Rumble Strip Terror
I didn't want to highjack another thread, but Dr Doug mentioned that his dog was fearful of rumble strips.
Ohmygosh....Jimmy has always been phobic about these! I remember one day I was forced to cross some and he was hyperventilating/shaking so bad I pulled off the expressway, took him out, and just let him sniff around a business' lawn until he settled. He was maybe a year old then - fortunately, his response is a *bit* better now that he's 10.
Enter the Transit van: our home-made conversion has "lane departure warnings" which to him sounded a lot like hitting rumble strips...after hours of him panting in alarm, we figured out how to set the sensitivity down to "low". But our drive home from Glacier Nat'l Park last summer on US Highways, where the center lane is "rumbled" - was pretty awful for him: either we didn't pass slow-moving vehicles; or when forced to, it set off the dog. And now he regards the van as something scary.
We're headed to FL soon - I will be giving him some calming treats before we leave, in the hopes of keeping his terror level manageable. If those don't work, we'll be headed to the Vet for some drugs...
In the meantime, we're riding around our local roads with no rumbles, just to convince him the van isn't scary....
Ohmygosh....Jimmy has always been phobic about these! I remember one day I was forced to cross some and he was hyperventilating/shaking so bad I pulled off the expressway, took him out, and just let him sniff around a business' lawn until he settled. He was maybe a year old then - fortunately, his response is a *bit* better now that he's 10.
Enter the Transit van: our home-made conversion has "lane departure warnings" which to him sounded a lot like hitting rumble strips...after hours of him panting in alarm, we figured out how to set the sensitivity down to "low". But our drive home from Glacier Nat'l Park last summer on US Highways, where the center lane is "rumbled" - was pretty awful for him: either we didn't pass slow-moving vehicles; or when forced to, it set off the dog. And now he regards the van as something scary.
We're headed to FL soon - I will be giving him some calming treats before we leave, in the hopes of keeping his terror level manageable. If those don't work, we'll be headed to the Vet for some drugs...
In the meantime, we're riding around our local roads with no rumbles, just to convince him the van isn't scary....
