Barking when car stops

[DawnS]

Hello all,

I am hoping for some advice about a problem I have with my dog. She is a delight in most ways, but she has an established behaviour of barking madly when the car stops (not while it is going).

She is 18 months old, spayed cockerpoo. She is very high energy and into everything but is well trained. I teach her a lot of tricks etc to keep her busy and she has started agility training. At home she is happy to chill out and sleep. She is very attached to her humans but does not show separation anxiety when we are out. She guard barks when she hears people at the back gate, which I have allowed since we have bikes in the back garden. She also barks at the front door but I am training her out of this.

The car behaviour started about 10 months ago and since then I have tried everything I can think of to remedy it:
- Shovelling treats into her when the car stops (worked a bit but not very practical)
- Ignoring completely
- Telling her off (verbally)
- Stopping and starting the car until she ceases to react (works while you are doing it, but she barks when you take a different route)
- Giving her a total break from car for a month
- Adaptil / KalmAid tablets
- Turning the radio right up
I have worked with a dog trainer who advised sitting in the car and putting the handbrake on, going 10 yards down the road, 20 yards, etc. This worked for just going round the block but fell apart when we went somewhere different. Also this is only practicable if she's in the front of the car. Dog trainer was stumped and suggested a behaviourist, but this is very expensive (not covered by insurance) and it seems the main thing they can add is pharmaceuticals, which I'm not keen on.

The root of the problem was i think a combination of excitement (she likes going just about anywhere) and anxiety about being left in the car. She is now happy being left in the car (will sleep), so I think it is a mixture of habit and frustration. She does it in other people's cars too. She's better, though not perfect, when she's tired out; but the places she would get tired are ones we have to drive to! At present she travels in a crate in the boot. Oh, and she stops barking as soon as you get out of the car, whether she gets out or not.

If anyone has made it to the end of this essay, do you have any novel ideas? I've exhausted my inventiveness! Our vet said it was normal behaviour and we should just accept it - but i'd accept it more happily if I knew that we'd done everything else possible.

 

[CorvusCorax]

I was once asked by a small child, if I had a pig in my car, that's the noise that he makes when we arrive somewhere he senses he might be getting out to do something fun, or if he thinks I might be going somewhere to have fun without him.
For him it is anticipation of going somewhere awesome (Tesco is not awesome. He does not bark there). And a little anxiety when being left and I walk away sometimes also. I call that the 'outrage' bark. I do take him for short spins but he definitely knows the difference between a run to the shops and somewhere with sea air/salt water/grass/forest smells, even when he has never been there before.
It's a really tricky one to train, especially if the dog is crated. I can't drive and sit in the crate at the same time. I just live with it and ignore the looks .

Cockerpoos do tend to be very vocal though.

 

[DawnS]

I was once asked by a small child, if I had a pig in my car, that's the noise that he makes when we arrive somewhere he senses he might be getting out to do something fun, or if he thinks I might be going somewhere to have fun without him.
For him it is anticipation of going somewhere awesome (Tesco is not awesome. He does not bark there). And a little anxiety when being left and I walk away sometimes also. I call that the 'outrage' bark. I do take him for short spins but he definitely knows the difference between a run to the shops and somewhere with sea air/salt water/grass/forest smells, even when he has never been there before.
It's a really tricky one to train, especially if the dog is crated. I can't drive and sit in the crate at the same time. I just live with it and ignore the looks .

Cockerpoos do tend to be very vocal though.

You're not wrong there. She's not a dog that barks just to hear her own voice, but she does make an extraordinary array of 'conversational' noises, including chatting to her toys and doing a teenage 'harummph' when she has to do something she thinks is SO UNFAIR.

 

[DawnS]

Any other ideas, anybody? I have read one suggestion online of using water spray, but others on the dangers of 'aversives' - I don't want to make things worse.

 

[twiggy2]

Do you use a crate anywhere else, is the crate covered, is she a foodie, do you use things like Kongs, does she eat when in the car??

 

[DawnS]

@twiggy2, She has a crate at home and she is very happy in there, she sleeps in there voluntarily. The car crate is a fabric one with mesh panels so she can't see much out of it. We have used that crate at training classes so she has a high value for it.
She is a massive foodie, but will stop eating whatever she has in order to bark. It used to be that she wouldn't eat when left in the car alone, but now she will polish off a chew and then go to sleep which is how I know she's no longer so anxious about being in there.
Oh, and she is happy to get in the car.

 

[SusieT]

Have you tried covering the crate altogehter? Many dogs will whine etc. when they arrive at favourite locations
Alternatively have you tried getting her out straight away and then putting her back in i.e. take away the excitement?
As a complete alternative you could try a spray anti bark collar. I'm not into shock collars etc. but I find barking a very anti sociail dog behaviour and hard to stop unless you get them as they do it and this is the one situation I think as spray collar can be helpful.

 

[DawnS]

Thanks Susie, we have tried covering the crate but she seems to know when we're getting somewhere - she starts getting wound up when we slow down and indicate. I have not tried getting her out and back in, I will give that a go.
I will look into spray collars, but my feeling is that someone sat i the back with spray and treats might work better - from all that I have read, if aversives are going to work, they work quickly, so wouldn't take too many journeys.

 

[twiggy2]

I would just have her in the car more often, I have work with many dogs that are a seem for various reasons when travelling.
Take the dog for a good walk and do some brain work from home then put them in the car and do a few visits where you can stop and start.
Getting out/sitting in car/engine on and or off.
Obviously if you do this you need to be sure the car is always safe and secure.
You need to make the car boring, you can put a chew in the crate when you leave home if you think it will help.
Travel issues are the main reason I travel puppies a lot from the day they arrive, they go in the car travel about and back home so no excitment-as long as she is not the sort of dog that finds Barking self rewarding in itself them time and repetition will sort your problem.
The problem I have with spray collars is that it can make the dog fearful of the car and a person on the back seat dealing out punishments and rewards -most dogs work out that nothing come when that person is not there so the behaviour returns.

 

[Clodagh]

I would just have her in the car more often, I have work with many dogs that are a seem for various reasons when travelling

I agree, and I would just ignore the behaviour. My dogs, when young, go on the school run, to the shop, every little bit they can,. it is often not exciting and although they are excited about getting in the car they don't expect anything amazing to happen.

 

[The Fuzzy Furry]

DawnS, getting them out, walk a circle round you and straight back in, is something I do with a horse that will bang or be a ruddy nuisance about standing quietly on arrival somewhere, it really can help.
I've done it with dogs too & its also worked on most, but not my late mothers last Border sadly, but that would bark witlessly whenever in the car!

Good luck, hope you find a solution.

 

[DawnS]

Thanks all. I will be more diligent about always taking her in the car with me. When she was younger I was very conscious of taking her in the car and making it a good experience so she wouldn't be afraid/ car sick. The fact that she could be too excited about the car didn't really occur to me.
This really is her only vice, so I can live with it if I have to, but it'd be nice to improve it, even if it's not completely fixed.

 

[DawnS]

Update - tried water spray, she wasn't really bothered (at least not enough to stop barking). I'm not prepared to use any stronger aversives, so I guess it'll be taking her absolutely everywhere in the car and seeing how it goes.
The other thing I have been doing of late is when we stop and she barks, repeating the trigger for the bark until she doesn't react. This means putting the handbrake on and off ten times, undoing seatbelt ten times, etc. Does this seem like a good idea or am I inadvertently teaching her to bark for longer?