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Is your dog’s “car anxiety” really motion sickness?

May 28, 2018 by sharon Leave a Comment

When my dog Barnum was about two years old, he started to become impossible to drive with. About twenty minutes into any car trip, he would pace, drool, and shriek continuously. It was horrible for both of us. He seemed like he was having a panic attack, and nothing I did could soothe him — not chews, not treats, not training, not comforting words. Soon, he started to freak out as soon as he was in the car — before I even turned on the engine.

One day, I mentioned the issue to the behavior consultant I was apprenticing with. She suggested that my dog was actually car sick. That turned out to be the magic answer. That idea had never occurred to me because Barnum didn’t vomit. He seemed to just suddenly “freak out.” Once I took steps to address my dog’s car sickness, it really turned the situation around.

A dog that is motion sick does not always vomit, so signs of motion sickness may be misinterpreted as a behavior issue. These can include

  • Panting
  • Pacing
  • Drooling
  • Whining, panting, or other vocalizations
  • Hunching, lips pulled back, tight facial skin, whites of eyes showing, etc.

Symptoms may start as soon as the car moves or may emerge only after a specific period of time or only on bumpy or windy roads, etc. Some dogs seem fine in the car but after arriving at their destination, refuse food, don’t follow cues, lick their lips, yawn, or act tired. I see this sometimes with dogs in class. If they are given anti-nausea remedies before class or get half an hour to recover from nausea before class starts, they are able to work.

Riding on his thick foam pad, veterinary medications, and in a relaxed down-stay, Barnum can ride comfortably for hours!

Additionally, once a dog has experienced feeling sick in the car (especially repeatedly), she may make an emotional association between feeling ill and being in the car. This can result in anxious-type behavior and refusal to get in the car, etc.

If you suspect your dog has motion sickness, your first step is to speak to your vet to diagnose or rule out a physical cause to a behavior issue. Trial and error is sometimes required. They may suggest Dramamine, Benadryl, ginger, or other remedies. Sometimes the only treatment that works is a prescription medication, such as Cerenia, which is specifically for nausea in dogs.

Adjusting the environment with regard to noise, air, vision, and vibration may also your dog ride more comfortably. In Barnum’s case, what worked the best was to prevent him from looking out the windows. I believe his motion sickness is the result of an inner ear/balance issue that was caused by a year of severe ear infections. For many dogs, putting them in a plastic crate or putting a towel over a metal crate works to block the nauseating visual stimuli. However, putting Barnum in a crate made the situation worse. What has worked the best is having him tethered to a zip line for safety while lying on a thick foam mat that absorbs sound and vibration. To prevent him from looking out the windows, I have him trained to lie down instead of sitting or standing. Different training and environmental options will work for different dogs, depending on their physical and behavioral needs.

Once your dog is physically comfortable, start building a positive association with the car. Start training by rewarding your dog for looking at the car, moving toward the car, jumping in the car, etc. First do this while the car is turned off and all the doors are open, then with all the doors shut (but engine off), then with the car idling in the driveway, before finally taking short trips around the block or to places your dog loves.

Note: Never coerce the dog into the car (tug the leash, scold, etc.), as this tends to make dogs more resistant and suspicious.

Once your dog is happily jumping into the car, it can help to give special treats in the car. Giving a dog a great chew, such as a bully stick or a stuffed Kong, while you read in the front seat is often helpful. Later, a chew can help to keep them from looking out the window, but if the dog is still experiencing an upset stomach or is too anxious to eat, this may backfire. With time, patience, and help from your veterinarian and trainer, your dog can enjoy riding with you again!

Filed Under: Car reactivity, Desensitization and Counterconditioning, Dog body language, Dog Health, Dog training Tagged With: car sickness, motion sickness

Dog Training DISTRACTION! How to Respond to the Unexpected

October 11, 2016 by sharon 4 Comments

Training a dog to work well around distractions is often the greatest challenge. For service dogs, working well around distractions is critical for public access training, but all dogs are susceptible to distraction. Distractions may include people, squirrels, other dogs, bicycles or cars, jackhammers, or any unexpected sound, sight, or smell. What is distracting to one dog may not be to another.

Dog’s responses may vary from barking and lunging, to freezing and staring, to jumping with joy. We may not even realize our dog is distracted until they seem to ignore us when we tell them to do something they know how to do, perhaps sniffing the ground and ignoring their favorite treat.

Good training requires “proofing” a dog’s skills by practicing them around distractions until the behavior is reliable no matter what else is happening. However, sometimes a distraction occurs unexpectedly — on a walk, during a training session, or just in the course of everyday life. Our dog’s behavior may seem to fall apart. This is normal. The key to turning an unpleasant surprise into a valuable training opportunity is to adapt your response to your dog’s reaction to the distraction….Text description for this graphic at end of post at http://atyourservicedogtraining.com/2016/10/09/distraction-flowchart/

Follow-up notes:

  1. It’s best to end your training session while your dog is doing great! It’s human to want to keep going when the dog is doing well. But this inevitably results in pushing the dog to failure. Keep it short and sweet. You win five gold stars if you quit while your dog is doing well (BEFORE your dog fails)!
  2. I give permission to anyone to share this post either by linking to this post (here is the link: http://atyourservicedogtraining.com/2016/10/09/distraction-flowchart/) ‎or by sharing the entire flowchart graphic, including my copyright information. Thank you!

Text description of the flowchart graphic:

Text headline: Responding to Distractions: What should you do? It depends on what your dog does.”

Purple pentagon “Distraction!” Arrow leads to black box with large print, “Is my dog acting like a creature who can THINK?” Three arrows lead from this box: Yes (on left), Somewhat (in the middle), and No (on the right).

“Yes” leads to three green boxes with a blue cloud above them. The cloud says, “UNDER threshold! You’re on Cloud 9! Train for best results.” The three green “yes” boxes are 1. Makes eye contact? Relaxed body? Happy to take treats? Responds to cues? 2. Cue reliable behavior (e.g., “touch”) and reinforce heavily for each correct response. 3. Slowly move toward the distraction, reinforcing heavily for focus. End quickly while successful!

“No” leads to three three boxes with a red “stop sign” shape above them. The red sign says, “Stop! Dog is over threshold! Give dog SPACE to think.” The three “No” boxes are a rose-colored box, “Staring? Barking? Lunging? Pulling? Growling?” This points to a pink box, “TAKE COVER. Move AWAY, use barriers, or give dog easy alternate focus.” This points to a yellow box, “Use ‘Look at That’ game with high rate of reinforcement to change your dog’s emotional response to distraction until…” An arrow from this box leads to the green “Makes eye contact?” box.

The “Somewhat” arrow in the middle leads to a yellow box, “Gulps, snatches at or ignores treats. Responds to cues slowly or only when repeated. Trouble making eye contact.” This leads to another yellow arrow-shaped box (pointing right) that says, “Caution: Dog is right at threshold of ability to think.” This box has an arrow that goes to the pink “TAKE COVER” box.

At the bottom of the graphic is “Copyright Sharon Wachsler 2016 ~ At Your Service Dog Training ~ atyourservicedogtraining.com.”

Filed Under: Behavior modification, Car reactivity, Dog training, Public Access Training (PAT), Reactivity, Service Dog Training

Does Your Dog Need a “PET Plan”?

May 2, 2016 by sharon Leave a Comment

Is your puppy out of control? Are you having trouble getting your dog to listen? Here are some common dog behavior problems for my clients. See if any sound familiar.Black and white puppy baring teeth at person's hand on its butt.

Example #1: Your six-month-old pup is mouthing and nipping your clothes and skin, jumping up on your kids, and stealing the family’s stuff whenever she sees her opportunity. You have tried every way you can think to tell her no: Yelling “No” or “ouch,” shaking her collar, and rolling her onto her back, but none of it helps.

Example #2: Your newly adopted dog is pulling on leash, especially when you walk on the street. He is okay on the quiet woods path, but as soon as you get near people, dogs, or cars, he stops listening. You are walking on a retractable lead so he has as much room as he needs to explore, but he’s still not satisfied. You tell him no, you jerk the leash, but it makes no difference.

Example #3: Your dog goes wild whenever someone comes to the door. He barks and jumps. You keep telling him to be good, but he doesn’t listen.

The problem behavior is different in each situation, but a similar approach will work for each dog. In every case, the dog needs a PET plan!

What is P.E.T.?

  • Prevention
  • Enrichment & 
  • Training

For fast, effective training, set up a plan that combines P.E.T. — Prevention, Enrichment, and Training.

Prevention (Management)

Like people, dogs have habits. The more a dog practices doing something, the better she gets at it. This is just as true for bad behavior as for good behavior. Practicing bad behavior makes it an entrenched habit. The first step in behavior modification is to PREVENT the bad behavior.

Snow-covered hill with several deep paths worn into snow and people climbing up them.Think of your dog’s mind as a hill covered with snow. Each time the dog does something, the neural pathways in the dog’s brain fire along a certain path for that behavior. That is like sledding down a hill in the snow. The more you sled down the same trail, the smoother, faster, and deeper the snow becomes on that path. It gets easier and easier to slide down the same trail and harder to forge a new trail where the snow is fresh and deep.

Stopping the dog from using that mental pathway is the first step. When that trail is not being used over and over, the path gets slower, bumpier, and harder to use. Now your dog has the mental space to learn a good behavior — creating a fast new mental path — instead.

Examples of Prevention (Management solutions)

  • Put your dog behind a gate or another room
  • Crate your dog
  • Tether your dog to a heavy piece of furniture
  • Tether your dog to your belt
  • Attach a “house line” (aka “drag leash”) you can step on
  • Cover the windows with wax paper
  • Put a fence around the flower garden
  • Bring the dog indoors

Enrichment (Keeping your dog positively & constructively engaged)

Dog contentedly licking inside of a black Kong, holding rubber Kong in place with one foot.Bad behavior often arises from too much “free time.” Dogs, like kids, have a lot of energy. If we don’t direct it towards constructive outlets, it will find destructive outlets. A tired dog is a good dog! Exercise is an important form of enrichment, but mental exercise is as tiring for some dogs as a run.

Examples of Enrichment (Canine occupational therapy)

  • Foraging for food or toys (“Find it!”) uses scenting, seeking, eating, moving
  • Meals from feeder toys (problem solving, licking, nosing, pawing, eating, moving, chewing)
  • Chew toys (lying down and licking is relaxing, exercises jaw muscles, problem solving)
  • Tug of War or Fetch with training/rules (running, problem solving, thinking, cooperating, chewing, seeking, communicating and building your bond)

TIP: Combine Enrichment with Management

If your dog jumps on visitors, give her a bully stick or peanut-butter stuffed Kong in her crate right before guests arrive. If she’s too hyper to train polite leash walking, play a tiring game of tug before you take a walk. Want her to ignore the kids in the kitchen? Scatter her dinner all over the back yard so she has to hunt for every kibble. Give her something positive to do while you prevent naughtiness.

Training (Teaching your dog the right things to do)

Training is making predictable changes in a dog’s behavior over time. It is TEACHING. Use management for behavior you need today. Use training for behavior you need tomorrow. Training requires time and repetition. Training may not affect current behavior, but done properly, it will affect future behavior. After a few days of training, your dog should offer desirable behaviors more often and undesirable behaviors less often. If that’s not happening, get in touch. You need a better plan. We can help.

Putting PET Plans into Practice

Let’s look at the three scenarios we started with. How can we apply the PET plan to each?

1. The mouthing, nipping, jumping, toy-stealing puppy: This puppy needs more supervision and confinement.

Prevention and management will make this situation much easier and safer for everyone.

Large brown dog stands behind white metal pet gate while butterscotch colored tabby cat walks through a cat door in the bottom of the gate.This puppy is like a kindergartener in people terms who cannot be expected to know the rules yet. Just as you would child proof your home with a child who is too young to know what is safe and what is dangerous, with a puppy you can use crates, exercise pens (“x-pens”), or baby gates that prevent her from getting to the kids or door to jump, mouth, or run out.

If your home set-up makes this difficult, you can use tethers and “house lines.” Tethering is when you leash your dog and attach the other end to the wall, a heavy piece of furniture, or yourself! Tethering your puppy to you is a great help for puppy training and service dog training, especially. A “house line” (or “drag line”) is leaving a leash on your dog all the time that just drags behind her. It is MUCH easier to step on a leash — to prevent bolting out the door or to stop her from leaping on the kids as they walk in — than to try to catch a fast little puppy by hand!

Combine management with enrichment by having the puppy chew on a bully stick or lick food out of a Kong when you need to keep her occupied during high-excitement times, such as when the kids come home from school or first thing in the morning when everyone is busy and rushing around getting ready for their days.

Train the puppy how to behave by teaching her to sit for greetings, teaching a “drop it” for things she has in her mouth, and by offering her toys and chews to occupy her mouth instead of mouthing or nipping.

2. The newly adopted leash puller: This situation primarily requires training, but management and enrichment can help a lot.

Prevention: Until this dog has the training to learn how to behave around distractions such as cars, people, and dogs, you can prevent him practicing this behavior by walking him in quieter areas. You can also get more control by using a fixed-length leash — retractable leashes strongly encourage pulling — and the proper body harness or head halter that discourage pulling.

Enrichment: Pulling is often a result of a dog who is too wound up and excited by a walk. If your dog works off some extra energy with mental or physical exercise before his walk, he may be less likely to lunge and pull when you go out. Having him work for all his food with food-dispensing toys or clicker training are cheap, easy, and enriching methods for most dog. Playing tug of war (with rules), hide-and-seek, fetch, or scenting games (inside the house or outside) are also very enriching and can take the edge off a hyper dog.

Training: Start training the dog to walk calmly on a loose leash INSIDE your home first! Give treats for walking nicely by your side and paying attention to you. This will take time for your dog to learn and for you to transfer to outdoors, with all its distractions. While your dog is learning good leash manners, when you go on a real walk, use a no-pull harness or a head halter to prevent pulling in the meanwhile. (See our post on harnesses and halters for the pros and cons of each.)

3. The badly behaved greeter: As with the puppy in #1, your first step here must be management/prevention.

Prevention: Dogs must be prevented from rushing guests at the door. Whether they’re motivated by joy, fear, or anger, it’s unpleasant for everyone and not something you want the dog to practice. If his behavior is fearful or aggressive, putting him in a crate far away from the doorway or a bedroom with the door closed will help your guests enter with a lot less chaos and distress for dog and humans. If he’s overexcited and loves people, tethering or using a baby gate to keep him away until both dog and guests have settled will help prevent the free-for-all.

Enrichment is a key part of this plan. Most dogs, if they are just prevented from seeing or approaching people with nothing else to do, will bark, whine, or work themselves up. However, most dogs, if given a very high-value chew to work on (cheese-stuffed Kong, bully stick, dried trachea stuffed with broth-soaked kibble and frozen) would rather work on their delicious occupational therapy than fling themselves at the end of their tether or the gate or door. A lot of exercise or intensive play or training before guests arrive can also help take the edge off a frenzied dog.

Training is important here, too. What you choose to train the dog to do will depend in part on whether your dog’s behavior arises from attraction or aversion to guests. One skill that works well for both types of dogs is to train the dog to relax on a mat when people arrive.

What about you?

Do you have a favorite PET plan for your dog? Share it in the comments!

Filed Under: Barking, Car reactivity, Jumping, Loose Leash Walking (Heel), Management (Prevention), Nipping, Pet dog training, Puppy training, Training Tagged With: dog training, positive reinforcement, positive training

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