If your puppy is scared of car rides, rest assured, you are not alone. Many puppies are scared of car rides and fear can cause a vast array of physiological responses such as rapid heartbeat, increased respiration, panting and drooling. Puppies may perceive the car as a trap and the worst part is that it is also moving. Many parts of the car ride can be scary to inexperienced puppies, from being in an unfamiliar place, to the sudden increases/decreases in acceleration, bumps, and then you have all the car’s sounds and the exposure to visual, olfactory and auditory stimuli that accompany going inside a car. If your puppy is scared of car rides, you will need to take several steps to make car rides more acceptable.
Desensitizing to the Car
If your puppy is scared of car rides, slow and steady wins the race. In other words, go very gradual in the process of helping your puppy adapt to going in the car. The goal is re-introducing your puppy to the car very gradually, at a pace that keeps your puppy under threshold and therefore doesn’t trigger her anxiety.
At the same time, you also want to add counterconditioning along with desensitization, rewarding her with things she really enjoys.
You would therefore start with the car parked and no motion. Let your puppy investigate the car when it is parked in the garage or driveway. Let her sniff all around and be happy and upbeat about it and offer several treats once she is inside the car. You can also try to entice some play or offer toys she never has access to in the home. Then, once out and away from the car act boring.
Do this several times a day for a few days in a row until you start noticing an improved positive emotional response. Your puppy should act calmer inside the car, or in the best case, act enthusiastically, pulling on the leash and wagging his tail in anticipation of going inside.
[adinserter block=”4″]
Next, have a family member or friend come along for a brief car ride and feed some tasty treats, and possibly, even bring some fun toys! You can start by only backing out the driveway and coming right back, and then progress to taking short trips around the block. Progress slowly and make sure to observe your puppy’s behaviors so to avoid pushing her too fast.
A once-a-day car trip or at least 2-3 trips a week are good enough to keep your pup in practice. If you slack too much time in between car rides, you may see the onset of fear again. I have seen this happen.
Also, for future reference, when it’s time to take your puppy to the vet, make sure you mix in fun car rides to fun places, so to prevent her from associating the car ride with going exclusively to the vet.
Help of Calming Aids
If your puppy is scared of car rides, and the fear seems overwhelming up to the point that your helper cannot distract her with toys or feed her tasty treats during the ride, you may want to pick up some calming aids.
A DAP collar or DAP spray may help your puppy out. DAP stands for for dog appeasing pheromones and they can often be effective in calming puppies down. This is the synthetic version of a pheromone that nursing dogs give off which helps puppies feel calm and secure. Bach flowers may also be an option.
Some puppies do better being placed in a crate on car rides. If your puppy is crate trained and has learned to associated the crate with comfort, that may help the puppy feel more relaxed on car rides.
On top of that, many dogs seem to do better if they cannot see the moving landscape which can cause them to become dizzy and thus more nauseous. Covering the crate with a blanket may help. Spraying the crate and blanket inside with the DAP spray may further help.
[adinserter block=”3″]
The Onset of Nausea
If your puppy is scared of the car and has nausea, meds may be needed.
One thing to consider is that some pups are not only fearful of the car, but they get nauseous as well.
If you notice your puppy is salivating and licking his lips, on top of the fear, the nausea may cause a negative association with the car and soon fear and nausea may go hand in hand. So the good news is that once again, small car rides can help with that too.
If your puppy gets nauseous and manages to throw up, contact your vet. There are several effective medications for motion sickness in dogs. Commonly prescribed ones we used to prescribe at the vet’s office included Bonine (meclizine), Dramamine (dimenhydrinate) and Benadryl (diphenhydramine). Cerenia (maropitant) is a new FDA-approved medication to treat vomiting due to motion sickness in dogs. It requires a prescription from the vet.
It also helps to not feed the puppy solid food for at least four hours before the car ride. Your puppy may still manage to vomit, but at least it won’t be as messy to clean up. Some dog owners have found out though that, just as it happens in people, having something in the stomach can help with the nausea associated with motion sickness.
Feeding a small ginger cookie, purposely made for puppies prone to car sickness, may help. Never give cookies made for humans containing the sugar substitute xylitol which is to highly toxic to dogs. Cracking open a window and allowing fresh air in also seems to help some.
The good news is that most puppies eventually outgrow car sickness as they grow up, usually by the ag of two. Some puppies though never outgrow this and therefore will need car sickness medications every time they travel.
Did you know? Dogs have a tendency to be more prone to car sickness compared to humans because their sense of balance is significantly better than ours and therefore are prone to be easily affected by the motion of cars or other means of transportation.
[adinserter block=”5″]