Preventing Car Concerns In Dogs

We all dream of having a dog who loves being in the car. When our dogs are relaxed when being transported, we’re relaxed too. When our dogs are happy to be in the car, it makes vet trips and other healthcare visits much easier.

But travelling with our dogs in the car can be very problematic if they struggle to settle down.

There are many reasons dogs may struggle in the car. Some dogs are excited at first, but as the trip continues, they get more and more frustrated. Other dogs may have motion sickness. Lots of dogs are anxious or afraid when travelling. It is not unusual for dogs to struggle to be able to get into the car or to dislike being lifted or assisted. Car travel is often the one time when our dogs need our help to get into the vehicle, but they may dislike having to be handled when they are excited or afraid.

Why dogs may struggle in the car

Genetics can play a role in why our dogs struggle in the car. If they have anxious parents, they may have inherited some of those concerns. Traits like anxiety can also be passed from generation to generation. If we want highly responsive working breeds, selecting for environmental sensitivity can also cause them to struggle in the car. Selecting dogs from working lines may cause our dogs to struggle without the structures and regulatory support they need to make sure they are able to cope with the world around them.

Dogs may also struggle because of their first weeks. For dogs raised in poor-quality breeding facilities, they simply do not get the kind of movement experience they need to integrate the conflicting sensory information caused by passive transport. Puppies need to move and experience the world. Appropriate exposure to a variety of different surfaces, including those that are less stable, means that our dogs get the environmental exposure they require to develop both the sensory and motor skills required to be happy passengers.

Long trips from breeding facilities to new homes can also leave a lasting imprint on our dogs.

The role of learning

Learning also plays a part in whether our dogs are happy passengers or not. Our dog’s first experiences of travel are the ones that leave a lasting mark on their memory. This is especially true once dogs reach adolescence and adulthood. Earlier experiences in puppyhood may be more easily forgotten, but if our dogs only encounter cars later in life, we need to make sure that this happens in the right way.

If our dogs learn that cars take them to exciting places, they may soon learn that cars are like the Lapland Express – transporting them to all their heart’s desires and all their Christmases come at once. On the other hand, if our dogs learn that cars take them to scary places where bad things happen, or that cars make them feel sick or trapped, then they are much more likely to learn that cars are unpleasant.

Sometimes, our dogs experience a lot of conflict over travel. Perhaps they want to go to the destinations that cars predict, but they don’t like the trip itself. Maybe they don’t like the destination, but they enjoy being with us or they like being in the car. All of these conflicts can cause a lot of frustration.

Very occasionally, our dogs may have a traumatic event in the car, like a car crash. When this happens, our dogs may have very intense reactions to being placed in the car. This sometimes happens for dogs who have been hit by a car as well. A dog who has panicked and is unable to escape from the car is much more likely to remember this if they did not have much experience of being in the car to start with.

Reducing car concerns

Rather than having to try and change how dogs feel later, it is much easier to prevent problems from occurring. Although those of us with rescue dogs may not have the blessing of being able to choose a puppy from a good breeder, there are still things we can do to help our adult dogs.

Trying to change how a dog feels about things that frighten them is much harder than getting it right in the first place. You know what they say: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of a cure.

In fact, trying to change how a dog feels about a car if they are truly terrified of it will be one of the most difficult things we might ever attempt to do with our dog. Trying to do this without medication is almost impossible. Our dogs may never feel relaxed about car travel.

If it’s vital that our dog feels relaxed in the car, we must pick breeders carefully. For those of us who intend to train our dog as an assistance dog or medical alert dog, we will need them to be relaxed in the car. Even if we just fancy a trip to the beach with our dog, we still need robust parents.

Picking a good breeder

There are two important components if we get to select our dogs as puppies. The first is that the parents are robust. Anxious parents are much more likely to have anxious offspring.

It’s not just about anxiety. It’s also about emotional stability. Occasional anxiety is one thing, but where it is coupled with strongly positive emotions that switch to very negative ones, this is a trait that has heritable factors. It is much more likely that puppies will struggle with many things in life if their parents did. Genes matter.

It’s not just about genes. It’s also about early experience.

From the moment puppies are born, they are developing adult senses that will take them through life. One of the earliest that affects travel is proprioception and a sense of orientation. From birth, puppies respond to tactile contact, but they are also able to right themselves and move forwards. They need whelping spaces big enough to afford this kind of movement.

As soon as they are mobile and their eyes have opened, visual and proprioceptive senses are starting to integrate complex information that helps the puppy make sense of the world. Without the opportunity to do this from three weeks to six weeks, every experience that happens is more complex.

The same is true for you. If you want to be a champion gymnast or figure skater, you need early exposure to be good. Otherwise, you’ll be floundering like the rest of us. Even if you want to be a happy swimmer, skater or walker in adulthood, you’ll still need some appropriate exposure in youth. This is as true for puppies as it is for humans.

This is why we need to select puppies carefully if we have the choice.

The first trip

If we’ve chosen a thoughtful and conscientious breeder, we should find that puppies have already had some short trips in the car. The best breeders will also give young puppies opportunities to grow in confidence around less stable surfaces in safe ways that build strength without injury.

In the past, many people got puppies from neighbours or from kennels or farms nearby. It was very unusual for people to buy a puppy from very far away. These days, puppies might be transported over many, many miles. This is why it’s important to avoid buying puppies from mass production or from pet shops if they are legal in your country.

You may still have a long journey. This may come as the first time your puppy is separated from the rest of their litter. They are travelling in a car with a stranger. No wonder it may not be a comfortable experience!

The more time you can take with your puppy to get to know them in their homes, the better.

Ideally, having some time in your car will also help.

Some people find that puppies travel better with items infused with the odour of their litter. A blanket that smells of the puppy’s home may give some comfort. You may also find that dog appeasing pheromones are also helpful. Using a Pet Remedy spray or Adaptil may also help young puppies feel safer. Alpha Casozepine (Zylkene) is a mild anti-anxiety over-the-counter extract taken from milk that may also help young puppies relax.

Getting the balance right

Many people rush into trips with their young puppy. We can be excited to help our dog get out and experience the big, wide world. There are vet visits to be done, puppy classes to attend, and long lists of stuff that we hope our dog will experience when they are still relatively inoculated from fear.

As a result, we tend to end up doing a lot more car travel with goals in mind.

What would be more useful is a lot of habituation. Habituation is the process of helping our dog get used to the car. By doing things gradually and taking small trips with no destination in mind, we can help our dogs find their ‘travel legs’ so that they don’t get motion sick. We can also teach them the behaviours we would be looking for in the car, like how to settle.

It’s very hard to teach a young dog to settle in the back of the car when we are driving. Many people still hope that their puppy will just learn to settle by themselves while we get on with the important business of driving.

Spending time helping our young dogs learn to accept assistance or get used to ramps, travel crates or baskets is also helpful.

Ideally, we want them to feel comfortable in the car before we take them on any trips.

It will not take many rehearsals before our young puppy is comfortable in the car and ready to tolerate small journeys. The best will be journeys where somebody can sit with the puppy to ensure they are secure and to address any issues that arise while someone else drives.

Puppy classes

Puppy classes may be able to offer dedicated support for travel in the car. Ideally, we should be able to find a class that can offer specific support for training related to travel crates or ramps, as well as helping build puppy motor skills. Puppy movement skills are so important. The more comfortable your puppy is with travel, the better.

The kinds of activities that will help will include activities to build strength in appropriate ways. We want our puppies to be confident when moving. We also want them to feel able to face novel situations and cope with uncertainty. Classes that build up confident exploration are ideal.

Ensuring the instructor can offer specific guidance on habituation is also important. Habituation means getting used to the world around us.

Skills for adult dogs

Many of us adopt an adult dog. Not all of us know their history. If we’re lucky to adopt a dog with a known history, we may learn that the dog has no experience at all with cars. In a way, that’s not the worst thing that could happen. We can then spend a bit of time helping them get used to the car like we would do with a puppy.

Forewarned is forearmed.

Some of us may not realise that the dogs we have adopted have a traumatic history with cars. It’s also easy to assume that they have a traumatic history with cars if they try to chase them, bark at them, catch them or bite them as they pass. If we don’t know the history of our dogs, these behaviours can be very confusing to understand.

Like puppies, prevention is much more useful than having a handful of experiences that are hard to counter later. With the best will in the world, taking our new rescue dog to amazing places by car immediately after adoption may be setting up a recipe for frustration later. Likewise, long trips or trips with a lot of uncertainty or distress can also cause problems down the line.

The best thing to do is to have lots of time in the car doing nothing in particular. Helping dogs know how to relax and rest wherever we want them to stay during the journey is important too. Our newly adopted dog may also not know how to get in the car. Perhaps they were used to getting into the back seat of a small saloon car and now we’re asking them to get into the back of a big SUV. They may need to learn how.

In summary

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. We can inadvertently cause all sorts of problems for our dogs simply because we hadn’t thought about what they might learn from their early experiences. Early experiences can happen in our puppy’s infancy, or with an adopted dog who simply doesn’t have very much experience yet.

Most dogs go on to love cars a lot. The more we take them to great places, the more they learn that car trips predict good things. Loving the car is one thing, but it doesn’t prevent them from getting motion sickness, either. They also need positive experiences to ensure they have the opportunity to find their ‘travel’ legs, to get their balance and to be able to coordinate their senses.

If you would like to learn more, I will be hosting a live 2h webinar on Thursday 30th April 2026 at 6pm BST/UTC+1. You can find more details here.