Motion sickness in dogs, like in humans, occurs when your dog has trouble tolerating “motion” – for example in cars, boats, or plane rides. As the motion begins to make your dog feel unwell, you will notice your dog panting, drooling, and trying to shift positions in an attempt to alleviate his discomfort. Eventually, if his discomfort is not addressed, your dog will likely vomit and may also have an attack of diarrhea.

Motion sickness is generally triggered either by anxiety, by over-stimulation of your dog’s vestibular apparatus, or by a combination of these two causes. The vestibular apparatus is located in your dog’s ears, and it aids your dog in processing and maintaining orientation and balance. It is thought that your dog’s vestibular apparatus can become overstimulated while in a moving object such as a car because there is a mismatch of sensory perceptions – your dog’s eyes see that he is in a vehicle and that nothing in the vehicle itself is moving, yet his vestibular apparatus is detecting motion. This mismatch can make your dog feel ill.

Once your dog has begun to feel motion sick, the only surefire way to immediately treat him is to remove him from the moving vehicle. However, there are many preventative measures you can take to help reduce the likelihood that your dog will get motion sick on his next trip. These preventative measures aim both to ease your dog’s anxiety as well as to gradually “train” his vestibular apparatus to tolerate the sensory perception mismatch.