Animal Anecdote
Attempting to Soothe my Dog’s Car Sickness
We shall keep going- seeking advice and keeping our heads!
“Well, this is progress,” says my mum after I tell her my English toy terrier has managed three days of no car sickness before doing it on both journeys. (My dogs come to work with me, at my dog grooming salon.) It's about an eight-minute drive.
“If you have a child that wets the bed, it’s a very gradual thing before they stop altogether. You have to see this as progress.”
I hope she is right. My mum is often always right. But my little girl isn’t a puppy. She’s just about to turn four. She came from a very loving family (the family that bred her)- but they decided she would do better in a house with fewer dogs where she could have more attention and come out of her shell. The car sickness was the one problem they made me aware of.
Since she used to be shown I wondered whether the car sickness was due to her associating the car with a long journey to a show, then a long day at the show, then a long journey home.
But after the first few days of work and sick, we started to trek the long journey to work for a bit of respite! (It's about a half an hour walk.) Meanwhile, I started to de-sensitize her by putting her in the car…
