car sickness in dogs

sillysmiles

Any body have any hints for alleviating car sickness for a dog.

We had to go away this weekend and both on the out and return trip be vomited multiple times.
Windows are open. For the return journey he hadn't been fed before hand.
We've only had him a few weeks so haven't had a chance to build up his tolerance.
I plan to start taking him on short trips for a walk to get him used to it but if anyone has any other hints that would be great -as not being able to travel is simply not an option.

DBB

sillysmiles wrote: »

I plan to start taking him on short trips for a walk to get him used to it but if anyone has any other hints that would be great -as not being able to travel is simply not an option.

I feel your pain, I have a new-ish dog here who had the same problem.
Had being the operative word, because we're over the problem now! She too was very inexperienced in the car, and any journeys that I know she had done were long and more than what she was ready for.
Your idea to go for short journeys is key to the problem. Do you know how long it takes him before he throws up? If you have a time-frame, always stay within it for the first few weeks. If no puking, push your distances a little bit more every few days.
Another thing that I found really important was to severely limit how much movement she was capable of in the car. She was inclined to stand in the hatchback boot (she's a small GSD) and was being thrown about a bit because of it. This, I feel, exacerbated the nausea.
So, I set her up in a crate, and stuffed it with soft bedding so that she had a lot of grip, and if she did lose her balance, she wasn't being thrown about. This really helped her. I also think not being able to look sideways out the car at the world whizzing past may have helped. If you can't crate him for any reason, then otherwise severely limit his move-ability using quilts etc, if you see what I mean?
I ran into a little problem whereby she vomits if her tummy is empty, that's without going on car journeys! So, I had to make sure she'd had a small meal in the hours leading up to the journey, but emphasis on the word small.
I also tried, as far as I could but particularly when going on longer journeys, to stick to major roads and motorways, so that there wasn't too much cornering. Her first trip up the M1 was a total success!
I suppose it took 4ish weeks of daily short, but gradually lengthening car journeys.

sillysmiles

Thanks
I don't think I could fit a crate into the car and he isn't crate trained so I think that might stress him a bit more. This maybe something to come back to if all else fails.
He doesn't like the back roads. Motorways are fine. So on Saturday the first time he threw up was within 15minutes of home (back roads) then on to the motorway for 40 minutes (was fine). Off the motorway and about 10 minutes later we had another episode. Cleaned that out, let him out and walk around and wee and then back in and about 30 minutes later he went again. I felt so sorry for the poor pet, but unfortunately there wasn't another option.

On Saturday he was fed in the morning and traveled in the afternoon, on Sunday he traveled about 9am, but had been fed the night before. On Sunday he was traveling with my partner in his car, bigger car. The windows were open and he had two chuck ups on the way - both times on the back roads.

He is on the back seat with a car seat cover hammock thing. I wonder if not being able to see the seat edge is also affecting him. Will also need to get more blankets for in the car both as soakage and grip.


Was so not anticipating this! I regularly have my sisters dog in the car and she just lies and sleeps (and snores) in the car.

greenbicycle

It might sound a bit strange but giving our dog a bit of ginger to chew on before/during the journey really helped our dog, some times it was even just a ginger nut biscuit (even though i wonder how much ginger is in them) that really helped our dog when she was a puppy and then as she grew up he was fine and didnt even need the ginger.

we only had a small little dog but she always sat on the floor on the passanger side in the front of the car, never up on the seats (until she knew she was near our destination and used to get excited and jump up on the passenger seat or the passenger in the seat to look out the window!)

DBB

Ginger is good for settling tummies alright, good suggestion!
I'd use blankets or a box or something so that he only has half the width of the car seat, limiting his movement, particularly the sort of rocking, side-to-side, back-and-forth movement he'll experience in the car. Then use blankets around him to sort of brace him, if you see what I mean.
I had a couple of unavoidable long journeys with my dog at the start too where she puked. But after two months, we did a long, 200km journey including twisty roads, and no puking. She just needed to learn how to travel, which no doubt is harder on inexperienced adult dogs.

molly09

Hi,

Can I just ask about the ginger, do you mean to give a tiny piece of root ginger peeled (like what you would grate into a stir fry)?

My little girl gets sick in the car also, at the moment I am trying to build her tolerance up to longer journeys.

ferretone

molly09 wrote: »

Hi,

Can I just ask about the ginger, do you mean to give a tiny piece of root ginger peeled (like what you would grate into a stir fry)?

My little girl gets sick in the car also, at the moment I am trying to build her tolerance up to longer journeys.

Crystallised ginger is really handy for this, as it is so palatable. A few chunks of that should do the trick, and that amount wouldn't be enough for the bit of sugar in it to be a worry.

bluejelly

My nephew suffers from car sickness and my brother was recently told to tie a piece of rubber to back of car ( like they used to do 30 yrs ago). Might work for dogs too........

molly09

ferretone wrote: »

Crystallised ginger is really handy for this, as it is so palatable. A few chunks of that should do the trick, and that amount wouldn't be enough for the bit of sugar in it to be a worry.

Thanks so much, will try this and more of the suggestions here

boomerang

You could also ask your vet about Cerenia tablets, which are an anti-nausea medication and one of the indications is car sickness. Prescription only.

Really excellent advice there from DBB though - that is the long term solution.

hession

Try corrugated cardboard under the dog it takes the bumps and vibration before it reaches the dog.

DBB

boomerang wrote: »

You could also ask your vet about Cerenia tablets, which are an anti-nausea medication and one of the indications is car sickness. Prescription only.

Really excellent advice there from DBB though - that is the long term solution.

Just to clarify, Cerenia isn't really all that suitable for longer-term use for car-sickness. It is only meant to be used in the very short-term, which is fine for people like the OP if, for example, they have to go on a long car journey before getting the chance to fully acclimatise their dog to longer journeys. There is also an injectable form available but it is a painful injection, and I wasn't really prepared to go with it unless my dog really, really needed it (she didn't!)

boomerang

DBB wrote: »

It is only meant to be used in the very short-term, which is fine for people like the OP if, for example, they have to go on a long car journey before getting the chance to fully acclimatise their dog to longer journeys.

Exactly. It's only a quick fix, much better to work on curing the car sickness itself, in the long term. Was giving Boo those injections before she passed DBB, it was terrible. Clients would typically be given the tablets, though.