My dog has developed a fear when traveling in the car. Is there a way to get to the root cause of the fear? How common is this behavior in dogs?

Question

Dear Cindy,

    I have written with concerns about my daughter's dog previously and you have always been very helpful, so I am coming to you again. This dog was the runt of his litter. He is smart, sensitive, very attached to my daughter and has more a Border Collie than a Lab personality.

    His fear of walking on ramps and over metal disappeared after observing another dog walking on the ramp. Following your suggestions, we've seen substantial progress in his overcoming his fears of strangers. But in the past three weeks, he seems to be developing a new fear when traveling in the car. The first occurrence was when my daughter was driving on the highway and came to a bridge, (they had been on this highway and bridge many times previously without incident). Suddenly, the dog jumped into her lap and seemed quite frightened. She had to pull over in order to get him back into the back so she could resume driving. Since then, we have observed him getting down on the floor and visibly trembling when coming to that spot and increasingly this behavior seems to be generalizing to other bridges, other highways. We don't know whether the original fear was triggered by a scent, sight, sound, light falling through the structure of the bridge, the car speed or what. He seems to be OK in town or on quiet country roads, (at least, so far), but we are concerned that his fear will generalize to increasing car situations.

    My questions are, 1) is there a way to get to the root cause of the fear? 2) how common is this behavior in dogs? 3) how do we help him overcome it? I know, from your past counsel that the worst thing to do is to console or comfort him when he is in his fear state. We live in a beautiful rural area of the Pacific Northwest and we like to take the dogs out to rivers, beaches and woods as often as we can. We don't want anxieties of car travel to interfere with this dog's enjoyment of his outings.

    We'd appreciate any advise you can give.

    Thanks,
Marilyn

Accepted Answer

I don't know that it's possible or even really that helpful to get to the root cause of this particular fear. You need to address the fear, and how it came to be may never be discovered. I'll be honest and say that I would not let any dog ride loose in my vehicle. This is a safety issue, for the driver and the dog as well as for any other vehicle on the road. I have a friend who was in a pretty severe accident when her dog jumped onto her lap while driving. Airbags deployed, car totaled, it was quite a scare for all of us.

I would start out fixing this issue by getting a crate for the vehicle.

This would serve two purposes. 1) it will give the dog a safe and secure place to travel where he didn't have to feel worried and 2) it will keep him contained so he can't jump around and cause problems in the car.

If can't fit a crate in the vehicle then at the very minimum I would get one of those seat belt harnesses for him and attach it so he can get on the floor of the car if he feels safer there.

If this dog likes food, I would use marker training to mark and reward GOOD behavior in the car, at first avoiding the bridge or areas that you know are going to make him nervous. Make sure he completely understands the game away from the vehicle first. You'll mark/reward just being in the car, then mark/reward driving in the car, then mark /reward driving on the road where the bridge is, and eventually mark driving under the bridge. This will create a positive association with something that used to scare him.

We just completed a DVD on The Power of Training Dogs with Markers.

Keep in mind that you need to make very small steps in working through something like this, and it will take two people. One to drive and one to mark/reward the dog.

I hope this helps.

Cindy