Making Sure Quest Doesn’t Develop a Fear of Riding in the Car
Taking your puppy out for a ride in the car may seem like no big deal, but for many puppies it is. Some puppies get motion sickness when riding in a car. This can obviously become a negative experience which can cause some dogs to refuse to go for a car ride when they become an adult.
Wy two previous Dalmatians both got sick when riding in the car as puppies. One of them deciding to upchuck into the little covey in the passenger door (You do not want to have to clean one of those out, I promise you).
I didn’t want to go through that again so I made sure to take Quest out for short rides during his Critical Socialization Period.
Fortunately in Quest’s case, the car ride was no biggie. Part of this stemmed from taking a few rides with his Breeder as well as an hour long ride we took from Norway to Portland Maine to their airport for our flight to Omaha.
But if your puppy suffers from motion sickness, there are a few things you can do.
- Take you dog for short rides, often. Id recommend at least two per day, if not more.
- Keep the rides short. Just a quick run around the block at first, then gradually longer.
- Keep them smooth. Sudden acceleration, stopping and sharp turns effect pups the most.
- Go for rides BEFORE feeding. If the pup has nothing in its stomach, there’s less to come up.
- Have someone distract the pup. Having someone in the back seat playing or talking to the dog can be a nice distraction.
- Bring a barf bag or container just in case. Plastic containers can also work as you can position them in front of the pup’s mouth.
If you keep the rides short and smooth and practice every day, your pup will get over his motion sickness and start looking forward to going for rides with you for the rest of his life.
Tags: car rides, Dalmatian, nebraska, Omaha, puppy, puppy socialization, puppy training, QuestEdDal