Training Your Dog to Travel: Car, Crate, Carrier, Muzzle and Being Left

Most of what goes wrong on a holiday with a dog was decided weeks earlier. The dog that howls in the hotel room, is sick in the car, fights the muzzle on the train or panics in the carrier at the airport is not a bad dog. It is a dog meeting something for the first time, on the worst possible day. Every one of those things can be taught at home, calmly, in a few minutes a day. This guide covers the five skills that matter, how to teach each, and which rule of travel each one prepares your dog for. Start a month or more before you go. The method is the same for all of them: small steps, at the dog's pace, with something good at every stage.

The Car

The car is the foundation, because nearly every journey begins with one, and a dog that dreads the car arrives everywhere already upset. Dogs Trust sets out a gradual approach. Begin with the car standing still. Reward your dog for being calm near it, then for getting in, then for sitting in it with the engine off. Put something that smells of home inside. Then start the engine and reward again. Only then drive, and in the charity's words, start with short, slow and gentle journeys.

The charity's warning is worth repeating: if your dog shows signs of being frightened, never force it to travel, because that will only make it more worried. Make sure most trips end somewhere good, too. If the only place the car ever goes is the vet, the dog has drawn the right conclusion, and a few drives to a favourite walk will change its mind. Teach the dog to wait before getting out as well. Ask it to sit while you open the door, and clip the lead on before it moves. On a holiday that habit will matter at every service station.

If your dog is sick in the car, the veterinary group VCA notes that puppies often outgrow motion sickness by about a year old, and that short trips, a cool car and an empty stomach all help. If it persists, see your vet before the holiday. This skill prepares your dog for every road trip, for the drive to the airport or port, and for the ferry crossings where the dog stays in the car. Our guide to driving with your dog covers restraint, breaks and heat on the journey itself.

The Crate

A crate is the single most useful thing a travelling dog can learn to love. It is how large dogs fly, how many dogs ride in the car, what a good number of hotels ask for if a dog is to be left in the room, and what your dog will sleep in on some ferries. The aim is a dog that goes in by choice and sleeps there, not one that tolerates being shut in.

Dogs Trust's crate training guide starts with setting the crate up in a calm, quiet place and letting the dog sniff it and go in when it chooses, with treats as a reward. Drop treats inside. Reward the dog for settling. When it is relaxed, begin to push the door to without fastening it, so that the dog can still leave. Then close it for a few seconds, and build up from there, moving about the room and later leaving it.

There are two rules. Go at the dog's pace and not yours, and never use the crate as a punishment. The charity is firm that the dog should always enjoy being in it. Feed your dog in the crate, put its bed in it, and let it sleep there at night with the door open. By the time you travel it should be its favourite place in the house. This skill prepares your dog for the hold of an aircraft, where the airline requires a rigid crate the dog can stand and turn in, for the boot of the car, for ferry kennels, and for hotels that allow a dog to be left only if it is crated.

The Carrier

For a small dog flying in the cabin or riding on a train, the carrier is the crate in miniature, and it is taught the same way. The difference is that the rules are stricter than people expect. On an aircraft the dog stays in the closed carrier under the seat for the whole flight. On an American train it stays inside the carrier in the station as well. So the skill is not going into the bag. It is staying in it, zipped up, for hours, while interesting things happen outside.

Leave the carrier open at home as a bed, and feed treats in it. Zip it for a minute, then five, then while you watch television. Then pick it up and carry it about. Take it on a bus, or sit with it at a café. A dog that will doze in its carrier through a noisy hour in a public place is ready to fly. Check the size against your airline's limits before you start, so that you train with the carrier you will use, because limits differ and a bag that suits one airline may be too tall for another. Our guide to flying with a dog compares them.

The Muzzle

Many owners are startled to learn that their gentle dog needs a muzzle. On the continent it is routine. French, German, Italian and Austrian railways all require one for a dog outside a carrier, Italian law requires one in public premises, and several ferry companies insist on one whenever the dog is out of its cabin or kennel. It says nothing about your dog. It is simply the rule, as our guides to dogs on trains and ferries explain.

A dog that has never worn a muzzle will paw at it and panic. A dog that has been taught properly will push its nose into it and wag its tail, because it means a treat and an outing. Buy the right kind. Dogs Trust's muzzle training guide says to choose one that your dog can eat, drink and pant through, such as a basket type. Fabric muzzles that hold the mouth shut stop a dog panting, which is how it cools itself, and are not suitable for a journey.

Then teach it in stages. Show the muzzle and reward the dog for looking at it. Hold it so that the dog puts its own nose in to reach a treat. Feed treats through the front while the dog keeps its nose there. Handle the straps, then fasten them for a few seconds, and increase the time in very small steps. Finally, put it on for short walks. Come back to the training every so often to keep the association a happy one, because a muzzle that only ever appears at stressful moments soon becomes a bad sign.

Being Left

This is the skill that decides whether you can have dinner. If your dog cannot be left calmly in a strange room, you will spend the holiday taking turns. Start at home, because a dog that cannot be left at home cannot be left anywhere. The RSPCA's method for teaching a dog to be left alone builds up in stages. Reward the dog for staying on its bed while you are in the room, then while you step away and come back, then at greater distance and for longer. Then leave the room and close the door, varying how long you are gone. Once a dog is comfortable alone for about an hour, longer absences usually follow without trouble, though the charity's upper limit for leaving any dog is four hours.

Then practise somewhere that is not home. Leave the dog for a short while at a friend's house. Take it for a night to a hotel near home and step out for ten minutes, then half an hour, listening from the corridor. Leave its own bed, a chew, and a radio on quietly to cover the sounds from outside. About half of the hotels we assess allow a dog to be left in the room, and almost all of them expect it to be quiet, as our guide to what hotel policies really say explains.

Not every dog gets there. If yours becomes distressed when left, with howling, destruction or soiling, that is separation anxiety, and it needs help from your vet or a qualified behaviourist. It is not naughtiness and it will not be cured by leaving the dog to get on with it. Until it is resolved, choose holidays where the dog is never left, which is perfectly possible with a little planning.

Manners in Public

The last skill is the simplest and the most valuable, which is lying down quietly while you sit. Teach your dog to settle on a mat at home, rewarding it for lying down and staying there while you read or eat. Then take the mat to a café, a pub and a friend's house. A dog that understands that the mat means lie down and doze is welcome almost anywhere, and a mat rolls up in a bag. Our guide to eating out with your dog explains where in the world a settled dog can join you at the table.

A Practice Trip

Before a long holiday, do a short one. A single night in a hotel an hour from home tests everything at once: the car, the strange room, the corridor noises, being left for dinner, the early morning walk in an unfamiliar place. You will find out what your dog finds hard while there is still time to work on it, and the dog will learn that a strange room with its own bed in it is nothing to worry about. Our guide to your dog's first hotel stay describes what to expect from check in to check out.

A Closing Thought

None of this takes long. Five minutes a day for a month will teach most dogs most of it. What it takes is starting early, because a frightened dog cannot learn and a dog on its way to the airport has run out of time. The owners whose dogs travel beautifully are not lucky. They did the boring part at home, and their dogs walk into each new thing recognising it.