hi, new mum again, Monty really whines when in car, any tips? A neighbour with a lab said to put him in boot, unrestrained but this is not something I want to do,,,,, Currently he is in a harness with seatbelt restraint Thanks x
I think he will grow out of it, they usually do. I did lots of short journeys so that the pup became used to being in the car and with something good happening at the end. Though you have to be careful that the whining doesn't turn into excitement whining!!!!! If a dog whines when it is an adult, I just stopped the car until they were quiet again and then moved off, you have to find a road with very little traffic!
I put Arnie in the car as well pretty much from day one. I encouraged good behaviour by click and treat when he was quite. Reassured him by just placing my hand near him and had chew treats ready to distract him. Now he just jumps in and goes straight to sleep
Nugget comes with me every day on the afternoon school run (an hour in the car). I followed the advice somewhere on this site - talk encouragingly to him when he's quiet, go silent when he whines. If you have the radio on, turn it off when he whines, back on when he's quiet again. It worked for me within a day or two. When he was small enough to be in a crate in the car, I also gave him a kong.
@Stacia you have more patience than me - I admire you. Coco is a whiner/yapper when we're on an outward journey, but not (usually) on the way back. Was just thinking about it this morning and the remote Treat and Train dispenser... expensive
Harley used to whine constantly in the car until last year. She will still whine when we get close to where we are going no matter what direction we are coming from.........she seems to recognise places. On the way home she is now brilliant and we hardly hear a murmur from her. I did use adaptil spray and it did seem to help. Persistence is the key. I ignore her when she whines and talk / praise when she is in a quiet stage.
Molly was a shocker in the car at first, terrible howling. Once she could go on the ground I started to do really short drives - 2 minutes - and then let her out. (We're lucky in that we have a recreation ground and the beach within2 minutes.) She stopped the howling within a couple of weeks and quickly became fine on longer drives.
Its quite common for a dog to whine in the car. It usually dies off when the dog gets used to it. We've always introduced our dogs to the car slowly, starting with short trips to the end of the road and building up to longer ones. We also made sure that most early trips ended somewhere nice (a walk) rather than somewhere nasty (the vet). Having someone the back seat helped as they could distract the dog and give rewards when she was quiet.
When we collected Bailey it was an hours drive home and he cried and howled all the way in fact I was nearly in tears several times as some of the howls really were heart wrenching. As we live in the middle of a town there are no nice walks around us so everywhere is about a 10 min car journey. I spent the first month sitting in the back cuddling him, he quickly fell asleep each time (yes even for a 10 min journey). He now leaps into the back seat of the car, waits for his harness to be clipped on and then settles down - always for a sleep! I walked to the shop the other day and had to stop at the car for ages before he believed me at we were only going round the corner and would not be getting in car! We have a blanket on the back seat and normally a selection of things for him to munch on if he manages to stay awake that is! He also takes it as a personal insult if anybody is in the back seat now too!
I started a reply to you earlier and got called away.....Dexter was grim,whining,yipping ,barking,he even climbed out from the boot and onto my lap...not fun! It might be an idea to go back a few steps and start slowly like Phil has suggested...You might have made the harness 'live' too soon.Id go back to rewarding for wearing the harness ,being happy around the car,,sitting nicely in the car with the car switched off ,then switching it on,then going on a short drive etc etc.....I know you might be rolling your eyes at me and thinking,all well and good but how will you get to where I want to walk ,like now!? I hear you ,if he has to be in the harness right now,then just let him have as much practice of short journeys as you can ......that's what I had to do to get to our off lead walks.I secured Dexter in the boot with the dog guard and ignored him as I realised talking to him escalated the noise.....it will eventually stop but it's really nice if you are able to help your dog learn to cope x
It is expensive - it would be really nice to be able to hire them, I think. Although I do have to say that Charlie is silent when the dispenser is in the car, but not so when it isn't but any noise is limited to a few seconds after the car has stopped somewhere exciting and that's it. So it's possible that the dispenser acts partly as a distraction and sometimes if it's really exciting he just can't help himself. Still, it does mean I can pull the car up at gundog training without having a howling dog in the back!
