[UghNowWhat]

Seriously. It's not anxiety being in the car. It's anxiety every time we drive by a bunch of trees or any body of water because he thinks it's a park and gets excited. Then when we keep driving past what he perceives as a park, he gets into an anxiety attack panting, barking, going in circles and crying trying to let us know what he wants. I can't drive like this.. I end up blasting music over him because it's either that or I am going to crash into a tree. The only time he is quiet and relaxes is on the highway because we never stop on the highway.

Squirting with a water bottle does not work, he ducks and covering the cage makes it too hot in there so I don't know what else to do. He totally ignores any commands like "quiet". I don't want to start drugging him because his little doggy brain thinks everything is a park. I read through some old posts and Google searches and all I come up with is what to do when dogs are anxious just riding in the car which is not the problem.

Edited to add - He is a 3 year old Shihtzu/Bichon mix and this is a new problem that got worse over the last year.

Uploaded a video on Sendvid to show what he does:

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[Artdog]

You might want to try a thundercap, kind of obscures their vision a bit. If he rides in a crate; have you tried simply covering the crate in a sheet?

 

[UghNowWhat]

Yes, we tried covering it with a sheet but the weather is getting warmer and that makes it way too hot in there even with the AC on and a cold water bed. It also seemed to make him worse.

 

[Turtle11]

I had a similar problem to yours - except my dog would be excited and anxious only when he sensed we were arriving at our destination and I was about to park the car. So, he would start whining and shrieking when I pulled into a parking lot, turned into an alley, trying to parallel park, etc. Ugh.

For your case, I'm not an expert ...but maybe you can throw him something tasty to chew on when you do spot a tree or water...He will be distracted by the treats and will eventually get desensitized to these objects after many repeats.

I use this technique when I am taking my dog for a walk and I know he's about to get excited to meet another dog...so I figure this method would work in your case as well.