Miss T has horrible travel anxiety, not in the airport or on the airplane, just in the car, can we say spoiled? She has flown round trip just about once a month since she was 10 weeks old and has traveled in the car to the beach, mountains, and even the long trip back home, but since she was about a year old decided she is going to shake and pant the entire car ride no matter if its 30 minutes or 8 hours. I've talked to the vet and since she is so small they are concerned about giving her a sedative, so we started with children's
benadryl, that didn't do a thing. Next, we tried about a speck of a sedative pill from the vet that they crushed in to tiny pieces for me to give her about 30 minutes before we get in the car and will last 6-8 hours. The sedative does nothing more then make her eyes and head look droopy, but she still shakes and pants. Basically, we've just learned to live with her manic car behavior, yet I continuously worry that she is dehydrating herself on long car rides with all the panting, until now!
One weekend back in January, I was reading People Style Watch and came across a product called a
Thundershirt; a therapeutic vest for dogs. I was immediately interested and went to the
Thundershirt's website to learn more. After watching several of the videos and reading more, I knew I had to give the
Thundershirt a try.
Thundershirts are great for fear of thunder/fireworks, travel
anxiety, crate training, problem barking,
separation anxiety, hyperactivity, leash pulling, and more! It's the
Thundershirt's gentle, constant pressure that has a dramatic calming effect for most dogs if they are anxious, fearful or over-excited.
The
Thundershirt has without a doubt helped Miss T's travel anxiety and now we all enjoy our car rides
with her a lot more!