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Adolescent dog scared of cars - nothing is helping

3 replies

thathouse · 07/11/2025 14:02

I have an 11 month old cavapoo and she has been scared of cars for quite a few months now. She had a lot of exposure to cars as a puppy but got spooked on one of her first walks by a car driving past her really quickly and that was it. Where we live it's impossible to avoid cars, even at quiet times.

I've been working with a behaviourist on this but haven't really seen any progress. If a car crosses in front of her she's ok - even busy roads. But a single car coming down the same road she's walking on and she's barking and lunging at it. The behaviourist said it's definitely a fear response rather than chasing.

Things I've tried are:

  • Doing pattern games when I hear a car coming towards us
  • Giving treats every time she looks at a car, then progressing to her looking at the car and then back at me (this only works when she's at a distance/when cars are crossing in front of her)
  • Sitting and just watching cars (she gets bored doing this if cars are crossing in front of her)
  • Throwing lots of treats down on the floor before a car comes down the road to distract her - she'll stop this to lunge and bark at the car and then resume afterwards
  • Giving her rest days off walks to let her cortisol levels decrease
  • Using an excitable voice
  • Giving her gentle 'pops' on the lead and telling her 'no' if she barks at a car and not giving her treats, but if she's quiet giving her lots of praise and treats. Not really a fan of 'popping' the lead so have only tried this once or twice

I'm not sure what else to do. She really enjoys going for walks and gets so excited to go on them so she is enjoying the walks despite this. Is it something she will grow out of if I continue on with everything I'm doing?

OP posts:
Corgiowner · 07/11/2025 17:54

1 of mine lunges at cars and if off the lead would chase one. I’ve tried similar things to you including treats which worked till until I didn’t have them on me!
i live very rurally so our traffic is mainly very big tractors the milk tanker feed lorry etc going up and down a narrow bendy road. Secondly if we meet anything because our roads are so narrow I have to shorten the lead and pull him into the hedge accidentally increasing his tension around cars.
One day I was sitting on a wall waiting for a friend to come and pick me up in her car and trying to type an urgent email for work. I was completely ignoring any lorries tractors etc that went past because I was engrossed in the email. After 15 minutes I realised my dog hadn’t reacted to any of the traffic that went past. It made me realise that I was at best contributing to the problem and worst causing it. Now when tractors and things go past when I’m walking I try and ignore not shorten his lead unless I absolutely have too. He’s definitely improved.
The other thing I found was I hired an enclosed field for my other dog on the side of a busy road after chasing the first 20 cars that went past I noticed the excitement of finally bring allowed to chase vehicles was not all he thought it was cracked up to be.
Good luck.

AltitudeCheck · 08/11/2025 14:11

I definitely wouldn't use an excited voice in response to a car, you'll only increase her arousal level. She needs to see you as a calm, confident leader who finds cars entirely safe, dull and uninteresting. If you tense up or freeze and fixate on the car, start flapping about with treats or a squeaky voice you are telling her something 'big' is happening and promoting a similar reaction from her.

Be calm and consistent when a car is coming, keep moving if it's safe to do so, don't speak to her unless it's to give a command (heel, close, lets go.... whatever you usually say to get her to walk with you). If you have to stop to let a car past, put her in a sit/ hold her collar and say nothing and try to keep a low, calm energy (easier said than done when they are being idiots!). It will take time to unprogramme the learning that cars are exciting/ cars make you react (and therefore her react) so don't give up if it doesn't seem to work immediately.

Bupster · 09/11/2025 19:17

I think focusing on yourself as the problem isn't really the right idea at the moment - you need to make some progress before you can gain any confidence. There's also some advice on earlier posts that's a bit out of date - you can't reinforce fear by comforting your dog, and pretty much all contemporary behavioural modification programmes are going to involve treats.

There are two things to address: her emotional response, and her behaviour. The emotional response is harder. You seem fairly certain it's fear, but if she can cope with cars crossing in front of her, then that's a very specific fear. Can she cope with cars coming from behind? Or is it any cars on the same road?

Changing an emotional response can take a very long time - you don't say how long you've been working with the behaviourist, but all good ones will tell you to start by removing the source of stress as far as you can. Can you drive somewhere and then go for a walk? I know that's not possible for everyone but it would allow you to get her out without raising her stress levels every time. Things like desensitisation/counter-conditioning come next for a long-term change, but first you need to try to find a way of lowering her stress in a routine way.

The second element is the behaviour, and you can address this first through management, and second by giving them an alternative behaviour to do. Management is simply about not letting her practice the lunging - again, avoiding cars as much as possible. How much does she weigh? If you can't drive her somewhere, can you carry her for a while in really tricky places?

I know how hard this is, and I'm sure you're trying almost everything (stop popping the lead, btw - it just adds to the fear - while the excitable voice just adds to the arousal). I'm not a behaviourist, but I have a dog who has arousal problems so I'm reading a lot as well as working with behaviourists myself.

The one alternative behaviour that has really worked for my boy's reactivity really surprised me, and that's heelwork. Look at me games are fine when they're under threshold, as you've already worked out, but once he's out on the end of the lead it's way too late. Teaching him to walk to heel means I can put him next to me whenever a possible trigger comes into view. He's much less likely to notice the trigger, or to go stratospheric, when he's focused on a treat; he can't bark and lunge AND walk to heel and be rewarded; and he's already exercising self-control. There are very few things now that I can't get him past so long as his brain is present enough that I can call him back to heel (not always possible, mind you). I'm not suggesting this is a straightforward transfer, but it might be worth a try.

It was very difficult for me emotionally to make the changes I needed to do, but now our routine is far less routinely stressful for him and he's able to respond and engage so much better than he could when he was going bonkers on every walk. The days are harder for me, and I'm more isolated, but I can see the changes and I can begin to believe that things will improve enough for him that they'll improve again for me too. Best of luck x

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