Car sick Labradoodle

[Shane]

Maddy is a wonderful companion, intelligent and a lover. And she doesn't even shed. She even has an amazing vocabulary recognition. So what could be wrong! She gets car sick. To call it what it is, she up-chucks (and drools excessively) every time she rides in a vehicle. She's 4, and has had experience riding. Thunder coat, prescription meds (which knock her out), ginger, etc. At my wits end, I am turning to the extensive knowledge of the good people on the forum. And ideas? BTW, our Brittany was terrified of thunder (but not gun fire) and could ride all day without a problem. Maddy sleeps through the thunder and lightning, but often loses her "cookies" within five minutes of getting on the road. The only thing that "works" is not feeding her. But she still throws up bile.

[Steamguy]

We had a couple Miniature Schnauzer dogs (one great, one a total old crank) who would get carsick. The vet advised us to give them Dramamine, in an appropriate dose for their weight. It worked...

[Rolland]

Our Blue Merle Sheltie (see Avitar pic) finally out grew the problem. He turns 8 next month, we haven’t given him meds (something that started with a C) in about 3 years. As a pup, he had troubles even on Freeways then only curvy roads to the beach and now nothing.

That being said, his worst day of the year comes this Wednesday, July 4th. He HATES loud noises and thunder.

[Art]

Help our dog by making her lay down.
It was a great day when she figured out that it helped and we didn't need to keep telling her.

[Shane]

It does not seem entirely related to motion. Today she threw up after 3 to 5 minutes on the road. Seems like fear.

[Art]

Then watching some of these may help if nothing else they are good.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/dog-whisperer/

[Copper865]

Our Yorkie seems to stress out in the truck vs. us being in the car. In the car, she is a trooper and loves it. When we are in the truck she gets all worked up and starts to pant and won't stop. We spoke with our vet and we now have a prescription for Trazodone 25mg; an Anti Anxiety med. I think we just need to take her in the truck more often. Its louder than our car. When we first adopted her, she was afraid of the car and reacted the same way. Now she bolts for the car and nearly jumps into her car seat all by herself.

[travelers]

Our Boston Terrier Cricket developed the same problem. We sat in the car like we were going out but didn't go anywhere. Gave her treats and got out. Next, we took short trips of just a few minutes (below the drooling threshold) and aain distracted her w/ special treats. We lengthened the amount of time and w/i a few weeks she was fine. She associated car trips w/ treats. She's pretty food driven, so that helped. Good luck! ~Paula

[Copper865]

Our Boston Terrier Cricket developed the same problem. We sat in the car like we were going out but didn't go anywhere. Gave her treats and got out. Next, we took short trips of just a few minutes (below the drooling threshold) and aain distracted her w/ special treats. We lengthened the amount of time and w/i a few weeks she was fine. She associated car trips w/ treats. She's pretty food driven, so that helped. Good luck! ~Paula

That's a good idea!!! Our dog is also VERY food driven. She runs to the truck and does want to get in, so I'm good to that point. I typically only use the truck to tow, but will start taking her out on short trips and do what you suggest. :) Once she can handle the short trips, I will use the truck vs the car until she is no longer bothered by it. We are not fans of needing to give her the tranquilizer, but she was just so stressed we worried for her.

[Rolland]

Looking back on past records, we used Cerenia. It’s noted as helping with vomiting. The other thing we did was to make sure he was fed far in advance of when we would be leaving. It really worked well.

[Shane]

I am going to try the treats idea and probably a low dose of Trazodone. Many thanks for the good ideas.

[chunker]

Years ago I had a dog who had trouble in a car and we would give him a squirt of lemon juice. That would do the trick. We used one of the plastic squeeze lemons.