Hi All, Wilson is 18 months old now and makes an absolute racket in the car. He whimpers, whinges, squeals and makes a hell of a lot of noise. He is standing up the whole time so he is engaged and alert. He will sometimes quiver with excitement/over stimulation. He has never been brilliant in the car and since he was a pup we tried having him in the boot and in a soft crate but he would go berserk having to be further away from us in the front seats so we gave in and let him be on the back seats of the car. This made him better as it he is no longer destructive through frustration (chewed through a seatbelt from the boot once). Had a session with a trainer many months ago as we thought he was afraid of the car but they told me he was simply excited and to ignore him, not much help, nothing really changed. In the past we have tried click for quiet, engaging with him when he’s quiet and ignoring him when he isn’t, treats for laying down and being quiet but he still reaches a point where he’s so excited that he stands up and squeals and can no longer engage with the training. I’ve tried taking him for short drives where he doesn’t go anywhere but this didn’t have much impact and I can’t persevere with driving him for 10 minutes everyday with no destination if it’s not actually going to improve the behaviour. He usually starts being very vocal when he realises where we are going (to the place where we walk him or day care) which I can understand somewhat but he will be intermittently vocal before this, sometimes as soon as we’ve left our road. The earlier he gets vocal the more he winds himself up so once we’ve driven for 25 mins to where we’re going he’s going bonkers. Any advice and/or has anyone actually had any success with stopping behaviour like this? The amount of noise he makes is starting to have the potential to be dangerous as it’s distracting for the driver, we really need a safe solution. Thanks everyone.
Our Labs have never been a problem in the car, but we have often had a friends Samoyeds riding with us and both of them (sequentially) were terrible. The owner would put a bark muzzle sometimes on them to make the drive bearable.
Hi Jess_Bushby have you tried a more gradual desensitisation program. Stand 10 metres away from car. Reinforce calmness. Next session try 8 m. If gets too aroused you have moved too close too quickly. After some time you should be able to get in the car. Don't go anywhere. Don't even turn on the engine. After 5 sec get out. And so on and so on. It will take a lot of time and patience. I believe you have classically conditioned him that a car ride means a wonderful time at the park. You need to disrupt that prediction. So. In contrast to your way of thought short aimless trips do in fact have a point. But before you do that you need to lower his arousal level in the proximity of the car.
I used to use a playlist on spotify called Calming Dogs, then eventually changed to putting on a radio channel like Classical music...worked a treat and now we don't have any problems with Sonny in the car. He knows its a place to chill until we get out of it. No longer have to listen to boring music!
