Hello Molly started doing a few things out of the blue #1 We'll be playing or She'll be playing alone with her ball. Suddenly she will just start barking at the ball! It's NOT out of reach or under anything or being kept from her in any way. It'd just laying on the floor and she stands over it and barks directly at it. Almost like she's trying to get it to do something. Sometimes she'll just start barking at us....we offer a toy, she drops it and goes back to barking, staring us dead in the eye! Try to let her out for some business and she just sits on the back porch Is this boredom or is she trying to tell us something #2 Anytime we go for a ride all she does is cry! From the moment she gets in my truck till I take her out. I have a Ford F150 with 4 doors and the rear seat folds down into a Full size carpeted shelf and that is where she rides. She has never fallen in the truck, she has never been hurt or scared by anything that I'm aware of. She has never been left alone in the truck. She even cries if she's riding on the passenger seat next to me. I just don't get it. She LOVES going to the vet, she LOVES going to pick up her boys from Track Practice. Any time I say "Hey Molly....I going to (Blank) wanna go with?" She goes nuts! Until we get in the truck...then she cries! Is she upset that "with" takes too long to get to?
Dogs often try out new behaviours spontaneously. Whether or not they repeat that behaviour will then depend on what accompanies or follows it. So while she may be barking at the ball in frustration (because it isn't moving/rolling/interesting any more) It may be that she barked spontaneously on one occasions, and received some kind of reward for doing that. A reward could be as simple as you saying 'what's up Molly" - any kind of attention can reinforce a bark. The whining in the car could be a similar thing - she gets something out of the way people respond. Or it could be that she suffers from travel sickness. Not all travel sick dogs vomit, some just feel miserable or cry. The most likely cause is that she is frustrated or excited and that the crying is being reinforced in some way by her getting what she wants, when she does it. Typically dogs that whine in a vehicle are dogs that are driven to fun places where they then get to run about and play
