Anxious dog in car

[Mmmmdanone]

My 9 month old puppy used to travel on the back seat (with a harness and seat belt attachment) but she's getting big and also had a tendency to climb on the kids with muddy paws when they're in the back too, so we now put her in the boot (hatchback with parcel shelf removed so she can see out the back and look over the seats). She cries and barks and it's so stressful for me as the driver. She barked and cried when on the back seat too but calmed down a lot quicker.

She is generally quite an anxious dog - barks when anyone comes to the door/ hates being left alone/ over excited at just about everything, but the car thing is getting me down quite a lot as I can't imagine driving any distance at all with all this barking. Any tips to calm her down?

Have you tried a crate in the boot. The issue I found in the boot was that they can get thrown about a bit and some dogs are much happier in a confined space.

However, if she is crying and barking anyway you might need to stop travelling and go back to getting her happy to be in the car so treating and settling her before trying to drive off.

Giving a kong in the car can help - distracts her enough from what is going on so she settles down.

Can you not just wipe her paws before getting in the car (which you should be doing anyway especially this time of year)?

Keep an old towel in the car and give her a good wipe down before getting in. Not all dogs are happy in the boot and you need as few distractions as possible!

Thanks for all suggestions! Did consider a crate in the back so will look at that again. A Kong too. I really don't want her in the back seat anymore but for a longer journey I might have to if she doesn't calm down!

My dog does this until I open a window a tad. I don't know why, she smells outside the whole way and it seems to keep her busy. She's only small so in your situation it would be a crate with a blanket over it for everyone's safety. We are the point we know she is safe and well and ignore the anxious crying and just focus on getting us where we need to go. We only do short journeys though. Could try a toy filled with treats or something but if your dog is like mine is in too much of a stress to focus on anything else.

Problem is she's used to the backseat now so she won't understand why the rules have changed!

I wish I'd put her in the boot from the get-go now. So much of a learning curve with a new puppy!

We moved ours from the boot to the back seat as I was worried about the car being rear ended with the boot being a crumple zone (didn't have room for a crate) but then I do travel on high speed roads rather than short local trips.

Our pup hated car rides in his crate, Dr found calming music for anxious dogs on YouTube ... we play that and he lies straight down no whining and normally falls asleep :) much better than the whining pawing at his cage

As Bitey said another thing to remember is that the boot isn't especially safe in the event of a rear-ended crash.