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Sunday, July 20, 2008

Expecting travelling with your dog this summer? What about car sickness?

posted by csenay at 18h06

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It is well known that a lot of dogs are miserable from a ride in the car. Vomiting all over your nice car seat, a simple car trip can easily be transformed to a nightmare. Hopefully, many solutions are available for your dog and you!    

For the vast majority of dogs, car sickness seems to be related to stress rather than the motion of your car. So before bringing your dog for a long ride, you need to acclimatize your pet slowly, so it associates car journeys with positive and good things. Ideally, this should be done when your dog is a puppy.   

Then, what can you do to make the car journey more comfortable? Here are a few suggestions:

  • Don't give him any food few hours prior to travel.  
  • Allow your dog to relieve itself before travelling.
  • Open the window a little, fresh air does wonders for animals that have a tendency to get car sick.
  • Looking out the window can bring on nausea in many dogs, so consider keeping your pet safe and secure in a covered portable crate. 
  • For long road trips, give yourself and your pet a rest stop and take a walk every two or three hours. Avoid dehydration and take a good travel bowl will allow them to have a drink during the break.

 What about medications? If it is really necessary, here some medications that I tend to recommend to my dog’s clients:  

  • Apparently, there are a number of homeopathic solutions that can help reduce travel sickness. Look for the following ingredients that tend to have relaxing effect: Valeria, Chamomile and St-John’s wort.
  • Applying a small quantity of Lavander oil on the inner ears, seems also to have a relaxing effect.
  • Gravol (dimenhydrinate) 4-8mg/kg, or maximum dose 50mg per dog, 1 hour before departure seems to work pretty good.
  • Finally, Cerenia (maropitant citrate) (Pfizer) is a new and first FDA-approved medicine that prevents vomiting caused by motion sickness in dogs. Recommended for dogs 16 weeks of age and older, this medicine is available only by prescription from your veterinarian.

Have a nice trip with your dog! 

For more information on pet travel tips: www.pettravel.com 

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