DDog has been finding long car journeys stressful, and is now refusing to get into my car, which is used exclusively for long journeys (3 hours). Luckily I'll soon be able to get max journey time down to about an hour (albeit more regularly) but he still has another two 3 hr journeys to do.
Complicating factor is that it's a company car and so it can't be used for lots of pleasant short trips without breaking my contract and rules state he's got to be strapped in the back seat or in a crate in the boot (I've been doing the former as he's not crate trained). He can't not come with me as it's overnight trips.
Last journey I started using the Adaptil transport spray, and gave him one of the sticky bones you can stick to a window and filled it with squeeze cheese and peanut butter but he was too stressed to eat it once the engine was on.
On short car journeys in family cars (perhaps 20 mins) he'll get in, albeit with some reluctance, but still show some signs of stress.
I suspect this is linked into either the likelihood that he didn't go in a car at all until adulthood (he's fine on the tube, bus and long distance trains) and / or his fear of motorbikes (but he usually doesn't react to them when we're in the car anyway)
Any thoughts on making things less stressful for him?
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The doghouse
Dog finding long car journeys stressful
16 replies
AvocadosBeforeMortgages · 04/09/2018 09:30
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