Car travel and dogs
Jul. 21st, 2016 09:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
koalathebearElbie was a really terrible car traveller when he was a pup. The first time we put his car harness on him, he ended up in Dan's lap in the driver's seat. After that he would bark like crazy, carry on like a pork chop. We couldn't drive to Sydney ... we actually dreaded driving anywhere with him because it was just so stressful and loud having this constant barking in the back seat.
People were full of suggestions. Crate him. Cover the windows. Strap him down so that he can't see anything. Try DAP. Try a calming collar. Food. Thunder shirt. T-shirt.
Nothing worked. Seriously.
Going to dog school ever Sunday was a very trying affair - this barking monster in the back seat. He'd be slightly better on the way home but only just.
One day I got desperate and sprayed him in the face with water when he barked in my ear. It was like a miracle - he stopped barking immediately. Two squirts and no more barking in the car.
When he was about 1 year old, he was still noisy in the car like this:
The turn signal would make him go bonkers and he'd start carrying on again.
After a while, as he got older and he travelled more - he got quiet and these days he travels pretty much perfectly with no anxiety. We can now travel long distances with him in the car without our stress levels sky-rocketing.
Hoover and Dodge have always been perfect car travellers, very calm and silent. We got lucky with all of our foster dogs, too. Juniper was afraid of the car for a while and we had to pick her up and put her in there, but she got over it and was never noisy in the car.
Then Jerry came along.
Dan picked him up from the dog transport in Yass and Jerry barked ALL THE WAY FROM YASS BACK TO CANBERRA. His first carers tried a muzzle, a water spray - none of this worked.
When we drove him to our house from his first carers, he barked like crazy, tipped his crate over and urinated in the crate - he was that freaked out.
When you have a dog who is bad with car travel, the temptation is to stop taking him out at all. It makes the drive extremely stressful - Dan and I would be snipping at one another, at Jerry ... But we know that's not the solution. You have to take the dog out MORE. Very few people are going to want to adopt a dog they can't take anywhere even if they do live within walking distance of a vet ...
The plus side was that he wasn't afraid of the car. He didn't get car sick, he didn't freak out and excrete everything at once the way some dogs do - we once transported a spewer puppy from Canberra to Goulburn. Fun times.
For Jerry, like many working dogs, he gets extremely stimulated in the car. He would try ramming the windows, lunging and barking and carrying on.
We tried a number of things with him. Calming collar, covering the windows, DAP. Crating. Food. Ginger tablets. Rescued remedy. Thunder shirt. I tried feeding him all of his meals in the Jeep. I tried sitting with him in the Jeep and starting the engine. None of this worked. He still kept freaking out.
We tried an anti-bark collar and that at least made him stop barking in the Jeep. After that, we didn't need the collar anymore because he wasn't barking - but he was still wildly excited, lunging and carrying on.
We kept driving him around.
We discovered a few things. He was better on longer drives when we were on a straight road. He was worse at intersections. He was more excited when we went out than when we were returning home.
We kept driving with him, taking him out as much as possible.
We went to the vet to get doggy valium with the thought that if we could start getting him to be calm in the car, then perhaps we could create a pattern that would stick because with dogs - it's all about training behaviours and being calm in the car is just another trainable behaviour.
In the end, because we could see that he was definitely capable of being quiet in the car, we decided not to use the doggy valium and keep working with him. It's been more than a year and he's getting better all the time.
After Jerry's applicant started hanging out with him and taking him about town, we discovered something else - as we'd noticed above, he was more excited when we went out but then he was more quiet when we came back AND if he was tuckered out by a long walk/brain exercise, then he was even more likely to be quiet in the car.
So this isn't a hypothesis we have fully proven yet, but it would seem to be that if we can tire him out (mentally and physically FIRST), he is more likely to be quiet in the car.
This is encouraging because once he has more and more trips in the car where he is quiet and calm, he is more likely to be quiet and calm as a matter of habit.
Will keep you posted on progress. As we already know, every single dog is different and what works for one dog does not work for another. The training techniques we use for one dog, do not work for other dogs but hopefully we have found the secret to quiet car travel for the hellhound.
People were full of suggestions. Crate him. Cover the windows. Strap him down so that he can't see anything. Try DAP. Try a calming collar. Food. Thunder shirt. T-shirt.
Nothing worked. Seriously.
Going to dog school ever Sunday was a very trying affair - this barking monster in the back seat. He'd be slightly better on the way home but only just.
One day I got desperate and sprayed him in the face with water when he barked in my ear. It was like a miracle - he stopped barking immediately. Two squirts and no more barking in the car.
When he was about 1 year old, he was still noisy in the car like this:
The turn signal would make him go bonkers and he'd start carrying on again.
After a while, as he got older and he travelled more - he got quiet and these days he travels pretty much perfectly with no anxiety. We can now travel long distances with him in the car without our stress levels sky-rocketing.
Hoover and Dodge have always been perfect car travellers, very calm and silent. We got lucky with all of our foster dogs, too. Juniper was afraid of the car for a while and we had to pick her up and put her in there, but she got over it and was never noisy in the car.
Then Jerry came along.
Dan picked him up from the dog transport in Yass and Jerry barked ALL THE WAY FROM YASS BACK TO CANBERRA. His first carers tried a muzzle, a water spray - none of this worked.
When we drove him to our house from his first carers, he barked like crazy, tipped his crate over and urinated in the crate - he was that freaked out.
When you have a dog who is bad with car travel, the temptation is to stop taking him out at all. It makes the drive extremely stressful - Dan and I would be snipping at one another, at Jerry ... But we know that's not the solution. You have to take the dog out MORE. Very few people are going to want to adopt a dog they can't take anywhere even if they do live within walking distance of a vet ...
The plus side was that he wasn't afraid of the car. He didn't get car sick, he didn't freak out and excrete everything at once the way some dogs do - we once transported a spewer puppy from Canberra to Goulburn. Fun times.
For Jerry, like many working dogs, he gets extremely stimulated in the car. He would try ramming the windows, lunging and barking and carrying on.
We tried a number of things with him. Calming collar, covering the windows, DAP. Crating. Food. Ginger tablets. Rescued remedy. Thunder shirt. I tried feeding him all of his meals in the Jeep. I tried sitting with him in the Jeep and starting the engine. None of this worked. He still kept freaking out.
We tried an anti-bark collar and that at least made him stop barking in the Jeep. After that, we didn't need the collar anymore because he wasn't barking - but he was still wildly excited, lunging and carrying on.
We kept driving him around.
We discovered a few things. He was better on longer drives when we were on a straight road. He was worse at intersections. He was more excited when we went out than when we were returning home.
We kept driving with him, taking him out as much as possible.
We went to the vet to get doggy valium with the thought that if we could start getting him to be calm in the car, then perhaps we could create a pattern that would stick because with dogs - it's all about training behaviours and being calm in the car is just another trainable behaviour.
In the end, because we could see that he was definitely capable of being quiet in the car, we decided not to use the doggy valium and keep working with him. It's been more than a year and he's getting better all the time.
After Jerry's applicant started hanging out with him and taking him about town, we discovered something else - as we'd noticed above, he was more excited when we went out but then he was more quiet when we came back AND if he was tuckered out by a long walk/brain exercise, then he was even more likely to be quiet in the car.
So this isn't a hypothesis we have fully proven yet, but it would seem to be that if we can tire him out (mentally and physically FIRST), he is more likely to be quiet in the car.
This is encouraging because once he has more and more trips in the car where he is quiet and calm, he is more likely to be quiet and calm as a matter of habit.
Will keep you posted on progress. As we already know, every single dog is different and what works for one dog does not work for another. The training techniques we use for one dog, do not work for other dogs but hopefully we have found the secret to quiet car travel for the hellhound.