There are only two feasible options for car seats today: cloth and leather seats. If your car only carries humans, you’ll be fine with either of these options. If you’re willing to carry your pet dog, however, what’s the better option of these two materials?
The better car seat for you depends on your idea of the perfect car seat. If you want the cheapest material, cloth seats are a gem. However, leather seats are the better seats of these two as they collect significantly less fur and are easier to clean. Understandably, they also cost more.
This article will be the ultimate guide to choosing a seat cover for your dog. Firstly, you’ll learn some of the advantages of getting a cover for your car seat. Then, you’ll learn some of the differences between cloth and leather seats, and which one you should choose.
Is It Better to Have Leather or Cloth Seats with a Dog?
There are many factors to consider before choosing a seat or seat cover for your dog. These factors will help you shape your eventual choice, as there is no one-size-fits-all solution for every dog owner.
Here are some of the factors to consider before choosing a seat for a vehicle that will be carrying a dog to help you make the best choice in the long run.
1. Price
It doesn’t matter which option you choose I’d you can’t afford it. If the more expensive one doesn’t fit into your budget, you don’t have an option. This explains why pricing is the most important factor affecting your seat choice for your dog.
If you’ve tried shopping for car seats or seat covers on any online or offline store, you should already know that leather seats cost more. The price is one of the few advantages that a cloth seat has over leather.
Leather seats are usually more expensive because they cost a lot more to produce than cloth seats. If the manufacturers are producing them anyway, you should understand that leather seats are much more advantageous than cloth seats.
Compared to leather car seats, cloth seats sound like a steal. If you aim to get the cheapest thing money can buy, you should aim for cloth seats.
However, buying a car seat, especially when dogs are involved, is much more than just buying the cheapest offering on the market. That explains why you should check out all the remaining factors before making a decision.
2. Durability
If you’re carrying your dog in your car, you should already know that your seats will suffer for it. Dogs are fond of chewing, scratching, and biting, and the primary recipient of all that will be your car seat. Therefore, you may want to choose a durable option for a lengthy lifespan.
When talking durability, leather seats take another loss. No thanks to their bedrock, it’s very easy for dogs to make minor scratches and claw marks on the leather seats, making them a worse option than cloth seats.
When it comes to cloth seats, however, the durability will depend on the quality of cloth you buy. If your seat has a cotton cover, it will be more susceptible to scratches and damage than a cloth seat made entirely from polyester.
The fact that leather seats are generally less durable than cloth seats doesn’t mean that you need to abandon all your leather seats right away. Depending on how much you’re willing to spend, there are leather seats that rival the durability of some of the most durable cloth seats.
Also, durability and price aren’t the only two factors that should determine what kind of seat you should get for your car. If you’re not careful enough, your cloth seat will get you frustrated multiple times in its pretty lengthy lifetime.
3. Maintenance
If you’re like most dog owners, you can’t afford to let your dog sit on a dirty seat. In other words, you’ll be needing to clean your car seats pretty regularly to remove residual dirt. When choosing a car seat, you want to choose one that will make this easy.
And with this, leather seats have their first win. For reasons that don’t need explanations, leather seats are easier to clean than cloth or leather seats. While explanations aren’t really necessary here, I’ll provide them anyway.
Leather seats don’t absorb dirt. If your dog introduces any unwanted dirt to your leather seat, you only need to wipe it clean with a damp cloth. You can also consider washing it mildly sometimes to keep the seat in its best conditions.
However, almost all cloth seats require complicated maintenance procedures. If your dog was to step on the seat with muddy feet, you’ll have to contend with that until the next wash. If you’ve ever washed a cloth seat cover, you’ll understand why nobody ever wants to.
4. Safety
For the same reason why leather seats are easier to maintain than cloth seats, they’re also much safer than cloth seats. If you can’t remember the reason, it’s simply because they don’t absorb dirt.
Cloths are very prolific absorbents. They tend to absorb part of anything your dog introduces to them, including allergens that could potentially make them sick. If you aren’t planning to wash your car’s seats every day, this will present a problem.
Leather seats, on the other hand, absorb almost no dirt. Every external matter stays above the surface of the seat until you wipe it with a clean cloth. Unless you leave the stains to have a field day over your car seats, your dog should be healthier and safer with a leather car seat.
5. Comfort
If you follow the best practices, your dog should be comfortable, regardless of what material you choose for your car seats. However, you’ll need to do more work to keep your dog comfortable with a leather seat than you would with a cloth seat.
If you’re driving under the sun, leather seats will get uncomfortably hot very quickly. You may want to consider following the best practices for using leather seats in hot weather to ensure your dog is comfortable at all times.