Two small dogs

[I am Ama]

Hi,

We have two small dogs and seek advise on how to transport them in our new Autotrail. They tend to get motion sickness, so travel on hubby's lap in the car. That way we can keep an eye on them and stop as necessary. Hopefully a MH will be better for them, but it may be difficult to carry them on his lap. So, any ideas please?

 

[donkey too]

After talking to a friend of mine who is a vet, about the same problem some years ago. He came up with this:

Get a cage just big enough for them to mover around in. Not so large that they can go for walkies in the thing. Then secure it in the centre of the van next to a window that will open enough for constant fresh air, but not a raging draught. We put the cage on a side seat and secured it with a seat belt. My dogs never got sick after that and half way thropugh our first trip with them they even wanted to sleep in the cage.

 

[bethatthehug]

I'd certainly advise not having dogs loose in the car, apart from it being a requirement that dogs are secured properly so that in event of an accident they don't become missiles. A previous colleague had a Lab loose in the back of a Discovery, with dog guard. One day after their caravan wagged the Disco and overturned the lot the Lab escaped out the smashed back window and ran frightened along the central reservation. Let alone my neighbour who let her King Charles be loose in the car, because it sat on the seat good as gold, until the time it got under the pedals.

One of our dogs gets travel sick so we give him a Stugeron tablet. Before, we used amazingly expensive tabs from the vet (25quid for 3 or 4 tabs plus consultation fee making about 50quid the first time, and found later you can't give them consecutive days) before we found info online about human anti-sickness pills. Ours are Collie types (~20Kg) so a whole tab (15mg is kids or adult human dose) is appropriate, for a small dog I'd imagine half or even quarter would be more appropriate. We were concerned about toxicity/poisoning/etc our dog from well meaning but possibly misguided info. However Hubby found an academic paper where they gave Beagles massive doses of it to see what happened, all was well. Tried it one day when we weren't going out and he was fine. So now we give him a tab with a smear of cheese on it an hour before we set off, he doesn't throw up: he's happier, we're happy... Not that this is veterinary advice, it's worth as much as you paid for it!/etc.

 

[Vanterrier]

I dont know about motion sickness but we put our terrier in a small "cage" which is cloth and has zipper doors and window covers - bought it from Tesco for about £10.00... she's happy in there and just sleeps and doesnt move around. It sits nicely on the floor at the back of our van and folds away behind the drivers seat when we get to our destination.

HTH

K

 

[maingate]

Another vote for Stugeron here.

Used them on a couple of the Whippets when they were pups until they grew out of it.

We bred one litter of Whippets and I took them round the block in the car once a week from 5 weeks old (with their Mum). None of them ever had bother with car sickness.

 

[I am Ama]

Thanks all. I hadn`t heard of those meds. I really appreciate your help on this.

 

[red ted]

Hi,

We have two small dogs and seek advise on how to transport them in our new Autotrail. They tend to get motion sickness, so travel on hubby's lap in the car. That way we can keep an eye on them and stop as necessary. Hopefully a MH will be better for them, but it may be difficult to carry them on his lap. So, any ideas please?

Hi
we have a doggie seat belt for our dog daisy she can then look out of the window( she is a nosey dog) stops her from being anxious when we on the move.:idea:

 

[lotty]

if you have a spare seat with seatbelts fitted, you can get a harness for the dog which clips to the seatbelt and they are safe.

Our dog has a harness for the cars. We don't have spare seats in the van with seatbelts and I do worry about what would happen in the event of an accident as our dog travels either on hubbys knee or on the side facing seat in the van. I am looking into some way of fixing a belt to the body of the van or a internal pannel so I can then attach his harness to that.