Getting Better

Last weekend we had a major road trip. 7 hours to Okmulgee, OK and back. That's twice as far as the drive to my parents' house. Airlie's first big trip!

I dosed her with Rescue Remedy before we got in the car. She drooled a bit while we stopped for gas, but had some fun getting accustomed to moving about the vehicle while it was stopped.

DH mistakenly thought taking the toll road around the city would be faster (and easier on her). It might have been easier, but we still spent an hour driving around the city, instead of just taking the road that goes right past our house to the interstate. Traffic. Sometimes avoiding stoplights in favor of what would be a "faster" route is just not practical.

Airlie puked within the first 15 minutes, as usual, but then lay down and slept for the next 3 hours. She'd have slept longer, but we stopped for gas and food and to let the dogs out to pee. After that, she was fine for another 2 hours, but once it got dark out, she was fed up with lying down and being still, wanting to walk around and investigate. She and Kansas were both sitting up, looking out the windows at the approaching headlights. So, she puked again, just saliva, but after that was fine all the way to our destination.

On the return trip, we departed first thing in the morning, and, thus, opted not to feed the dogs at all. By this time I had learned that, in her case, Rescue Remedy works best when dabbed on her paws, nose and inside her ears. The oral dose just doesn't work for her. Actually, she really doesn't like having it on her nose, either. Up to now I'd been putting it in every place the directions said it could go. From now on, we'll probably just do ears & paws. Anyway, we made the whole return trip without incident. Probably mostly due to not feeding her, but she definitely got lots of experience and practice and is much less anxious in the car now. Her only issues where when we were driving a windy road through some campgrounds we were checking out. She didn't like that at all, and began salivating again, but she had learned by that time to just lie down and tune it out.