Car trip with dog with motion sickness (poodle, clean, vet)

[parentologist]

Have to take the dog on a 5 hour car trip. He's a couch potato, likes his crate, but he salivates and then vomits after 20 minutes in the car. I have given him 50 mg of Benadryl (correct for his weight of 57 pounds or so) for itching in the past, and he slept soundly for about two to three hours afterwards. Would Benadryl help with motion sickness? Is there anything else I can use that would work better? I know that humans can take meclizine, but I don't even know if it's available OTC here, or safe for dogs. And I WILL ask the vet, too.

[cleosmom]

First off, props for following up with the vet as well

Yes, using Benadryl on a limited basis is perfectly fine. I would also suggest not feeding prior to the trip and then allowing chill down time before feeding after arriving at your destination.

[Dashdog]

I agree do not feed prior to the trip. When I got Dazzle he hated being in the car and would do this funny little rapid open and closing of his mouth I call it popping as he is popping his mouth. I have seen other nervous sight hounds do it ( he does it when he is nervous) and he would not only drool big time but his nose would be dripping big time and the dog bed in the back of the car would be soaked and yes he would vomit. It helped a lot to not feed him and he now rides ok in the car , doesn't love it like some dogs do so has to be talked into jumping in but is fine once he does. Chaos on the other hand jumps in any open car door willing to go on any adventure! Maybe it was her first travel experience from the Texas shelter via airplane to my home in Calif that gave her a love of travel

[gouligann]

We bought a toy poodle at 6 months old. On our car ride home with her, she turned her head while riding on my lap and vomited right into my purse. Not funny! The poor little thing was a nervous wreck. She shook and trembled even if we held her, petted her, and talked to her. She threw up every time she rode in our car.

After making a few more sloppy messes on our laps, (with my purse tucked safely out of reach), we started crating her in the back seat, with about 10-12 layers of news paper in the bottom of the crate. Each time she vomitted, we'd pull over, and pull out the soiled layers and clean her up. This went on for months. We tried a full sized gravol (as recommended by our vet) and it didn't make any difference... she still vomited. With our lifestyle, we told her that she was either going to continue this for the rest of her life, or get used to travelling.

Slowly, she stopped vomiting every time, and gradually the time between vomits got longer and longer. Then we decided to try her on my lap again on a towel while hubby drove, or vice-versa. It worked. She'd finally stopped vomitting except for a couple of times on an extremely bumpy road. From about 4 years old until we had to sadly put her down at 10 years old because of an injury, she LOVED riding in the vehicle.

So, my advice is: stick with it, put her in a crate for easier clean-up if you choose, and take her for many car rides. She should eventually come out of it.

[BrianH]

My dog has motion sickness too and throws up when driving. Funny story, he puked first time in teh car then I puked, it was a HUGE smelly mess lol. Oh man ...

Anyways when I moved down here it was 8hr trips and the vet gave me pills to "take the edge off" when driving. He basically sat there and or slept most of the time. Well worth a visit to the docs to avoid the big vomitfest I had the first time.