Want Some Cheese With That Whine?

Gimme has developed a troublesome whining behavior.  The only thing I hate worse than whining dogs is whining kids.  We've been sorting through approaches to this to find some things that will work to modify (read that eliminate) that behavior.

She was great in the car, until about six months ago.  I am certain she doesn't experience car sickness or anything like that.  She seems to genuinely enjoy car rides.  I think this is "anticipation whining".  I'm guessing its related to her over-the-top response to frustration.

I got her in the winter and would take her to work with me, so she rode in the car a lot.  She stayed crated in the car, between my visits during breaks.  She never fussed in the car, never, not ever.  Then as it warmed up and she had to stay home... I noticed she started whining as we got close to where we go on the fort for our long off lead walks (three days a week).  The whining started earlier and earlier during those drives.  Then this summer during the four nights a week classes, by the end of the first week she was whining on the drive to classes.  It has gotten to where she starts whining as we leave the driveway and its now pretty much non-stop on the way to anything.  It used to be that she never whined on the way home from activities, but now she's starting the whining as she realizes we are getting close to home! 

As with most behavior problems... it starts out as no big deal, but over time the problem escalates until its unmanageable or intolerable.  I have a very low threshold for whining - rather noise sensitive.  In any case, since the behavior had no consequence to it, it was free to develop.  Essentially it was on a schedule of apparent reinforcement because of the lack of consequence. 

None of my own ideas to eliminate or even reduce the whining were working more than a day or two, so I sought counsel from friends and I am trying a multi-prong approach. 

• She gets DAP on a bandana around her neck as soon as she gets in the car.  Hopefully this will help her create a new calm association with car rides.
• She's never allowed to get out of any confinement until she is both sitting and quiet.  She gets nothing she wants if a whining type utterance is coming from her.  She must be whine-free for five seconds to get what she wants.
• Stopping the car any time she whines and only move forward again when she is quiet.  Again, she gets nothing that gets her even closer to what she wants if she is whining and again the five second rule applies.
• Taking her along to run errands where she never gets out of the car, to try to break her association that all rides are for activities.  As soon as the weather cools, I'll go back to taking her along to work several days a week.
• Sometimes peanut butter bones as pacifiers/distractors for acute situations, with care taken for timing it so she gets them before the bad behavior.

The first time I tried the DAP  it worked very well (that was Thursday).  Then yesterday (Friday) it had no affect at all.  Today it worked beautifully again.  So the challenge is to determine why it works sometimes and not others.  Based on what the days were like when it worked - I wasn't working, so we left home early in the day.  Probably she had no frustration built up, plus had just eaten breakfast both those days.  On the day when it didn't work, she'd been crated all day and, while she had been out for 90 minutes before we left, she may already have had a fair amount of frustration built up.

I'll be testing both those theories.  First of all, we'll continue using the DAP and see if the same pattern holds up.  If it seems to, then at some point I'll give her a lighter breakfast that day and then a light dinner before we take off.  That should show if having a meal is a real factor or if it just seems that way.  Another thing I can try is to have a couple short/fun training sessions and a play session with her before going anywhere, which should bleed off some frustration and if that changes the pattern, I'll know I'm on the right track.

Tonight and tomorrow night, as well as on Thursdays, I'll be making sure we have a short trip in the evening that doesn't go anywhere.  There is a small park near my house and I can go there and drive around it making all right turns.  If she whines, it'll be easy to pull over until she stops.  Then I'll come home without letting her out, to break up the pattern of every ride leading to an activity for Gimme.

I also plan to make it a point to get to places earlier, so she has to wait in the car for a minimum of five minutes before she gets out.  Today when we went to the fort for our walk, when we got there, I took a 30 minute nap before we got out to walk.  And when we got to my friends' house later in the afternoon, Gimme didn't get out for an hour.  The idea is to break the association in her mind with arriving equaling activity for Gimme.

Its been frustrating, to say the least.  Its a definite challenge to my patience to not let her push me.  Wish I could find those old noise cancelling headphones for the times I am waiting her out.  There have been some pretty impressive extinction bursts.  Her tantrum last night when we got to Capitol Lake park and she didn't get out right away, well, its the stuff that legends are made of.  Still we are making some progress, though right now I'm sure she thinks I'm broken.