same sewing machine, and ask her which stitch works best.

Total yardage: Less than one, I think I bought half a yard of each fabric and I still have quite a lot of fleece left over.

Total cost: $12

Total Time: 2.5 hours, would have been closer to 1 if I had done it right the first time.

Result: Totally stylin' Snoozer.

Product Review: Fuloon Car Hammock with Sides

The Fuloon car hammock is a waterproof backseat cover that prevents dogs from falling off the seat into the footwell. It is waterproof, washable, and has sides that protect the car doors.

Bonus chihuahua photobomb. Photo by Erin Koski. 

Fuloon is a company with a rather eclectic range of products. They make car hammocks, remote training collars, automated pet feeders, LED strip lights, and this inflatable back seat mattress for humans. Right now their site is mostly selling stock photos, but their pet products can be found on Amazon.

I previously had a cheap terrycloth backseat hammock that I bought for $20 at Ross, but the waterproof backing on it disintegrated, and it had some serious design flaws.

Photo by Erin Koski

My old car hammock had slots for seatbelts, which supposedly could be closed with velcro. In reality, the velcro immediately got gunked up with fur and beach sand, and basically just let everything through. I needed the hammock for two reasons: keeping the dogs from falling off the back seat, and keeping the sand contained so that I could reasonably carry human passengers in my car without getting them sandy. We go to the beach a lot, usually several times per week. Brisbane likes to play in the water, so I inevitably end up with a wet and sandy dog rolling around in my car. Beach sand is a giant pain in the butt to clean out of the car, so I wanted a seat cover that actually stood a chance of containing it.

I wanted a car hammock with sides. I didn't think this product actually existed, I thought I might actually have to make it myself. I needed a waterproof seat cover with no holes, that could act as a bucket to effectively contain the sand and keep my seats, floors, and doors clean.

I found the Fuloon back seat hammock on Amazon for $30, and it was exactly what I was looking for. Josie loved riding on it, and it kept her from falling off the back seat. One side zips down to allow dogs to get in and out, and it can be zipped up again to protect the doors and to keep sneaky dogs from hiding under it on the floor. There are straps that loop through the handles above the doors to keep the sides up, but the clips on these are really flimsy and I replaced them with carabiners after slamming them in the car doors.

Since I purchased my hammock, Fuloon has released a new one that zips open on both sides as well as down the middle. The new one also has a tether that might help keep the dog in the back seat but definitely isn't going to help in an accident.

Pros: Only car hammock I've found that acts as a bucket to contain messes and keep dirt and sand from filtering onto the seats. Really, truly keeps my seats clean. It's also durable, I've had mine for six months and so far Brisbane's pointy nails and Josie's 60-pounds haven't left a mark on it. It has cleaned up very well after potty accidents and shows zero wear even after six months of constant use. It was also cheaper than almost everything else on the market.

Cons: The clips on the straps that hold the sides up all broke right away. Some of them got shut in the car doors, others just popped. I expected this, as many people reported it in reviews for the product.

Bottom Line: If there is anything else like this out there, I haven't managed to find it yet. This is the only car hammock I've found with sides, and it works incredibly well. After a trip to the beach I can toss Brisbane in there with a couple of towels and know that the sand is going to stay in the hammock. This is not a vehicle safety device, but it does help keep Brisbane from falling off the back seat. It is an incredible value and I would not hesitate to buy another one if this one failed.