Spaniel distressed when in car

[Ikeasucks]

Just that really, nearly 4 yr old spaniel just can’t settle and pants quite badly. She’s not in car much but we do have to do some long trips several times a year and it’s tough on all of us watching her discomfort. Any advice?

Does she suffer from motion sickness? Might be worth a talk when next at the vet to see if they can prescribe anti-nausea medication to try?

Similarly, blocking up the windows so she cannot see out (except forwards over your heads) may help with that. That will obviously impede your windscreen mirror view but I've driven cars with no rear view (built like that) and you get used to it quickly enough and use your wing mirrors more. Assuming she travels in the boot?

Failing that, if you think she just is scared to be in the car then she needs to experience more enjoyable things in the car (start by just asking her to sit in the boot and eat treats!). Build very slowly up to shutting the boot door for a few seconds. Then build to frequent, shorter and less scary trips, maybe just a few streets to the park or even just out and back again. Take your time and try to avoid ay of the long trips during this training period - which may mean changing your plans for a few months to accommodate this.

Vet will give you something for this

The vet can give her motion-sickness tablets.

I think you need to build up and do more trips
to rarely do them and then have long journeys it’s understandable she’s unsettled

Ask the vet for Cerenia - absolute game-changer. You will only need to use for 3 or 4 journeys and then problem will be solved. We only used for long journeys (4hrs plus) and took shorter journeys without it in between