Please forgive in advance the lack of complete information.

A friend has a 5 year old female lab who has some sort of anxiety "ism' based on riding in a car. She has been going in and out of cars her entire life. She approaches any car ride with enthusiasm, getting in without any undue encourgament, cajoleing etc. Once in she seems to have some, as yet undetermined triggers that provoke a very plaintive, repititve and pathetic sounding whine.

Allow me to elaborate. The crying is present 100% of the time if the car decelerates and gives the impression that it will soon come to a stop. Accurate (as in pullling into a parking lot) or inaccurate (as in taking an exit ramp off the highway) and the dog starts crying. However, that is far from the ONLY time the crying is present. Sometimes she will cry for what seems like no reason at all. And then, just to confound diagnosis, there are long stretches where she makes no sound at all, and is entirely pleasant to ride with.

She is not a nervy dog elsewhere. I have seen her interact with strange people, strange dogs and strange horses and she does fine. She doesnt run the show but nor does she give off any obvious submissive or fearful postures/signals.

Her owner (my friend) is no dog expert and I can see Luna (the lab) is affection demanding. I dont think the owner is on the high end in terms of establishing herself as any sort of pack leader. The owner SAYS she has tried both reprimanding the dog when she whines/cries, by pulling the car over and grabbing the collar and saying a forceful "no", as well as just ignoring it. In my 2 & 1/2 hours with the two of them the dog probably cried close to 20 times, getting close to frantic at dramatic slowdowns/change of directions. the pitch of her whine is such that there is no mistaking it for positive excitment at getting out of the car to do something fun. This dog sounds absolutely terrified!

Could it be phisiological? As in the change in gforces is uncomfortable? This sounds odd to me, but the more obvious pyschological examples seem to lack any consistnecy in this case.

Any thoughts are welcome.

Thanks in advance and please forgive my late night spelling errors.
Brock

Brock,

Forgive me very sleepy brain if it's not working properly.

If the dog has no anxiety getting into the car and there is no pattern to the whining, I would use a no-bark collar if it was one of my personal dogs. (I am not exceptionally tolerant of whining noises.) Obvious drawback is if collar conditioning is not done patiently and continuously, the dog may learn that the car is "scary" and the situation is worsened.

That's not going to make sense to the average dog owner, so here's a more commonly acceptable approach:

Eliminate discomfort as much as possible. Ask the vet for an appropriate dose of motion-sickness medicine (I believe Dramamine is safe for dogs, but better double-check.) Restrain the dog in a way that the dog feels safe (harness, hammock, crate etc).

Reward the good, ignore the bad.
What the owner should do is praise and treat the dog continually when it is quiet. Maybe the owner should not be the person driving Timing is critical because the owner might mistakenly give a treat at the wrong time and encourage the whining.

Counter-conditioning.
Right now, the dog associates slowing down and turns with some unknown fear, pain or discomfort. First minimize the discomfort and then teach the dog that REALLY REALLY GOOD things happen when the car slows down. So whatever treat this dog believe comes from heaven - use it. I suggest a lickable treat like meat baby food, can chicken or tuna mashed thoroughly with mayo, peanut butter, braunschweiger, etc. BEFORE the car starts to slow, offer the treat. The driver slows almost imperceptably, (the dog is too busy licking to notice) and the driver speeds up and the treat goes away. Repeat hundreds and hundreds of times... Downside - this is fairly impossible considering that eventually the train session must end and eventually the car must actually turn. If the dog can be walked to a large parking lot where this training is done, walked home afterwards and NO OTHER CAR RIDES until the training is complete, then it could work. Other downside, if the dog is actually experiencing motion sickness, it may vomit and have further bad associations with the car's movements.

Anyway. There's 3 ways listed in order of speed of effectiveness from fastest to slowest. I recommend the middle one.



Edited by Anne Vaini (03/14/2007 01:48 AM)
Edit reason: sleepy brain mistake

I think this is a learned behavior. As a pup and while growing up the dog has be praised and stimulated when the car ride came to an end. Does the dog do this while on long trips or does the dog only do this at points in town where there is a field that he has played in? I have a dog that used to ride with me in the cab.(no more) If I drove by the training places he would get excited whine, bark. Dogs do not have human emotion yet are not stupid either. They know where they get to play or train and they remember the rewards they get when they are there. anyways thats my two cents hope it sparked a possibility....

By the time your friend pulled the car over and stopped, the dog had forgotten what it was whining about.

Where does the dog stay while traveling? Perhaps the back seat and it's squishiness makes it difficult for the dog to stand/sit. It whines because to it, the ground keeps moving.

Go back to square one.
Put the dog in the car, put it in drive as soon as the car starts to roll slowly stop it. No whine? reward. Whine? do it slower. Each event is separate in the dog's head. These training sessions should be short, three maybe four go/soft stops. Let the dog get it's sea legs.

Once you've mastered the driveway and speeds < 1MPH, do the same on the street in front of your house.

Yes this is time consuming, how badly does your friend want the dog to ride quietly?

Hi'ya Brock
Just curious. Is this dog bang shy i.e ( thunder, fire works, gun shots etc.) It just seems to me, most of the dogs I've seen do this were, not all. Is there a correlation? I don't know, A pitch from the tires on the road that only the dog can hear? Engine drone, and or the road vibrations, All the above? like I said just wondering.

I think Anne,Lance and Red are on the right track, But I lean towards (not to be funny) So many trees so little time! I seen one dog that before it went on a road trip it was made sure to go to the bath room before leaving. # 1 and 2. Soon as it hit the road the whining started, stop 5-15 min. down the road it would go # 1 and 2 and then it was good for a couple hrs ??? go figure?

I seen a mal that was a road trip whiner. leaped out of the car from the back seat of an 82 two door cutlas, while the car was in motion be'it was only going 10-15mph and the dog didn't get hurt/thank God. It sure shocked us that were in the car, why it did that who knows, did he have to mark a tree, wanted to get away from that theoretical sound driving him nuts?

Well those are few of my thoughts and experiences with road whining. Hope it gives you some food for thought.

Hello All and thanks for the replies. I apologize for my delay in response.

Answering a few of the respondees questions.

I havent seen if the dog is "bang shy" but based on it's personality and timidity I would not be surprised if that is so.

She does seem do be less than settled on the backseat. Her normal posture is facing forward looking out the windshield, and she will frequently move to the outside of the front seat passenger;s headrest and cram her muzzle inbetween the headrest and the door, still facing forward.

She doesnt "treat" the dog when it's quiet and I will suggest such to her.

regards,
Brock

the dog could simply be excited that she is arriving at a destination. but i'd also try putting her all the way in the back where she'll have a solid platform to sit on (assuming this is a hatchback or station wagon or suv.)