my dog hates my car...

mctraill · Aug 18, 2008

I am having trouble getting my dog into my car. I used to own a little Swift and I had no trouble getting her in and out of it. Then I got a cavalier and she hates travelling in it. She knows when she is going in it straight away she hits the floor, rolls over and refuses to move. We have tried all sorts of treats, we have tried walking her by the car a few times and rewarding her, we always end up picking her up and putting her in the car which is hard she is a lab mix.

I was wondering if she could be suffering from motion sickness, she is never sick, but she shakes and struggles to climb into the front of the car, we use a harness which clips onto the seat belt so she cant move around to much.

Am I going about the training wrong, I dont want to have to sedate her for the short 30 minute journey to doggie daycamp, but I dont know what else to do, any suggestions? She is 4 years old.

Sniperess · Aug 18, 2008

My ESS does this with any vehicle. While he runs with glee out the door to go to training class, or just for a ride, the second he sees us actually going towards the van he puts the brakes on. I made a game out of it and it really seems to help.

What I did was take him out about 10 min before I have to actually leave. I got some really yummy treats and started some obed training, including some very low jumps. When I want him to go over the jump I say "Over" and treat when he does it. I then took it one step further and placed the jump closer to the van, not so close he'd run into it, but close enough that going towards the van resulted in a "good job!" and a treat. Once he was going towards the van with no hesitation, I then opened the van side door and repeated the steps again until he was ok with the door being open. This lead to "over" on the jump and then "Over" into the open van door! He was pretty shocked when he realized he actually jumped into the van on his own, but once those treats and praise came it was A-OK with him!
Now I can open the door and say "Sniper Over!" and point into the van and in he goes! He still isn't too keen on the whole shut the door and start the engine thing, but he settles down once he realizes he's fine and that good things are coming when he gets where he's going. Course, the silly goof loves the vet too so that's a plus also, he never has a "bad" car ride LOL.

mctraill · Aug 18, 2008

Sniperess said:

My ESS does this with any vehicle. While he runs with glee out the door to go to training class, or just for a ride, the second he sees us actually going towards the van he puts the brakes on. I made a game out of it and it really seems to help.

What I did was take him out about 10 min before I have to actually leave. I got some really yummy treats and started some obed training, including some very low jumps. When I want him to go over the jump I say "Over" and treat when he does it. I then took it one step further and placed the jump closer to the van, not so close he'd run into it, but close enough that going towards the van resulted in a "good job!" and a treat. Once he was going towards the van with no hesitation, I then opened the van side door and repeated the steps again until he was ok with the door being open. This lead to "over" on the jump and then "Over" into the open van door! He was pretty shocked when he realized he actually jumped into the van on his own, but once those treats and praise came it was A-OK with him!
Now I can open the door and say "Sniper Over!" and point into the van and in he goes! He still isn't too keen on the whole shut the door and start the engine thing, but he settles down once he realizes he's fine and that good things are coming when he gets where he's going. Course, the silly goof loves the vet too so that's a plus also, he never has a "bad" car ride LOL.

Thanks for the info I will try this and see if it helps.

my dog hates my car...

mctraill

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