Hello, first post here. I have, quite literally, the coolest dog on the planet. He's a chocolate and is 4.5 years old. We've had him since 8 weeks old and he's my best friend. The only issue we have is his anxiety in the car. I have tried so many things to combat this. I think the root issue is he is just an insanely strong working dog. He is half american, half english. Weighs 75lbs and is pure muscle. We walk him twice a day. Morning walk is usually shorter, maybe 15 minutes with some free time to run and sniff through the park and a little fetch. The evening walk is about an hour, which includes about 25 minutes or so of intense fetch (he won't take breaks unless it's too hot). He is in olympic athlete shape and I think his root issue is we aren't fulfilling his drive to WORK. He get him to work whenever we can, like bring in the groceries, and he absolutely LOVES it. I wish I duck hunted because I think he'd be amazing at it. Anyways, I am blabbering. We are going on a family trip over the holidays and I am debating getting a sitter for him because I am at the point where I don't think it's healthy for him to be that stressed/anxious for that long on the road. The last thing I can think of is medication. Up until recently I never wanted to give him anything, but i've been desperate trying to figure something out and have recently tried L-Theanine chews and also a CBD calming chew. Neither of which did much of anything. About a year ago I did try benadryl...it didn't go well. He was CRAZY anxious the whole trip. After we got to our destination he slept for about 24 hours straight. I am hesitant to try medication from the vet (doggy zantax or something), but I can't put him through that stress for this long of a trip. HELP!?
To expand on the symptoms of anxiety, he whines and barks and pants constantly. Paces all over. Just in general seems like he is freaking out. For reference, he has zero anxiety with fireworks or thunderstorms and is an extremely well adjusted dog otherwise (minus being VERY excited at first when people come to visit). He has no issue getting in the car, and would actually rather sit in the car than sit in the house while we load it up (this way he knows we can't leave him). But once we start moving, he goes nuts. He barks occasionally when we leave him home when we go to work/store, but I don't remember the last time he destroyed anything in the house and am fairly certain he goes up and sleeps on our bed the whole time we are gone.
