Travel Sickness

Hi, I had a terrible time with Bobby at the weekend. We took a trip to my parents house on Friday and he threw up fours times during the half hour journey. On Sat we went on another trip of similar length and he threw up twice. On both occassions I fed him hours before. He was in his crate each time and this seemed to make it worse for him. Is it possible for him to grow out of this. Someone mentioned to me that you can give him a fraction of a human travel sickness tablet but I'm a little wary about doing that.

BTW, I've know this is a problem for him so for that last few weeks we've taken him on short little trips of no longer than five minutes. On Saturday we had only driven 200m before he got sick.

Oh, poor Bobby.

Lucky loves to go on car rides with me. I hope you can get this sorted out soon so he can enjoy rides with you (and vice versa).

My sister's dog just developed car sickness a couple months ago (at nearly 3). We just make sure he is not fed any time near when he is getting in the car. It helps some. :drivecar:

This board is a great source of advice & information. I hope you get some good suggestions ... I'm interested too.

We had a dog that would sometimes get sick. We had some luck covering up the crate with a towel so she couldn't see out. But the biggest help was not feeding her at all the day she was going somewhere. She eventually grew out of it.

Both of mine tend to get cick in the car, so I try not to feed them before we travel, but sometimes they still get sick. I'm curious to know if anyone has any tips or advice! Good luck, I know it's hard travelling with a car sick dog :xfngr:

His crate was covered so that wasn't the problem. One journey occurred at 9AM. He hadn't eaten any solid food since 7PM the previous evening. He still threw up fluid etc. It makes any travel very unpleasant. However, he needs to travel as it was his first night away from his usual environment and he whined for about two hours in his crate that night until I took him into bed with me. He also barked at everything in my parents house from a candle stand to the sound of different birds.

I had a Yorkshire terrior that was very car sick, I got some travel pills from the vet, and they helped a lot. One tip, is to sit your dog in the car and NOT go anywhere ( well ventilated of course)... Do it every day for a while if you can.This helps somtimes, because once a dog has been sick when travelling they get a fear of going in the car.....in other words the fear of being sick, can make them sick OH dear I am not making much sense am I .... but I guess you know what I mean.....Hope this helps

Before we got Guinness, Tarmac travelled in a crate inthe car.

The day we got Guinness.......
picked him up from Stoke on Trent. Put him in the crate with Tarmac.
less than 1/4 of a mile - his dinner was everywhere. We had to stop and clean up or they would both be wearing it.

After that - I think that Guinness knew he had to be sick in the car.
I even tried just sitting in the car outside the house - not even ruddy well running - and the drool started.

Then after a month - we went on a trip and instead of the crate - Shirl had Guin on her knee. This sorted it.

Later we could travel with him in the back foot well. If you tried to put him on the seat he quickly jumped into his safe area.

Nowadays, he will even get up and look out of the windows. Bless!!

Puppies often get motion sickness. They almost all gradually grow out of it. The best way for them to travel is definitely in a covered crate. It will almost certainly be worse out of the crate and harder to clean up too. The best way to approach motion sickness is to gradually build up his tolerance -- eg if he rarely goes in the car then is suddenly in the car for several hours, he is going to be a lot more likely to get sick than if you do frequent short trips and build up his comfort with traveling. A lot of puppies get sick because car travel is frightening for them, not because of the motion. Some people use Bach's Rescue Remedy before travel and as Bruce advises, don't feed him the day you are traveling.

Also just ignore him and don't fuss over him -- trying to 'comfort' is generally interpreted by the dog as a confirmation that this is indeed a situation in which he should be fearful -- and where he also gets rewarded for feeling anxiety by extra attention. It's best to just leave him be.

Thanks Karlin. I'll try the rescue remedy. The problem I'm having with the crate is that it is not steady in the car. The back seat isn't completely flat thus the crate wobbles as I drive. This obviously increases the motion sickness. Unfortunately I don't have a vehicle which contains a flat back section.

Bobby we have the same problem with our car. try putting the cage on somthing like a cot duvet, and then put the seat belt round it. That will stop it moving