Rolo has always been fairly well behaved in the car, he is never reluctant to hop in or out, and has traveled almost daily as he travels to daycare or my OH's workplace. We also travel by car to the woods where we walk him most of the time. He has, over the past few weeks got increasingly over excited, whining, and crying loudly, even barking sometimes. He is normally on the back seat secured, but I am going to have to consider the boot now as he is moving and tangling himself in his harness etc and distracting me. Any ideas how to reduce the excitement or behavior in the car? Thanks
I feel your pain. Coco (in the boot) does this when we're on out way out (rarely on the way back). It's loud, he whines, cries and squeaky-barks. It drives me insane BUT I've switched from speaking to him/shouting at him/paying any attention at all to him to totally ignoring him, and boy! is this hard. And I can honestly say - it hasn't made a blind bit of difference. I'm seriously considering a remote Train & Treat.
I can't offer any words of wisdom Jyssica but when I was a kid we had a black lab who LOVED water and it was like she could smell it within a certain distance. Within a few miles of water she would start whining and fidgeting (in the car) from being previously asleep. I don't remember if we ignored it or tried to soothe her but she always did it and we attributed it to uncontainable excitement! So I wonder if Rolo is associating the car journeys with his walks so he's getting all revved up, so to speak. Don't know what you can do though, sorry.
I reckon Rolo is just getting himself into a right old state of excitement , in anticipation of his walk . Bearing this in mind , I would put him in the car , drive a few minutes, then bring him home again . Its like a sort of lucky dip , but it might just de sensitise him from doing it all the time .
Thanks Kate I may try that, It does seem to be more intense when he is on his way to daycare, as he loves it there. But its showing itself in normal drives now too.I may just start driving round the block and back home so not exciting at all!
When Stanley's going to day care he gets so excited. When we turn into the estate where the house is I can hear his tail really thudding cos it's wagging so frantically we get some squeals as well. But if we go another way he just lays down and goes to sleep with a hmpfff
Snowie knows all the routes and recognizes places, and gets vocal when he's getting to an exciting place. If I'm chatting to someone in the car, it drives me mad. I say SHUSH! and he briefly keeps quiet, then can't contain himself - although he does use a smaller voice - he really does know the difference between an inside and outside voice. If it's just him and me, I don't mind. I actually sing in the car, so I don't see why he shouldn't either! When he was a puppy, he cried terribly in the car, distressing sounds. No idea why. Upset me terribly. But he grew out of it. The adult sounds now are of excitement. Fortunately he doesn't move around madly, and often lies down on the back seat with his head on the central console between the front seats. You can get a seatbelt attachment to the harness if you want to keep Rolo firmly in one place. Or put him in a crate.
The fastest way around this is to reward quiet. All the other techniques are a bit of a lottery as to whether they work, or might take a huge impractical amount of time. The problem is how to reward quiet when you are driving? A remote treat dispenser is the thing. There are various versions available, but it really did work for my dog. And I tried everything else. It's not really surprising that it works - reinforce what you want is always the thing that works. You could try boring them into a stupor by driving round and round for no reason. And you could also try not getting out of the car until the dog has practically gone to sleep (lucky you if you have enough time for that - my dog just started whining again every time I moved, I could have died of old age waiting for THAT to work ). Otherwise, finding a way to reward quiet is the way to go.
Harley used to be an absolute nightmare in the car and I often came in here for advice. I took her on random drives to the garage, the shops etc but didn't let her out. She soon stopped with the whining and barking as I also changed my routes to her favourite locations. Might be worth a try?
