Dog Car Seat Cover vs a Blanket or Towel: When a Cover Is Worth It

Quick verdict: towel, cover or both?

Many owners start with a towel, and plenty never need anything more. What settles it is what your dog brings into the car and what they do once they’re in.

• Keep the towel if your dog is dry when they climb in, lies down in one spot, sheds lightly and mostly rides short hops on cloth seats: the vet, the park, errands across town.
• Get a waterproof cover if your dog often gets in wet or muddy after swims, beach days, rain or trails; sheds heavily; stands, paces or circles; rides most days or on long drives; or sometimes gets carsick. Leather and vinyl seats tip the balance sooner, because a towel slides on a smooth surface.
• Use both when your dog is soaking wet. The cover keeps water off the seat and a towel on top soaks up what drips off the coat. Your dog’s own blanket can go on top the same way for comfort.

Not sure which side you’re on? Check three things after your next wet or muddy ride:

• Lift the towel and press the seat. If the cushion feels damp, water is getting through.
• See where the towel ended up. If it’s wadded against the door, half off the seat or down in the footwell, it isn’t staying put.
• Look past the towel. Mud on the footwell carpet, hair along the backrest, or smears and scratches on the backs of the front seats are landing where a towel can’t reach.

If all three come up clean, the towel is doing its job and you can keep using it.

Towel, blanket, hammock and front seat cover compared

The two covers in this table are the ones we stock; other models differ in size, coverage and how they attach.

Option	Wet dog or spill	Stays in place	What it covers	Washing
Bath towel	Absorbs a little, then soaks through	Slides and bunches	Part of one seat	Regular wash, tumble dry
Old blanket	Absorbs more, still soaks through	Slides on leather, bunches on cloth	Rear cushion, sometimes the backrest	Bulky, slow to dry
Waterproof hammock	Kept off the seat; can run off the edges	Straps to front and rear headrests	Rear bench, backrests, front seat backs, footwell	Cold, delicate cycle; lay flat
Front seat cover	Kept off the seat	Non-slip backing and straps	Front passenger seat	Machine washable

What a towel or blanket does well

A towel has real strengths, and a cover doesn’t replace all of them:

• You already own it. There’s nothing to measure or fit, and it goes into any car you climb into, which makes it handy for a friend’s car or a one-off ride.
• It absorbs. A waterproof surface sheds water, so drips from a damp coat bead up and pool under your dog. A towel takes those drips in, at least until it’s saturated.
• It’s quick to wash. A towel goes in with the rest of the dog laundry and comes out of the dryer in one cycle, so you can keep two in the car and swap them.
• It feels and smells familiar. The AKC’s tips for comfortable car rides suggest bringing your dog’s blanket or a favorite toy along on long drives. That’s a comfort job, not a protection job, and a blanket does it just as well lying on top of a cover.

For a small or medium dog who curls up on a cloth seat and stays dry, that’s the whole job, and a towel handles it.

Where a towel or blanket falls short

Soak-through

A towel absorbs until it’s full, then passes the rest into the seat. A dog who climbs in dripping and lies on it for twenty minutes presses that water down into the cushion foam, which dries slowly in a closed car and can leave a musty, wet-dog smell that lingers. A carsick moment or an accident works the same way: the towel slows it down but rarely stops it reaching the seat, and a dog who is often sick in the car is worth mentioning to your veterinarian. If the smell has already set in, our guide to getting dog smell out of a car covers the deep clean.

Sliding

Nothing holds a towel down except your dog. On leather and vinyl it slides each time your dog jumps in, turns around or braces on a curve; on cloth it creeps and bunches. Often your dog ends the ride on bare seat with the towel in a heap beside them. A heavy blanket moves less, but it still moves, and a loose layer underfoot gives your dog poor footing when you brake. On leather, a towel that shifts also drags trapped grit across the finish; our guide to protecting leather car seats from your dog covers that in detail.

The gaps: backrest, footwell and front seat backs

Even a towel that stays put covers only where it lies. Dogs lean on the backrest, rub against it and drool on it. Paws step over the front edge of the cushion into the footwell, so mud ends up in the carpet. And a dog who stands or reaches forward scuffs and scratches the backs of the front seats. A blanket large enough to drape over the backrest still leaves the footwell and the front seat backs open.

Buried buckles

Spread a blanket across the back seat and it covers the seat-belt buckles, which you need for your dog’s tether and for any passenger. You can tuck it around them, but it tends to slide back over them.

There’s a middle option we don’t stock: a waterproof-backed car blanket. It fixes the soak-through, but unless it straps to the headrests it still slides and still leaves the gaps.

What a waterproof hammock adds

A hammock-style cover is built around exactly those weak spots. The one we stock, the GF PET Waterproof Dog Car Hammock Seat Cover, answers each of them:

• Soak-through: its waterproof polyester helps keep water and mud off the upholstery, so you shake or wipe them off the cover instead. It isn’t a sealed tray, though: water can run off the edges or down through the seat-belt openings, and it pools under a dripping dog, which is why a towel on top still helps after a swim.
• Sliding: adjustable straps with clip-on fasteners anchor it to the front and rear headrests, so it’s held by the car rather than by your dog’s weight and doesn’t creep and bunch the way a loose towel does. It can still shift if the straps are uneven, especially on a slick seat; our guide to installing a dog car hammock shows how to set the tension so it doesn’t sag or slide.
• The gaps: one piece covers the rear bench, the rear backrests and the backs of the front seats, and the stretch between the front and rear headrests spans the footwell, so paws stay on the cover.
• Buckles: seat-belt openings keep the vehicle belts usable for a tether or a passenger, and a detachable zipper lets you set the cover up for one seat so a person can ride on the other side.

The tradeoffs

A cover asks more of you than a towel does. It has to fit your car: the hammock measures 58 × 57 inches, so measure your back seat first, and our comparison of a dog hammock and a seat cover shows how. Fitting and removing it takes a few minutes, it’s bulkier to wash, and it dries flat rather than in the dryer. Unless you use the zipper, the back seat is your dog’s. If your dog is small, calm and dry, those costs may not buy you much.

If your dog rides up front

A front bucket seat is shaped to hold a person, and a towel on it tends to slide forward off the cushion and bunch against the sides. The GOOPAWS Waterproof Front Seat Cover for Dogs measures 40 × 20.5 inches, with scratch-resistant 600D oxford fabric over a waterproof layer, a non-slip backing that keeps it from sliding when your dog shifts, and adjustable straps. Up front, staying in place is the biggest difference between a cover and a towel.

Use the back seat whenever your car has one. Before a dog rides up front, check what your owner’s manual says about the passenger airbag and about covering that seat; can a dog ride in the front seat explains what to look for and how to set the seat.

Washing and drying each one

• Towels: shake them out outdoors, then wash and tumble-dry them with your other dog laundry. Hair weaves into terry loops, so a hard shake first keeps more of it out of the washer. Don’t leave a wet towel in a closed car overnight.
• Blankets: the same routine, but a large or heavy one fills the drum and stays damp the longest. Make sure it’s dry right through before it goes back in the car.
• The hammock: unclip it, fold it in on itself so the hair stays inside and shake it out outdoors. The care label calls for a cold, delicate machine wash and drying flat; skip bleach, the iron and dry cleaning.
• The front cover: machine washable, and its color doesn’t bleed in the wash. Follow its care label.

Because the hammock dries flat, it’s out of the car longer than a towel, and it should go back in only when it’s completely dry. Wash it on a day your dog stays home, or put a towel down until it’s back. That’s one job the old towel never loses.

Neither one keeps your dog in place

A towel, a blanket and a cover all protect upholstery. None of them holds your dog. A hammock’s front wall slows a dog heading for the front seat, but it’s fabric, and a determined dog can push past it.

The ASPCA’s travel safety tips call a crate the safest option and otherwise advise keeping your pet in the back seat in a harness attached to a secured seat belt. A seat belt tether does that: it clips to your dog’s harness and plugs into the buckle, set so your dog can sit, stand and lie down but can’t reach the front seats or a window. It also keeps your dog on the covered side instead of wandering onto bare seat. Our comparison of a dog seat belt and a booster seat covers the length and setup.

Ready to move on from the towel? These picks are limited to what Nilosi stocks: our two covers and the tether that keeps your dog on them. The rest of the range is in our travel and car accessories.

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  GF PET

  Waterproof Dog Car Hammock Seat Cover, View product

  $60.95

  Why it fits: For a wet, muddy or heavy-shedding dog in the back: the waterproof layer a towel lacks, straps to front and rear headrests, and coverage for the footwell gap and front seat backs.

  View product

• 

  GOOPAWS

  Waterproof Front Seat Cover for Dogs, Choose color

  $43.95

  Why it fits: For a dog who has to ride up front: a non-slip backing and straps keep it on a bucket seat where a towel slides, with a waterproof layer under scratch-resistant 600D oxford.

  Choose color

• 

  Adjustable Dog Car Seat Belt Tether, View product

  $23.95

  Why it fits: Neither a towel nor a cover holds your dog in place. These two tethers clip to a harness and plug into most vehicle seat-belt buckles, so your dog stays on the covered side.

  View product