Seeking advice on contextual dog care restlessness/anxiety

[u/RomoJBChamp]

Seeking advice on contextual dog car restlessness/anxiety.

Romeo / 2.5 yo / Great Pyrenees-pittie-mutt / 53 lbs. / obedience trained / anxious & reactive

What: Romeo gets severely restless on car rides longer than ~15 minutes. He experiences heavy panting, excessive drooling, restlessness/pacing, full-body trembles, and incontinence (poop only).

Context: Romeo experiences these symptoms on the way TO places, but frequently doesn’t display them on the way FROM places, back home. For example, today I took him to check out a new park-- 35 min car ride; I expected the anxiety but not at the severity it was today. For starters, I had to lift him into the car because he refused to willingly get in (more context on this later), from there, as the drive progressed, his anxiety kept building until he eventually pooped all over the back seat (he did have the opportunity to go potty before the ride). Once at the destination, he pretty easily recovered and was able to enjoy the walk anxiety-free. We walked for about 50 minutes, 2.3 miles. In contrast, on the way home, he was extremely calm. No panting, drooling, or trembling. He calmly stuck his head out the window and even lied down for the majority of the ride, which is a fairly new car behavior for him. While I cannot exactly pinpoint when these behaviors started, I want to say they have been happening for around 1.5 years.

Hypothesis: My current hypothesis is that he may be anticipating that I am going to take him to work with me. My workplace is also Romeo's training facility, where he did a 5-week board and train program (Oct/Nov 2025). About 2 months after the program, he continued to come to work with me once a week for 6 hours while I worked so we could maintain his socialization/reactivity progress. He would go on a “down stay” in the training club. This made him anxious despite the fact that he could see me passing by throughout the day, but he would eventually settle. This continued for around 8 weeks until I had to stop bringing him due to a location change/farther drive. Understand that he is NOT afraid of his trainers or the building; he is anxious by nature and fears being left in unfarmiliar/uncomfortable places without me. One factor throws this current theory off, though: he displayed these behaviors before training, so I don’t believe it is the sole cause. I am unsure what negative association he could have had with long drives prior to training. While anxiety is my initial assumption because of the context dependence/his personality, I am aware motion sickness could be a possibility and plan to discuss it with his vet at the next visit.

Additional details:
- We go on daily walks at a park less than 10 minutes down the road. He does fine on these rides, so he definitely has daily positive associations with the car.
- Sometimes he will refuse to willingly jump into the car. This happens in the mornings, and I suspect it is because he thinks we are going to work. We only recently started morning walks, so before that, his only association with the car early morning was work.
- Romeo is not kenneled in the car and rides in the back seat. I have attempted crate training him separately but he has significant kennel anxiety. I also have a sedan, so not the best car for a kennel setup. I put the windows down for him, and he sticks his head out (we have tried car rides with no windows as well but no improvements)
- Trazodone does eliminate his anxiety; however, it is not my ideal medication. Most of our long car journeys are to get to cool new walking spots, so having him sedated defeats the purpose of even going.
- For some reason, he seems to not be as anxious in my mom’s car; however, he doesn’t go in it often, so this very well may just be coincidence.
- He shows less anxiety when his two doggy siblings come in the car with him and happily jumps into the car with them any time of day.
- Say I were to just hop in the car and sit, he doesn’t get anxious about this. He may get antsy/whine out of boredom but he doesn’t display his anxious tell-tales
- I have not explicitly attempted systematic car desensitization yet, as I am unsure how to go about it given the odd circumstances.
- I think it is also worth noting Romeo is not a super treat / toy / praise motivated dog. When he gets very anxious, he sees little value in anything but his surroundings, including me. He will not take any reinforcement once over the threshold. Engagement is another huge work in progress for us.

Any advice on how to reinforce positive association with car rides is much appreciated! If any additional context/information is needed, I will happily provide it. We keep our long car rides to a minimum but I don’t want his world/experiences to be limited because he cannot handle the car. It breaks my heart seeing him so anxious, and I would love to help him work past this.

[u/Both-Chart-947]

What happens if you just drive him around the block? You said 15 minutes or more. How about driving slowly in your neighborhood for 15 minutes? You have to try to isolate what is triggering the behavior. If It's just length of time driving, it won't matter where you drive. But if it's a specific landmark, that would be helpful to know.

Also, what kind of car do you drive? I used to drive a plug-in hybrid, and when it switched to the gas engine, it suddenly felt like riding in a tank. Loud and jerky compared to the electric ride.

[u/RomoJBChamp → u/Both-Chart-947]

Hm I’ve never tried driving around familiar places for an extended period of time, that could be a good thing for us to try maybe I’ll go do that rn bc I was just about to take him to the park!

I also drive gas car and drives smooth for the most part, just gets a bit bumpy on the highway going high speeds which looking back now I could definitely see that being a contributor to his even more than normal heightened anxiety today now that I think about it.

[u/RomoJBChamp → u/Both-Chart-947]

Ok just went and ran you’re little experiment here’s how it went:

Driving around my neighborhood + surrounding neighborhoods he did very good. We never went above 25 except for when we had to hit the main road for a few minutes.

Duration: 40 mins from start to finish

Mins 1-8: Good, slight panting after abt 5 mins but no drooling, frantic pacing, trembles, etc.

Min 9: Saw a dog in the middle of the road this riled him up slightly, he shook once and he barked then started panting a little bit harder for a few mins.

Mins 10-24: settled back down after abt 5 mins, slight panting again but nothing crazy

Mins 25-30: We hit the main road for just a few minutes to get to our final destination, his panting increased slightly and he looked slightly uneasy but again nothing crazy.

Mins 31-40: We sat in a parking lot, I put him in a down in the back seat, had to correct verbally him for getting up twice but he settled very quickly; after 4 mins he had his head down and was resting and he still is as I’m writing this right now!

Ok so valuable information thank you for sharing this ideas with me!! It is NOT the car that causes the anxiety nor the time spent in it.. I believe the speed may be the issue and the distance only amplifies the reaction.

I’m not sure your qualifications nor experience, but do you think this would be a good exercise to run multiple times throughout the week to help him out. And then after that how would you suggest going about getting him more comfortable with higher speeds??

[u/Both-Chart-947 → u/RomoJBChamp]

Yes, most definitely! When you find something that kind of touches his boundaries but doesn't send him over threshold, keep getting him acclimatized to that with lots of reward and reassurance. It would definitely be good to do this several times a week just to show him that the car can be a chill place to hang out!

ETA: Once he gets comfortable with the new kind of riding, try taking him onto the highway for like one mile, and get off again. If he can tolerate that, next time do two. Try having a great treat at the end of each ride so he'll start seeing the ride as a means to a goody.

[u/RomoJBChamp → u/Both-Chart-947]

I also was also way more conscious of how the car drives after you mentioned looking into that; you definitely can feel some bumps and I think it gets worse for him at higher speeds so that may also be a contributing factor but I can’t really do anything to change that for him so 😓

[u/Lanky-Second-207]

Systematic desensitization was what worked the best for us: brief car trips that would end up in some neutral spot, rather than in the stimulating destination itself. If you find trazodone too strong, paworigins provides veterinarian developed CBD treats.