Motion sickness

[Christina]

Does anyone have a doodle that gets bad motion sickness? My baby girl is 5 months old and can't be in the car more than 15 min before she has to throw up. Any advice would be great

[Judy, Meg & Polly Wolly Doodle]

My youngest did the same thing.  We started doing drives of shorter duration, gradually got them up to longer.  She is 1 1/2 now and can manage to be in the car for a few hours now (we stop about every hour for a few minutes).  The funny thing is that when you open the car she is the first in, she loves to go.  But basically we just gave her more and more exposure a few minutes extra at a time, had several times where we pushed too far and had clean up duty.  I have heard many people on here say that if you can put her where she sees forward movement it is better, however we have never got ours to stay in a sitting position where she can see out.  Good luck with yours, I know how important it is to take them along for rides, I love having my girls with me.

[Christina]

Good advice, thank you. The longest she goes in the car is 30 min. We put her in a traveling carrier to keep her secure. I'm going to rethink how we can have her in the car facing forward. It could be being in the carrier

[Lucy & AnnaBelle's Mom]

You can also try covering the crate (that is what Doggy Dan suggests).  Also, make sure you don't feed her a big meal within an hours or two of going in the car.  Also, don't keep her in the car long enough for her tummy to get empty.  A few kibbles after a few hours.

[Amy and Annabelle]

While mine didn't get sick, she hated riding in the car, she would start whimpering and barking almost as soon as we left the driveway. One day I held her and let her look out the window instead of putting her in her carrier and it was even worse, if that was possible. Then another day I threw a big towel over her carrier and she did great, not a whimper. So we have been doing it that way ever since. Over Thanksgiving we had a 6 hour car ride one way. Not a whimper out of her there or back. She was quiet as a mouse. I haven't tried taking the towel off yet, I am afraid to ruin a good thing. Do you feed her before you leave the house?  Good Luck.

[Sue and Buddy]

Buddy got car sick as a puppy. He grew out of it around 7 months. I think their inner ears don't fully develop until after 6 months and that is when car sickness can clear up. It didn't matter if Buddy was in the crate or not. The crate was a safer way for him to travel and kept the mess contained.

We went on a 3,000+ mile car trip when he was 5 months. Every dog is different, but I learned that small meals before the ride and through out a long day of travel was good. Many say withhold food before travel, but an empty stomach caused him to throw up bile.Too much food, caused problems and any food other than his regular dog food caused problems. We also used Dramamine for long travel days. It made him sleepy, but that was good. It's good to consult with your vet before giving your pup any OTC medication to make sure he doesn't have a problem with the med. I also gave him a dose of Dramamine at home one day before our long trip just to make sure he didn't have any negative reactions to it. We gave him 2 to 4 mg of Dramamine per pound of body weight. One dose for 8 hours. We kept the car cool and if he seemed to get agitated, we opened a window to let the air wash over him.

We took a 10,000 mile trip over 5 weeks this summer and Buddy did great. Buddy will still occasionally get sick. Very long,curvy mountains roads can cause him problems. We still give him small meals during travel days and nothing but his regular food. To be honest, these days we can usually trace bouts of car sickness to my husband sneaking him a bit of fast food. Yes, I make hubby deal with the results of that.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

As a puppy Guinness used to get very sick in the car.  My vet prescribed Cerenia which we gave him about a half hour before any longer car ride.  It really helped and eventually he outgrew it.

[Ginny Nightingale]

You can give them a small piece of a dramamine or bonine about 1/2 hour before too-I did that with my girl until she outgrew it. I got her at the age of 7 months and she was car sick until she was about 1 1/2. She still seems uncomfortable in the car, but never throws up anymore, just doesn't seem that relaxed.

[Linda, Webber and Seda]

Put a blanket over hiis head so he can't see things moving.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

I agree sort of.... 

Many put there dogs low in a crate in the car with a blanket over the crate.  

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

We were able to work with this with one dog. Here is the discussion I wrote.  With this method, you really have to keep rides to 2 minutes for a week, then 3 minutes, then 4, etc

http://www.doodlekisses.com/forum/topics/car-sickness-another?xg_so...