Kino was never fun to take in the car because he barked his head off if we drove past a dog or a cat. His barking was so ferocious, I had trouble being a safe driver which was unnerving to me.
I knew one of the underlying causes was that he was not socialized with dogs or cats in the first year of his life. He also had a very intense prey drive that probably escalated with the long hours he used to spend by himself outside every day before he came to live with me. Resolving (or at least improving) the behavior required several different approaches, as there were various pieces to the puzzle.
We started using basic positive reinforcement techniques to adjust the behavior. Keeping a bag of treats in the car, if I saw the dog or cat first, I offered him a treat and could usually keep him distracted long enough to get past the "offending animal." :-) We used this approach with mild success. Kino is very smart (and a bit suspicious) so it wasn't long before the very act of offering him a treat made him start looking around for what I was attempting to distract him from. Next I attempted to reward the good behavior before he had a chance to be bad, so if he noticed a dog but hadn't yet started barking, I offered him a treat while praising him for being so good! "Thank you for not barking Kino, you're such a good boy" was something I said all the time, all the while hoping he didn't break down and go ballistic anyways.
While we had some success with the training/treat approach, he was still having outbursts in the car so I needed to look a little deeper.
One of the other things I have learned about Kino is that he is a dog who wants what he wants when he wants it. When he is delayed in getting what he wants, he tends to have some sort of an outburst or tantrum. Sometimes I find it amusing but usually not. I had been using consequences as a way to help him see that his behavior directly impacts his ability to get what he wants. Ultimately my goal was to help him to feel empowered, while also helping him learn some self control.
I decided it was time to implement a consequence for car rides. I explained to him that if he could refrain from barking at dogs while we are in the car, he could continue to enjoy having his head out the window but if he lost control and started barking, he would lose his "head out the window privileges." Given that sticking his head out the window is on his Top 3 list of favorite things to do, this particular consequence was a good motivation for more improvement.
With those two methods in place, we had experienced about a 70% improvement in Kino's car behavior and having him in the car was much more enjoyable than it had been in the past but there was still 30% of the time where I wished I had left him at home. I sensed there was more for us to figure out.
One day, after a particularly unsettling barking episode, I sternly told Kino that I was not going to take him in the car anymore if he was going to bark unnecessarily at everyone. Ok, honestly it was more than stern. I yelled at the top of my lungs. I was so maxed out by his barking. And one second later, I looked at myself in my rear-view mirror and I began to laugh. For as much as I didn't want to admit it, the truth was that he was mirroring me. He wasn't the only one who occasionally barked unnecessarily in the car. I myself was no angel and was known to swear at other drivers who darted into my lane and made me slam on my brakes and it wasn't uncommon for me to complain loudly to myself when other drivers were clueless on how a 4 way stop works.
Animals often mirror our behavior as a way to show us what adjustments we need to make. I know this and yet, I was unable (or unwilling) to see that Kino wasn't the only one barking in the car. I thanked him for being patient with me and told him that I would try to do better. In the subsequent weeks, I made a huge effort to be more mellow in the car. I sent positive energy to people who were driving unsafely, reminded myself that chaotic activity at a 4-way stop didn't need to ruin my day and guess what? Kino got even better in the car. That was the last piece of the puzzle and it seems his behavior wasn't going to improve until my behavior improved. I am very grateful that I finally saw and accepted what he was trying to show me.
Neither of us are perfect, so there are still days where one or both of us slips up but on the whole, we are both doing better and being in the car is much more relaxing and fun for both of us.
Do I wish I could have just said to him "Kino, I don't want you barking when we are in the car" and have that resolve everything? Of course! Wouldn't that be fabulous if it was that easy?! But the truth is that it is usually more complicated than just simple communication. There are always reasons our animals do what they do. The key is to understand those reasons and keep working at it from those various angles.
