matilda1 Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 Hi all, I'm new to the forum and just wanted some opions and experiences from other dog owners out there. I have recently purchased a lovely Blue Heeler puppy. She's very sweet and well behaved. She does however suffer from some car sickness. I do not feed her prior to planned trips and she travels in a crate in the back of my four wheel drive so she is safe and secure. She does however vomit when I am driving through a lot of corners etc. She seems to be ok on freeways. She has just turned 9 weeks and I thought she was getting better as the vomiting had ceased somewhat but now she is starting to salivate and drool while in the car. my question is this, will she grow out fo it? I know part of their ear canal does not fully develop until a few months of age and this can affect travel sickness. Do any of you have any experiences with this you can share? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sas Posted May 31, 2010 Share Posted May 31, 2010 It's pretty common in pups. There's a few things you can do 1) Speak to your Vet about a New Anti-Car sick medication 2) Speak to your Holistic Vet about using Ginger 3) Make the car a positive place to be, fed your pup in the car whilst it's park in the yard, spend time in the car parked with toys etc, take short trips and slowly build up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppop Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 Hi there I am 99.9% sure she will grow out of it. I had the same prob with my middle dog as a pup - and we travelled to shows every weekend so there was no avoiding the car. It must have been at about a year old that she stopped drooling and vomiting. What I did was to give her a supermarket own brand ginger biscuit 10 mins before travel, and when she refused to eat them (she was SO fussy!) I gave her a child's Dramamine tablet half an hour before travel. I am still not sure if it made her a bit subdued for a few hours or whether that was due to her disliking the car travel, but it certainly did not send her drowsy or to sleep. We used to put a bib on her so the clean up was easy, but really I'd say try the ginger biscuits yourself, and if no luck with them then see your vet (as the other post suggests) for the new anti travel sick medication. Good luck - it WILL stop at some point! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi all, I'm new to the forum and just wanted some opions and experiences from other dog owners out there. I have recently purchased a lovely Blue Heeler puppy. She's very sweet and well behaved. She does however suffer from some car sickness. I do not feed her prior to planned trips and she travels in a crate in the back of my four wheel drive so she is safe and secure. She does however vomit when I am driving through a lot of corners etc. She seems to be ok on freeways. She has just turned 9 weeks and I thought she was getting better as the vomiting had ceased somewhat but now she is starting to salivate and drool while in the car. my question is this, will she grow out fo it? I know part of their ear canal does not fully develop until a few months of age and this can affect travel sickness. Do any of you have any experiences with this you can share? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poodlefan Posted June 1, 2010 Share Posted June 1, 2010 You might try seeing how she travels with the crate on the back seat. Two of my dogs are far less nauseous foward of the rear wheels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matilda1 Posted June 1, 2010 Author Share Posted June 1, 2010 Thanks for your advice. She used to travel on the back seat with a dog cover on it, like a sling which stops them falling off the seat. She quite liked it there, and then she worked out how to jump over it. This is too dangerous while driving. She doesn't actually dislike the car, and I make sure I spend time with her in there with toys and treats too so that it's not always a trip which ends in nausea. I'm a vet nurse so have access to many medications which can help, but I would prefer her to get used to the motion and I don't want her sedated. Maropitant is good and will not sedate but it's quite expensive and I usually only do short trips so it's not really worth it. If I was travelling for an hour or more I would consider this as an option. My longest trip on my usual routes is only about 1/2 hour. I purchased a herbal remedy for another dog a while back but this made him quite drowsy and didn't help the nausea much, so I threw that in the bin. Will definately try the ginger. Thank you from Katie Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwaY Posted June 2, 2010 Share Posted June 2, 2010 Ginger biscuits or Junket tablets work well. One of mine used to be sick in the wagon, but once in a van and could not see out stopped her from being sick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aussielover Posted June 3, 2010 Share Posted June 3, 2010 Yes, Mindy threw up on her first day. How much of the ginger biscuits so you give? just one? She hasn't been sick again, but we have only done short trips since then. She cries alot and will sometimes start howling in the car- id there anything we can do for that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wotan Posted June 3, 2010 Share Posted June 3, 2010 I remember our SBT pup being the worst car traveller! His first trip ever with us in the car after being picked up from the breeder ended in him being sick in the back seat ;) What a start! For about a month after this it was the same...he would virtually get sick just at the thought of going for a drive. We thought we would be stuck with a dog that could never travel in a car. Training was becoming difficult, especially when he couldn't last 5 mins even before driving off! The big turnaround came when we decided to travel at night. This way he had plenty of time to digest his dinner, have a small night walk (purge the system) tired & ready for normal bed time. So we would throw his bed in the back seat and off we go. For the first 10 mins of the drive he was typically fidgety whilst in traffic, but then once we hit the highway he curled up and slept for 2 hrs straight. So in one trip he spent more time in the car than we could manage in one month previously! Needless to say we persisted with night travel for a few weeks to build his confidence with the motion thing before starting small daytime drives to parks etc Well I am happy to say that since 6 months of age he is now a confortable passanger. He will do 3-4 hr plus trips day or night without a hassle He even conquered the great ocean road drive and in the same weekend learned how to swim....diving straight into the ocean We never bothered with tablets/medication etc as we wanted to keep things as natural as possible. Good luck with it, start training immediately and be persistant! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matilda1 Posted June 4, 2010 Author Share Posted June 4, 2010 Unfortunately I do not have the luxury to pick a good time to travel. katie needs to come with me to work and pretty much where ever I go at the moment. I have noticed though that for her, she is worse at night. Somehow she always knows when we are going OUT and when we are coming HOME. She's always better on the way home. She doesn't hate the car as such, doesn't cry or whine at all, but does vomit even if not fed prior. She gets over it very quickly and does not stay nauseous afterward, so I am hopeful she will conquer this in time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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