Hi All, Please can anyone offer any advice on what I can do to help my puppy settle in the car? He is 15 weeks and has travelled in the car quite a lot already. To start with we had him in the foot well in the front passenger seat but he was crying and jumping up so we thought we may as well start the way we mean to go on and get him travelling in a crate in the boot. The crate is plenty big enough and is covered. Some days he's good as gold, perhaps a whine to start with but then settles. We've even had the odd journey without a peep but mostly he cries/ whines for at least half the journey and sometimes we have the full vocabulary (crying/ whining/ humming / barking/ talking etc) for the whole journey. Our journeys are usually only 20-30 mins long. There is no rhyme or reason to the pattern of his behaviour. Do I just ignore and it will get better? Any advice appreciated. I always ensure he has toileted before we set off.
If your puppy is mostly crying, then I'd go back to the beginning. Get your puppy really happy to be in his crate in the car. Don't go anywhere, just feed your puppy in the car crate, give him kongs, cuddles, whatever he likes in the crate. Repeat with the engine running. Try a few very short journeys (perhaps with puppy eating a tasty kong if he is happy to eat), and so on. Build it up slowly. Some dogs are unhappy because they feel sick in the car, so if things don't improve doing the above, might be worth a chat with the vet. But try the usual stuff first. Best of luck with it.
I'm probably the worst person to give advice on this, but it might be useful to know what I did so you can take something from it! Harley hated the car from day 1. I done lots of 5-10 minute drives to off lead walk areas. She was in the boot and secure. She whined, howled etc the whole time she was in the car. After several months it was driving me mad as we couldn't go out anywhere without ending up with a headache. I tried stopping the car when she was vocal, only driving when she was quiet. Well, we didn't get far until I gave up as the noise was horrendous. It got so bad that my husband refused to come out with us. I came on here and asked the same question as you and got very similar advice. Also, I started taking her for short trips just around the block incase it was excitement preceding an off lead walk. Didn't help. I fed her meals in the car boot (with it open) for several days. I then moved to closing the boot for a few seconds.......that didn't work! She refused to eat or be quiet. I tried doing this several times to no avail. I gave up then. I then asked my daughter to come with us and give her a treat every time she was quiet. This worked for one journey! After this she ignored the treats and wouldn't stop. I gave up with this. I then tried putting her inside the car, strapped in on the back seat. Woohoo......silence . When it was just me in the car she was 80% better and I decided I could cope with this. My husband came with us one day......oh my god......the howling, barking etc started again! Back to square one! I brought a new car with a large boot as I thought that maybe th other boot was too confining. No, that didn't work. I went back through feeding her in the car etc. Nothing worked. In the end I strapped her on the back seat. Time went by and she started settling in the car. It took until she was over 1.5 years old to be able to go for any distance greater than 5 miles. Now (aged 3) she is really good in the car. I think I gave up too quickly at several stages and wish I had persevered with the boot. I now have heavy duty car seat covers on permanently which are a pain to take off when I have other passengers who don't want to be covered in dogs hair and mud.
