Recommend best travel sickness medication

canhefixit

Could anyone recommend the best travel sickness medication for a 5 year old golden retriever who isnt fit to travel 100 meters in a car without vomiting and we are heading down the country in a weeks time and want to take him but need some sort of re-laxer of some kind if they exist?

Thanks

boomerang

Cerenia injection against vomiting induced by travel sickness, only available from your vet.

You can get Cerenia tablets in the UK - not sure about here. Again they are prescription-only meds so only available from a vet.

Giving a sedative is only going to make things worse for the poor lad. He'll be physically slowed down by it, but just as alert, conscious and nauseous.

zenno

That would be no different to giving a baby an injection to stop said baby from getting sick in a car/van on travel. It's not the right way, but people go the easy route to make things hassle free unfortunately.

The real deal is the fact that all you have to do is put extra covers on the back seat and floor and if the dog gets sick then let it do so naturally, as this dog over time will get accustomed to the motion of driving and will overcome the sickness feeling.

Giving the dog drugs to stop it from doing it's natural thing (as in getting used to motion) like naturally feeling and adjusting to a new motion scenario and dealing with it naturally is wrong

anniehoo

boomerang wrote: »

Cerenia injection against vomiting induced by travel sickness, only available from your vet.

You can get Cerenia tablets in the UK - not sure about here. Again they are prescription-only meds so only available from a vet.

+1 A powerful and effective anti-emetic (stops vomiting) that is regularly used to prevent vomiting in chemo patients. It is POM (Prescription Only Medicine) as Boomerang has mentioned.

This may be a temporary fix, but should not be given without qualified veterinary consent first.

Darthvadar

My last dog used to get VERY travel sick. I asked the vet if it would be worth trying the old pregnant woman trick of Ginger Biscuits. He didn't see any harm in trying as I wasn't going to be feeding the dog such food too often, so I went with three biccies (she was a medium sized dog) about fifteen minutes before travelling. It worked a treat!. Not so much as a drool.

Might be worth a try!.

Darth.

anniehoo

zenno wrote: »

That would be no different to giving a baby an injection to stop said baby from getting sick in a car/van on travel. It's not the right way, but people go the easy route to make things hassle free unfortunately.

It's not a baby. It's a 5 year old dog who doesn't tolerate travelling well.If you've ever experienced "motion sickness",in any concept, you'd understand a bit better why sometimes temporary medication is required.

wrote:

Giving the dog drugs to stop it from doing it's natural thing (as in getting used to motion) like naturally feeling and adjusting to a new motion scenario and dealing with it naturally is wrong

It's not wrong at all.Travelling in a car/boat/train can be stressful enough for some people who don't do it regularly,let alone dogs.

I didn't experience "motion sickness" for a good 2 years + after I started scuba diving ( on boats constantly). When I did for the first time....oh...my......god!!!!! It was horrendous.

OP it might be good to work with a behaviourist and vet to determine whether it's a fear/nervous response that can be psychologically worked on or physiological issue that can be medically treated with your dog.

Don't administer any medication mentioned on Boards (especially POMs) that have not been advised by your VS.

zenno

anniehoo wrote: »

It's not a baby. It's a 5 year old dog who doesn't tolerate travelling well.If you've ever experienced "motion sickness",in any concept, you'd understand a bit better why sometimes temporary medication is required.


It's not wrong at all.Travelling in a car/boat/train can be stressful enough for some people who don't do it regularly,let alone dogs.

I didn't experience "motion sickness" for a good 2 years + after I started scuba diving ( on boats constantly). When I did for the first time....oh...my......god!!!!! It was horrendous.

OP it might be good to work with a behaviourist and vet to determine whether it's a fear/nervous response that can be psychologically worked on or physiological issue that can be medically treated with your dog.

Don't administer any medication mentioned on Boards (especially POMs) that have not been advised by your VS.

All and all with the views you put forward, respected... personally I think it is better not to medicate the dog just for this travel, why not let the dog adjust to it and it will become immune to travel sickness naturally without giving the dog drugs. That's all i'm saying.

Using drugs/medicine when not needed for something so minor will only lower the dogs immune system.

Mrs Garth Brooks

Darthvadar wrote: »

My last dog used to get VERY travel sick. I asked the vet if it would be worth trying the old pregnant woman trick of Ginger Biscuits. He didn't see any harm in trying as I wasn't going to be feeding the dog such food too often, so I went with three biccies (she was a medium sized dog) about fifteen minutes before travelling. It worked a treat!. Not so much as a drool.

Might be worth a try!.

Darth.

Clicked in here for myself, didn't realise it was a thread in animal issues.

I never heard about this ginger biscuit trick but as someone who gets migraines and nausea and sometimes travel sickness, im trying this.

Darthvadar

HardLuckWoman wrote: »

Clicked in here for myself, didn't realise it was a thread in animal issues.

I never heard about this ginger biscuit trick but as someone who gets migraines and nausea and sometimes travel sickness, im trying this.

Certainly no harm in trying!. Perhaps let us know if it works for you!.

Darth.

DBB

zenno wrote: »

All and all with the views you put forward, respected... personally I think it is better not to medicate the dog just for this travel, why not let the dog adjust to it and it will become immune to travel sickness naturally without giving the dog drugs. That's all i'm saying.

Using drugs/medicine when not needed for something so minor will only lower the dogs immune system.

If an adult dog gets travel sick, it's not going to grow out of it. Or at least, is very unlikely to. This dog is 5... How much longer should the owner wait for the dog to become "immune" to travel sickness?!
There is also the very real risk that if we insist on letting our dogs puke and feel awful every time they travel they stand a strong chance of developing an associative dislike/fear of travelling at all.... This is a much more difficult problem to overcome.
On the other hand, suitable medication helps to create a "window of opportunity" to help teach a travel sick dog to enjoy short journeys (at first, and coupled with a lovely outcome), gradually extending the journey time and tapering out the anti-emitic.
To follow up what anniehoo posted, and to anthropomorphise, I suffered with awful travel sickness as a child, the associative effects were so powerful that the nausea started a whole day before a long journey, and l would remain queasy for hours after travelling. I wouldn't put any person or dog through travel sickness if I could avoid it with medication.

boomerang

Totally agree with you DBB, as a fellow travel sickness sufferer. It is horrendous.

It sounded to me from what the OP said that they don't take the dog in the car at all if they can help it, as he gets so sick. So a long journey across the country (and back again) is going to be complete misery for the poor dog without something to help with the nausea. Why make him suffer?

Every time you put me on a bus or in the back of a car, I get travel sick, unless I'm in the front seat and watch the road ahead. Doesn't matter how many times I travel on the bus, it doesn't get any better. Same with boats. Some people seem to suffer with it more than others. You don't necessarily become immune to it. I'm sure that for some dogs, it's no different. My collie had probably never been in a car when I first adopted her, and she did suffer travel sickness for the first while, but after that she was grand no matter how long the journey. On the other hand, my aunt's dog was travel sick on his very first journey home from the breeder, and despite travelling in the car several times a week all his life, he has never really improved.

Ms Tootsie

Speaking as someone who owns a dog that was ridiculously bad with travelling I can atest to having to resort to medication. The problem with travel sickness in a dog is that it only takes a few 'bad trips' to make them associate travelling with sickness. That association then leads the dog to stress about travelling which in turn compounds the nausea. Our guy would only have to be lifted into the car before the excessively drooling and 'stress yawns' would start. By the time we got to the end of the road he would be heaving. So event on good trips - like to the park, the lakes etc he would be so stressed out from the second he got in the car the reward wasnt worth it.

From our point the motion sickness came from he was a puppy and unfortunately the first few car trips were negative - ie to the vets etc and this reinforced the negative association with the car. Motion sickness in most dogs stops around the age of one but if they have suffered from it a lot as a puppy then the negative association with travelling will remain into adulthood and so the sickness will continue.

It took a lot of work on our part to sort this. We had to get him travel sickness tablets for a few car 'positive' car trips. So we went to the park and the lakes and general fun dog days out. After a few of these medicated trips we moved on to improving the positive association with the car. We would just sit in the car with him for a few evenings a week and we would feed him high value treats. Then we moved on to strapping in his harness. Then to driving to the end of the road and back - he got a treat and lots of 'good boys!!!!' when we got back to the house. Eventually we took a few trips to the park in the car and managed it without the vomit, or excessive drooling! Now we can take him in the car and he is fine. We still do not feed him before a car trip and usually give him a good long walk before we go on a lengthy trip. It took a lot of time and effort but it paid off.

All of this was only made possible because we had to resort to medication at the start. We dont need it now, thankfully. But with some dogs the motion sickness can be so traumatizing that even a car trip to something fun isnt worth it so medication is the only way to have them complete a journey. After some successful car trips it might then be worthwhile to build on improving their travelling.

OP I used traveleze for our guy but to be honest we only found it useful for trips under and hour and a half (it must start to wear off then). Also they say to give it 20 minutes before a car journey but after one experience with seeing them regurgitated in our back seat we gave them at least 40 minutes before we left. We always walked him for about 40 minutes as well and sprayed some DAP in the back seat (it really calmed him we found). Best of luck with it!