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Originally Posted by chattiesmom  Sometimes you can overcome nervousness in the car through training. I have success, but it is a long, slow process. Unless you plan to travel extensively, it might not be time well spent. Benadryl for occasional short trips can work wonders.
My Lacie was on the show circuit which required many miles in the car. She was so nervous in the car would vomit or have diarrhea. So we started a slow positive reward process - it took months of hard work but she has overcome her nervousness and now loves car rides.
It started by just taking her out to the car and giving her a yummy delicious treat. Of course, just walking out to the car never caused any issue, but it gave her the idea that going to the car was a good thing.
Then I would walk her to the car and open the car door and give her a treat. This also caused little to no reaction. But it didn't take her long to get really excited when we walked out to the car.
Actually sitting in the car with Lacie with an open door caused some nervousness. We repeated the whole walk to the car, open the door, sit in the car until she was completely comfortable.
Next was the in the car with the door shut - until completely at ease....
Moving on in baby steps repeating each step until she was completely comfortable and happy.
Start the car...
Put the car in reverse ...
Actually back up the car a few feet...
Then one glorious day, after months of hard work, we were able to drive around the block. After that we would extend trips until she was a seasoned happy traveler.
I will mention that the few times during the training process that we had to go on a long trip to a show we went backward a bit.
But time and patience and a lot of hard work prevailed. Lacie is now a happy seasoned traveler! |
Thanks for the detailed post! I think we just need to buckle down and work through something like this. Max gets extremely nervous when we travel and I haven't been able to pinpoint exactly what it is. He has never thrown up in the car, so to my knowledge he isn't nauseous (though he could be). Nothing we've tried has helped, so I do think some desensitization like you outlined above would probably go a long ways. Just need to find the time to do it
