OVERCOMING CAR SICKNESS
Car sickness is an example of motion sickness, which is the experience of feeling unwell while moving. It happens when our inner ear and our eyes are giving us conflicting information; what our balance mechanism via our inner ear is telling us, versus what our eyes are telling us we are seeing, are not the same. Interestingly enough, this mix-up of signals can trick the body into believing it has ingested poison, triggering the urge to vomit in order to expel the hazardous substance.
Motion sickness, often car sickness, is a common experience for puppies and some older dogs. It is particularly prevalent in puppyhood because the sensory structures and neural pathways relaying information are still developing. This being said, adolescent and mature animals can also experience motion sickness for a variety of reasons.
During the formative time in their early development, we should strive to avoid creating negative associations with the car. Rehearsing getting car sickness by repeated exposure to car rides causing uneasiness is one cause of dogs remaining prone to car sickness even when the necessary structures for balance and coordination are fully developed. Besides avoiding negative experiences, there are other things we can do to help our dogs overcome motion sickness.
Let’s explore how to develop our dogs’ sensory awareness to improve their balance and coordination to reduce their experience of car sickness; how to desensitize our dogs to the car itself and make it a happy place; and how to make car rides themselves easier for our dogs during their adjustment.
1. Improving their sensory awareness (Proprioception)
A deeper understanding of the role of sensory development and awareness is usually avoided when giving tips, tricks and training for car sickness. As it can prove to be a complex topic, some may argue that it isn’t worth delving into. However, a basic understanding is absolutely achievable for all dog guardians, regardless of background, and it is wonderfully applicable in their training!
Think about the activities children and adults do to develop their balance and sensory awareness; we aren’t so different in this respect to our canine counterparts! Children learn body awareness largely through investigation and play. They naturally seek out activities that develop their balance and coordination, swinging on monkey bars, running through confidence courses, and climbing trees being just a few. Adults often engage in either formal or informal exercises to develop core strength, balance, and coordination, with yoga becoming a popular activity to improve our physical and mental wellbeing. In the same grain, engaging in activities that promote this development is also beneficial for our dogs, helping them to better interact with their world and feel secure in their skin. How can we promote and facilitate this sort of development in dogs?
Your biggest friend to develop your dog's balance will be wobbly surfaces. Issues with balance is a key factor in motion sickness. Making games out of balancing will boost confidence and positive associations with unstable surfaces, promoting their development and reducing their risk for car sickness. There are a few ways you can facilitate this learning:
You can buy balance boards and cushions for relatively cheap at Kmart in the sports section.
You can make your own balance board at home by placing a sheet of ply or something similar on top of a sturdy upside down bowl.
You can provide opportunities and encourage your dog to investigate novel obstacles such as logs and equipment in dog-friendly areas.
If they are 100% happy in their crate and not fearful of movement, you can place a long object that extends from the back to the front underneath the middle of the crate to make it unsteady, rewarding them for going into it and making it a game. Leave the crate open and only do this activity supervised.
You can set up a confidence course at home by using things around the house and placing treats in positions where your dog is encouraged to engage with the obstacles, including your homemade or bought balance boards.
So how do you get your dog to engage with the balance boards or wobbly obstacles? One way is to add it into your free-work or scavenger hunt activity (see articles on each for further info). For those of you who have done mat training, you can apply that skill onto balance board engagement, and even train your dog to balance with all paws. Not only is this good for their sensory development, it can be an enriching activity that is also great for physical conditioning and general body awareness.
If your dog has no fear around balancing, you will simply be desensitizing them and reinforcing positive experiences around balancing and unstable sensations. You can do this by scattering treats or something to lick on the balance board, or by marking the behaviour and rewarding your dog for stepping onto the wobbly object. If your dog is already fearful, take it easy, and reward them for every small win. Initially this might just be sniffing the board, and later quickly touching it with one paw. You want to make the most out of their confident moments.
Another tool for improving their body awareness is to use a thunder jacket or an equivalent, which provides a close fitting wrap around their body. This can provide more consistent sensory cues to their nervous system regarding their body position in the world.
2. Building a positive foundation
While this might appear to be a long process, if you break it down into little steps (and implement the methods later in this article) it can actually be a relatively quick and easy process. Every dog is different. Some might excel through a few stages without any sign of discomfort before hitting a patch of uneasiness, while other dogs might be the opposite.
If your dog is looking unwell or being sick at any stage, you need to take it back a step. They might begin yawning, whining, licking their lips, drooling, shutting down (i.e. curling up and not engaging with anything), or show other signs of general uneasiness. The more attuned you are to your dog and work within their limits, the faster the training will go!
Decide where they will most often be in the car, putting their blanket in that spot whenever it’s time for them to go in the car.
Start off really small, gradually increasing their exposure to the car and judging where they’re at. Some dogs will be nervous to start, others might be confident. Take the time to assess how they are feeling.
A good first step is to simply put them in the car, give them a treat, and remove them from the car. While your dog has undoubtedly been in a car before, really paying attention during this exercise can reveal more subtle cues your dog is giving about their feelings around the car. Is their tail low, and are they looking worried even if they’re not being vocal about it? If so, repeat this exercise until you can see that they are happily expecting something positive to happen when you put them in the car (i.e. tail loosely wagging, wiggly body).
When they’re happy in their car position, you can give them a chewy or a Kong there and just hang out with them while they chill out. You don’t need to be paying close attention to them so long as you are checking in that they are happy and comfortable.
When they’re happy chilling out in the car and showing signs that they’ve developed those positive associations with being in the car, you can start doing work around car movement:
Turn the car on for a few minutes, then off again. While this might not seem like much to us because we are so used to it, the vibration and noise from a car engine can be intense for a puppy. Make sure they’re unphased with the sounds and feeling of a stationary car before moving forward.
Take the short trip down your driveway and back.
Next, drive down the road and back.
Build up the distance they’re happy with. For some dogs, they might do fine until the drive is more than 15 minutes and you’ll need to slow down. For others, they might finally hit 15 minutes after struggling with the initial stages and be fine from thereon out. Successful training is all about paying attention to the individual.
Once you’re able to reach a park or a friends place, you can make even more positive associations with the car by making it the means of accessing the things your dog loves, such as people they know and mooching at the park!
Although we want to make the car a happy place, we also want to make it a calm place. This can help set up your walks later on to start in a calm way rather than your dog being over excited as soon as you stop somewhere. To help avoid your dog always expecting something exciting in the car, take them with you when you go on errands and leave them in the car with their quiet chewy, so long as the weather is appropriate (i.e. on a cool day). This helps break down their expectation that the car always means exciting things. By reducing the excitement and expectation, you reduce the risk of them becoming frustrated when you stop or at times where they need to wait in the car.
Remember, the best way to train is to throw in easy wins here and there rather than only increasing the intensity of the task. Randomly add in an earlier stage to mix things up before returning to the step you’re currently at.
3. Being in the car while it’s moving
Feed your dog a small amount of food to line the stomach and avoid large meals before driving.
Secure your dog in their position in the car, whether that is in a crate, held on someone's lap, or with a seat belt attachment clipped to their harness. This helps them keep track of their body position and provides more consistent sensory information, rather than being rocked all over the place.
Enable them to see out the front window from the front seat or middle seat, or from their crate. This helps provide more stable visual information to your dog, rather than a blur out of the side windows.
Have the windows cracked to allow fresh air into the car. This balances out the air pressure while also providing your dog with sensory information regarding their position and movement through the world.
Provide them with a chewy (i.e. venison tendon, lamb's ear) or a Kong with something tasty in it. This can distract our dogs and help them by giving them something to focus on that is within their control. Chewing and licking also release feel-good and calming chemicals in the brains of our dogs, reinforcing a positive experience for them.
Avoid sporadic driving (heavy braking, sharp turns etc.) All of us at some point in our lives have felt the stomach-jerking sensation from moving too suddenly and/or too fast. Let’s try to avoid that experience while our dogs are developing!
In cases where your dog must travel a long distance even though they are still experiencing motion sickness, it can be a good idea to ask about anti-nausea medication to protect your dog from more negative associations between the car and being unwell. It is important to address car sickness for your dog’s wellbeing.