Study finds abdomen most at risk for dogs injured in car crashes

The Veterinary Abbreviated Injury Scale, V-AIS, was created to mirror the AIS scale used in humans and to fill a gap in retrospective analysis of animal trauma. A study published on 28 August 2026 in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention applied it to a specific group: dogs injured while inside a vehicle. According to the authors, dogs struck by a vehicle or injured inside one have the highest mortality rates among cases presenting to veterinary trauma centres, and understanding injury mechanisms, patterns and severity is necessary to develop scientifically validated restraint systems.

The cases come from the registry of the Veterinary Committee on Trauma (VetCOT), a programme supported by the American College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care which, according to its institutional page, creates a network of hospitals that work collaboratively to define high standards of care and disseminate information that improves trauma patient management. The registry query, from 2013 to 2024, identified 268 dogs injured inside vehicles. For a subset of 19 cases with medical records available, all injuries were coded with V-AIS version 1.0, noting where possible the dog's position in the vehicle and the crash circumstances.

Among the 268 dogs, 91% survived to hospital discharge; euthanasia accounted for 83.3% of the 24 deaths. Weight class was not associated with survival, but non-survivors presented with a median Animal Trauma Triage (ATT) score of 6.0, against 1.0 among survivors. In the 19-case subset, with 63 coded injuries, anatomical distribution varied significantly by size: large dogs, over 30 kg, sustained primarily appendicular trauma (75.8%); medium dogs, 10.1 to 30 kg, predominantly central body trauma (61.5%); and small dogs, up to 10 kg, a mixture of central (47.1%) and axial (47.1%) trauma. Clinically significant injuries, with V-AIS severity of 3 or more, were confined to the abdomen, and all fatalities occurred in dogs with internal organ trauma.

The authors treat the findings as preliminary, given the size of the subset, but consider that expanded application of V-AIS in trauma registries can provide the automotive industry with actionable, severity-stratified data for developing evidence-based restraint systems.

The first VetCOT registry report, published in 2018 in the Journal of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care, gives the size of the database: 29 veterinary trauma centres in North America, Europe and Australia contributed 17,335 dog and 3,425 cat cases over 42 months, between September 2013 and March 2017. Penetrating trauma was the most common cause in dogs (52.3%) and blunt trauma in cats (56.7%); 43.8% of dogs underwent surgery; survival to discharge was 92.0% in dogs and 82.5% in cats. The authors already pointed to the need to analyse subsets by injury type, and the 2026 study is one such follow-up.

Prevention starts before the crash. An online survey conducted in 2017 and 2018, published in 2019 in Preventive Veterinary Medicine, gathered 706 responses in the United States, 692 in the UK and 637 in Australia. Just over half of owners in the United States (55%) said they restrained their dog when driving, compared with 67% in Australia and 72% in the UK. In the US and the UK the most common method was a cage or crate in the cargo area; in Australia, a harness and tether attached to the seat buckle. Country, dog size, owner age, dog age and vehicle type were factors associated with restraint use; younger US owners driving a pickup or utility van, with a large dog and less frequent trips, were the least likely to restrain the animal. The authors caution that this was a convenience sample.

For the clinic, the three papers suggest two routines: recording the injuries of canine vehicle occupants in a standardised way, so that data feed scales and registries, and talking to owners about restraint during transport. The articles do not evaluate specific restraint products, and this summary recommends none.