Vrrrrrooooooomm!: Calm In The Car

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Vrrrrooomm! – Calm in the Car
Posted on December 27, 2010 by pawsitivedawgs| Leave a comment

Original Posting April 24, 2010

Cerrraaazzzy car behaviour manifests in several different ways. Your dog may be afraid of the car, he may jump around in the car, he might bark continuously or at triggers from the car or indeed he may be regularly car sick.

Many of the calming strategies that we have already talked about throughout this series are helpful for these different car issues.

Don’t forget to incorporate other calming measures in other areas of your dog’s life for overall calmness. Calmatives are especially useful and can be used in all sorts of situations. For car travel spray DAP spray onto your dog’s mat in the car and onto a bandana that he wears. Play doggie music in the car (such as Through a Dog’s Ear who have a road music series!).

Car Safety

The first concern is for car & canine safety; check out this great post, Wanna Go For a Ride? from Rewarding Behaviors Dog Training.

For your safety and that of your passengers, both human and canine, ensure that your dog is suitably restrained while travelling in the car.

Travel Sickness

If you have a dog who is regularly ill in the car or has diarrhoea after car travel its important to get the dog to the vet. A past illness associated with car travel may even elicit car sickness during subsequent trips or there may be an underlying condition.

Mild car sickness usually causes excessive salivation so you may notice your dog drooling a lot during car travel – through classical conditioning your dog may associate this feeling of sickness with car travel and begin to salivate even before you set off.

Give your dog a ginger biscuit before car travel as ginger helps to settle the tummy and some swear by ginger and cheese together as a remedy for upset tummies and diarrhoea. Try adding Rescue Remedy to your dog’s water for a drink during a journey and apply it to your pet’s gums shortly before travelling.

Have your dog wear a snug fitting t-shirt, Anxeity Wrap or ThunderShirt while travelling.

Talk to your vet about using Imodium or other medications for settling your dog’s stomach. Although Imodium tends to be commonly used for dogs please please consult your vet before using any medication with your dog.

Car sickness and excessive salivation may be associated with your dog’s distress or anxiety at car travel so some behaviour modification may help with the car sickness too.
Calm to the Car

The cerrraaazzzy starts before the engine does so calm behaviour must be insisted upon on the way to the car.

Exercise your dog before car travel and bring him home for some settle work about 20 minutes before the car journey begins.

Bring your dog to the car on leash. Take one step towards the door/car at a time. Ask your dog to sit each step of the way. When he sits, reward him with another step toward the car.

Doing this will help to prevent the dog tugging on leash or jumping around and will keep him focused on you.
Ask your dog to lie down before getting into the car, open the door and then release him to allow him hop in.

Scared of the car?

If your dog is reluctant to get into the car or indeed is regularly travel sick helping him to get over his apprehension and fear of the car will help to calm him too.

Take the pressure off:

If your dog associates the car with going to nasty places like the vets, scary noises, being sick, being forced or coerced into the car or other yucky experiences the first step is to change the way your dog feels about the car.

No more forcing or dragging your dog to or into the car!

Bring your dog to the car (or as close as he will willingly go) and just play with your dog, practice trick training or just sit with him and chill out.

Walk toward the car and reward the dog (with distance from the car) if he is calm and showing subtle signalling (this uses BAT training). Start playing and other simple, fun exercises away from the car. With regular approaches and rewarding with distance your dog will soon feel comfortable moving closer and closer.

You could play fetch and toss the toy closer and closer to the car. Toss treats near the car or hide a yummy stuffed Kong near it or under the car for him to find and work on. The idea is to break the association your dog has with the car and being uncomfortable.
Just hanging out without pressure near the car will help your dog to get over his initial feeling of dread.

If your dog will happily get into the car but is nervous once in, try just hanging out in the open but stationary car. Feed your dog his meals in the car. Practice crate training exercises and mat work in the car.

Shaping:

Just like we can teach your dog to get in his crate or on his mat through shaping we can shape getting into the car too. Its will be much easier to get shaping if you have spent some time taking the pressure off, as above!

Sit with your dog at a safe distance from the car – establish the safe distance as being far enough from the car that your dog does not show any stress signals or reluctance.

Click or say YES! and then deliver a yummy for each of the following stages; try to reward each stage at least 10 times before expecting it to be learnt and repeated. Your shaping plan for getting into the car might look like this:

1. glance at the car
2. move toward car
3. step toward car
4. step closer to car
5. head in open car door
6. head further in open car door/head in car in area that dog will travel in
7. one foot in car (in area that dog will travel in)
8. two feet in car
9. getting into car
10. standing in car
11. sitting in car
12. lying down in car
13. lying down in car with door closed
14. lying down in car with you in drivers position (or your regular travelling position)
15. lying down in car, you in position, engine running
16. lying down in car, you in position, drive car for short distance (a few seconds)
17. build the length of each journey

By having lots of short journeys you will help your dog to build tolerance to car sickness and teach him that car journeys don’t have to end at the vets!

Targeting:

I find that targeting is easier for really fearful dogs; this incorporates shaping too.

As part of the first taking-the-pressure-off exercise practice lots of simple hand targeting near the car.

Targeting is not just for hands though. By using a flat item such as a postcard or a coaster we can teach your dog to touch the car with his nose. Nose touching is useful as it helps keep your dog’s attention on the task rather than the scary thing, in this case the car.

Cut up about ten teeny tiny yummy treats and have them in your pocket or otherwise out of sight.

To get this one started, especially if your dog is not that clicker savvy, feed a couple of yummy, tiny treats off the postcard or coaster. This will get your dog interested in it.

Alternatively to teach him to take interest in the target, drop a couple of treats and use the target, on the ground to indicate the location of the fallen treats.

If you would prefer not to use a clicker use a reward marker such as the word YES! instead. This will allow you to mark the exact behaviour bang on time.

Hold the postcard behind your back and reveal it. If your dog approaches it with his nose, or even better touches it with his nose, mark it with a click or YES! just as his nose touches it. Repeat to use up all the treats and have a couple of sessions later on.

Once your dog is readily touching it introduce a cue – I use ‘touch’ for nose touches. Say ‘touch’ just before revealing the postcard – the appearance of the postcard itself is a cue for touching too.

When you have this behaviour on cue, start putting the postcard on various surfaces right beside the dog – on the floor, on the chair, on his bed.

As he perfects this gradually move the target further away from your dog.

Soon you will be ready to start practicing this exercise out near the car; slowly move the postcard target closer to the car. You can send your dog to ‘touch’ the target and return to you straight away for his treat.

Build up fluency over several sessions of your dog moving away from you and close to the car to touch the target. Now up the challenge, but take it slow especially as we are dealing with fears.

Stick the target to the car, you can do this with Blu-tak or by slotting it between the doors. Send the dog to touch the target. Repeat often and soon you will have a dog that loves running between you and the car.

By turning the car into a fun target you can begin to diffuse your dog’s fear of approaching it. Try some of the shaping steps by teaching the dog to target the postcard in the open car and gradually move it further and further into the car.

With a fearful dog it is essential to take it nice and slow and no pressure.

Matwork:

Matwork is essentially targeting and if you have been teaching your dog to love finding his mat and settling on it you can use his mat in or near the car to help speed up shaping.

If you have been working on this your dog’s mat has become a conditioned relaxer so is ideal for use in the car to help calm your dog.

Practice lots and lots and lots of matwork exercises near the car and in the car too.
Calm in the Car

Lots and lots of the calmers that we have already discussed are sooo useful to calming in the car.

Use your dogs crate (make sure it is safe to use and is secured in the car) with his mat in the car. If you have been working through our crate shaping plan your dog should see his crate as a conditioned relaxer – practice lots of cratework and matwork in the car.

If your dog does not suffer with travel sickness give him the yummiest of yummiest stuffed Kongs to work on while travelling in the car. This with a solid relaxing crate/mat is enough to keep most dogs quiet and calm in the car.

Use calmatives especially DAP sprayed in the car, on his mat and on a bandana he wears. Through a Dog’s Ear has a driving edition of music to calm dogs so this is perfect for the car.

WOOF!

Barking and reactivity in the car is a common issue especially if the dog is wound up before the engine has even started.

Desensitise your dog to wearing a Calming Cap while driving to help to limit his vision.

If you know what your dog is barking at while travelling, such as other dogs, play Look at That. Bring your dog to a doggie area in the car and sit with him and wait for a dog to pass.

As soon as your dog looks toward the other dog, click or say YES! and treat. After several repetitions your dog will look to you for his treat on sight of another dog. At this stage, put it on cue – say ‘look at the dog’ just as you see a dog passing, mark and reward your dog for looking at the dog.

As you progress with LAT, your dog learns to look at the trigger and then back at you so that you can, at this stage, delay the click until the dog has looked at the trigger and then back at you.

As your dog improves have a friend run the engine of the car. Continue to practice the LAT game and as he gets better and better have your assistant make short journies.

Some dogs just like to bark for the sake of barking. Try teaching your dog to ‘speak’ on cue and then to ‘shush’ on cue. We taught this during Train Your Dog Month and began with speak/shush exercises on Day 19 (scroll down to Exercise 3.

For those indiscriminate barkers sit near your dog and have an assistant drive. If your dog ‘shushes’ on cue, feed him high value treats. Start in a stationary car, then with the engine running and finally practice on short journeys.

Have a sheet to cover your dog’s crate or to pull across the back of the car to block his view of you. If he doesn’t quiet on cue, pull the sheet so as to cover his crate or cut his view off.

As soon as he quietens, say YES! or click and pull back the sheet and feed high value treats. This is often necessary for the hardcore barkers.

If you don’t have an assistant available you may be able to use a Manners Minder which is a remote treat delivery system. This is also great for dogs who bark when alone in the car. You can hide out of sight and reward quiet, calm behaviour.
Calm out of the Car

Just like we have a release cue for getting out of the crate it is important to have one for getting out of the car too.

When you arrive at a new place, practice lots of calm and attentive exercises so as to get your dog calmed after an exciting journey and so he focuses on you.

Get calming – car travel does not have to be cerrrraaazzzzy!