Car Sickness

Symptoms of Car Sickness

Although vomiting is the most obvious sign of car sickness, there are many other cues that your pup might be feeling sick in the car. Look for these other symptoms first so you can stop motion sickness before your pup vomits and defecates in the car. Diarrhea is the most extreme outcome from motion sickness and anxiety, and makes for a very unpleasant trip for all concerned.

• vomiting
• diarrhea
• reluctance to approach the car
• reluctance to get in the car
• unusual drooling or foaming at the mouth
• lip licking or smacking lips
• gulping
• depression
• anxiety

Treating Car Sickness

If your pup has gotten car sick before, start by preparing ahead of time:

• Keep an Adaptil collar on your pup, replacing it every 30 days.
• Put clean-up materials in your car: paper towels, Nature’s Miracle, Wet Wipes, sealable plastic bags for trash.
• 30 to 60 minutes prior to leaving, give your pup medication to settle its stomach:
  undefinedundefinedundefined
• Always travel with a collar and leash, so you can safely get your dog out of the car
• Spray the crate and car with lavender before the trip
• Cool the car down before travel, even in cooler months. Keep it cold during the trip.
• Cover the puppy’s crate (read this for more on car crates and harnesses) so it can’t see out. If this doesn’t work, try moving the crate to a different place in the car, say the center, turning the crate sideways, or lower in the car.
• Drive slowly with smooth starts, stops and turns. Highway driving usually puts pups to sleep while stop-and-go increases the risk of car sickness.

Preventing Car Sickness

Consider every car trip you take with your pup for several months to be “car sickness prevention trips.” Prepare ahead of time so you have everything you have on hand and give yourself a few extra minutes to get the car set up for the trip. Pay attention to your pup before, during and after a car trip. Observe its attitude and behavior to see if it is showing the signs above.

• Make the car just another room in your home. Hang out with the pup in the car. Feed some meals in the car. Do some training sessions in the car.
• Take short trips to fun places. Do not make trips to the vet the only car trips your pup gets for its first few months. Go to parks, Home Depot or the bank on other days.
• Keep an Adaptil collar on your pup, replacing it every 30 days. We think this should be standard for every pup for several months after its arrival in your home or when you are facing challenges.
• Always travel with a collar and leash, so you can safely get your dog out of the car, if needed.
• Keep clean-up materials in your car: paper towels, Nature’s Miracle, Wet Wipes, sealable plastic bags for trash, disposable gloves, and a bottle of water.
• Before any trip, cool off the car’s interior. You may be cold so take a jacket. Cold pups sleep; hot pups are miserable and get sick.
• Sprinkle delicious treats in the puppy’s crate before putting it in.
• Cover the puppy’s crate if there is any evidence of car sickness, if you are using a crate. Your goal is to keep the pup from looking out the sides of the car windows. Video here. Most of us use crates to both keep our pups safe and to control what they see.
• During early trips, drive slowly with smooth starts, stops and turns. Highway driving usually puts pups to sleep while stop-and-go increases the risk of car sickness.
• Avoid winding or stop-and-go trips soon after meals. Better to not feed prior to a trip than to develop a car-sick pup.
• If your pup hasn’t thrown up in the car, give it something to chew in its crate during trips, although not the really smelly things. Stuffed Kongs, marrow bones, and bully straps all work well.

Crates for the Car

People who would never allow their child to be in the car without a car seat or seatbelt, travel with their dogs loose in the car without giving it a second thought. Yet, here’s the cold, hard reality–many dogs die each year while riding in a car during an accident.

Dogs need to be secured in a car the same way people do. Loose dogs can distract drivers, causing accidents but more importantly, if you hit something at 50 miles an hour your car will stop abruptly but anything not secured in the car will continue traveling at 50 miles an hour. So if you have an accident, your dog will be a 50-mph rocket traveling through the car, hitting you, your children, the windshield, or window. If your dog survives, it could be thrown from the car, injured, hit by another car, or roaming loose, dazed and frightened.

What can you do to ensure your dog travels safely? Use a crate or harness, ideally crash tested. Here is more info about these products.