First post here. We have a lovely 8-month old yellow Lab, Gemma. We got her at 10 weeks and had no trouble in the 2.5-hour car trip home. She went right into the crate in the car and slept most of the way back. Same was true for all car trips up until about six weeks ago. My wife took her on a walk, and as they were approaching the car to come home, Gemma made it abundantly clear that she did not want to get in. After dropping treats into the crate and on the bumper and all kinds of attempts to lure Gemma into the crate, my wife finally had to just pick her up and put her in—which wasn't easy. What's more, she also became completely averse to her crate. Prior to that event, she was sleeping in a crate every night, but after that she wouldn't go near it. Since then Gemma has been adamantly opposed to both the car and the crate. We didn't even try to take her anywhere for the first two weeks after that. Instead, we'd just open the trunk and put treats on the bumper, then in the back of the car, with no crate at all. And inside the house, we took the door off the crate and started throwing treats in that, feeding her in there, etc. She's made some progress, but still really resists getting in the car. We can't figure out what's going on. Did she get car sick? No obvious signs, no vomiting, so hard to tell. Did something scare her? Again, how do we know? She can't tell us. At this point we're considering trying her in a harness in the back seat (instead of being in the very back, either in or out of a crate). Also considering Cerenia, the motion sickness medication for dogs. We don't even know her resistance is related to motion sickness, but maybe this would help us to figure it out? Any ideas? Thanks.
Hi there and welcome to the forum. This is such a tricky one! As I've mentioned to a couple of the other members, I've had a similar thing recently with both of my dogs. For some reason, Willow suddenly didn't want to get into the car, to the point she refused to come downstairs, and Shadow didn't want to get out of the car. In both cases, only when it was parked outside the house; when we were out and about, they'd happily jump in and out. I have no idea what caused it - it didn't seem to matter whether they were jumping from the side with paving or the side with grass, but obviously something spooked the both of them. Maybe a noise, maybe slipping a bit, maybe landing on a small stone. Nothing I could work out, anyway. With Willow, even throwing really tasty treats into the car wouldn't encourage her to jump in, although they would get her as far as the door, at least. I used warm, juicy, roast pork! So, I just did lots of little walks where we didn't go out in the car, just walked on straight past it. And, every time I went to get something out of the car, she came with me. Just letting her get comfortable with walking up to it again. It seems to have done the trick in relaxing her, and she will now jump back in again. I think it's probably worth trying out the harness on the back seat so you don't have to force her into the crate. Do lots of short walks, and even have her jump in and out a few times for lots of treats each time you go out. Keep reinforcing the crate at home and give her lots of rewards for getting onto the back seat. In time, once she's relaxed, I'm sure she'll lose her nervousness and you'll be able to go back to how you were. I doubt it's car sickness and would think it's more likely to be something jarring - either a pain getting in or out, or a noise that scared her. You probably wouldn't notice either one of these.
