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Dog's not happy - I'm confused.

pitboss000

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I a nutshell, my Parson Russel is afraid of my truck. She always loved riding in my 2016 Laramie. Went everywhere, and owned the backseat. Not true of the 2019. Slowly over the last year since purchasing the truck she has become less and less interested in going anywhere with me. Started off no problem initially but noticed she was far less active. A little window hopping but then just lay down an be still when the truck was moving. Then over time she stopped moving all together. About 2 months ago she began burying her head under either front seat or get as far as she could press herself into corners under the rear seat - and start whining. Now I have to force her into the truck just to go to the vet or groomer.

I had been following the ANC delete threads and thought this may be the culprit. Installed one 6 weeks ago but it has made no difference. Any other dog owners have this issue? Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 

Dr. Jim

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First off, how old is your dog? Second, did you have a Magnaflow exhaust on your 2016 Laramie?
 

pitboss000

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The behavior you describe, makes me think she's picking up a noise frequency, that's painful to her. Download a noise frequency app, and see if your truck is emitting a frequency that you're not hearing.
I agree, and this is a great idea - thanks! I'll give it a shot today and report back.
 

pitboss000

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Disable the Noise Cancellation and see if the pup is better with that.
You probably missed it in my original post. I installed the ANC delete harness 6 weeks ago. Is there another proceedure I'm not aware of?
 

pitboss000

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I agree, and this is a great idea - thanks! I'll give it a shot today and report back.
Here's a screenshot from the frequency app. Before and after starting. I'm not an audiophile so a little help deciphering it would ne nice.
Screenshot_20200216-095102_Spectroid.jpg
 

silver billet

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That graph doesn't "go out" far enough. Humans can hear up to 20khz, dogs much further. Basically you're looking for a flat-ish line, the bump at the left means you're getting some bass-y sounds (makes sense, that's the exhaust and road noise). If you go out past 20,000 hz and see a spike upwards, that would be the range where we as humans can't hear it but dogs can.
 

jkm312

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I would talk with your vet at this point. Something associated with the truck is unpleasant, or triggers a fearful memory for the dog. Have you left her in the truck while you go into a store. Loud noise or being teased while you were gone? Some dogs get separation anxieties. Dogs are pack animals and do not like to get left behind. She didn't get a quick tumble because you were forced to hit the brakes hard? Just sit in the truck with her for a few minutes without starting it a few times, then try some short slow easy rides to familiar places and stay with her. She has to learn to trust again whatever she doesn't trust right now.
Clearly you are trying to solve the problem for her or you would not be asking questions. I've got a pair of Boxers and believe me those two geniuses keep me guessing once in awhile too.
 

pitboss000

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I would talk with your vet at this point. Something associated with the truck is unpleasant, or triggers a fearful memory for the dog. Have you left her in the truck while you go into a store. Loud noise or being teased while you were gone? Some dogs get separation anxieties. Dogs are pack animals and do not like to get left behind. She didn't get a quick tumble because you were forced to hit the brakes hard? Just sit in the truck with her for a few minutes without starting it a few times, then try some short slow easy rides to familiar places and stay with her. She has to learn to trust again whatever she doesn't trust right now.
Clearly you are trying to solve the problem for her or you would not be asking questions. I've got a pair of Boxers and believe me those two geniuses keep me guessing once in awhile too.
No quick tumbles, and she seems fine when the truck is off. We do leave her alone at times for quick trips into a store, but she doesn't protest. But in my 16 she would always find her way to the front seat. This truck has a console with the cup holders on the back, so she's never made the jump up front.

I have mentioned it to the vet. I get the standard "give her meds" an hour before a trip so she calms down. Great idea for vacation but silly for short trips to the park. Today we go to the park and I'll let her ride up front to see her reaction.
 

Jack Whitefield

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Another thought:

How does she feel about vet trips? It's possible that something in your new truck makes her think y'all are going to the vet. My dog loves going for rides in the truck. However, once we get about 1.5 miles from the vet, she picks up a distinct smell. She starts sniffing the air vents, and then goes into full "panic mode". She can't smell the vet from 1.5 miles away, but there is a smell (fast food maybe) that triggers her, and she knows we're 1.5 miles out from the torture chamber.

Maybe your new car smell reminds her of the vet. Try putting her in the front seat and cracking her window, so she can get her sniffer outside. Also, dogs love putting their heads out the window, because they get a high, similar to drugs. All the smells crammed into their heads at 45 mph is like drugs to them.
 

Jtr

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I don't know the breed of dog (some breeds are more hypersensitive to sounds), but maybe we are overthinking it regarding sound frequency issues. A lot of us have dogs and if it were a problem I would think that more would experience the same problem (where they were happy before in a previous vehicle before the 5th gen). Maybe it is just an issue with comfort? I have a pug and a beagle and I have created a comfy den for both of them in a carrier cage that fits perfectly on the back floor when the seats are inverted up. They are smaller in size so both fit fine in the cage and they seem to be very content. In my old vehicle I didn't have them in a cage so it took a couple weeks for them to warm up to the fact they couldnt jump all over the vehicle but they eventually became accustomed to the setup.
 

jdmartin

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Another thought:

How does she feel about vet trips? It's possible that something in your new truck makes her think y'all are going to the vet. My dog loves going for rides in the truck. However, once we get about 1.5 miles from the vet, she picks up a distinct smell. She starts sniffing the air vents, and then goes into full "panic mode". She can't smell the vet from 1.5 miles away, but there is a smell (fast food maybe) that triggers her, and she knows we're 1.5 miles out from the torture chamber.

Maybe your new car smell reminds her of the vet. Try putting her in the front seat and cracking her window, so she can get her sniffer outside. Also, dogs love putting their heads out the window, because they get a high, similar to drugs. All the smells crammed into their heads at 45 mph is like drugs to them.
This is what I was going to suggest as well. I always kept my dogs guessing because if there were too many trips to the vet in the truck in a row - i.e., the only reason they got in the truck was to go to the vet - they started getting funny. So if I knew we were going to the vet on Friday, maybe on Wednesday or Thursday I'd take them to their favorite park, which they would realize they were going when we started getting close. That made trips to the vet (or other no-fun stuff) less taxing on them.

Sometimes you just can't figure it out and have to work around it. In one of the parks there was a picnic bench area with 4 or 5 tables. Whenever we would get remotely close to this spot one of my dogs would walk way wide around it and if you tried going anywhere near the tables she would drag paws and just be in a fit. It had nothing to do with tables, because she didn't act this way anywhere else. So either there was something there that I couldn't see/hear/smell, or there was something there that reminded her of something unpleasant somewhere else that I couldn't see/hear/smell.
 

pitboss000

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She loves the vet, groomer (and they love her because she's so calm for a PRT) and anywhere else we go - when she gets there lol. It's the ride that's troubling. Loud noises DO bother her, like motorcycles and other loud trucks, and cars with kazoo mufflers - but she used to bark at them like crazy. Gun shots on the other hand (house back's up to a hunting area) and thunder are the only things that scare her like this.

The only differences from my 16 to this truck are leather seats and the console. I can't help but come back to sound. She's trying to get away from something, scooting from corner to corner in the back and whining. Or it could be something she feels. Perhaps the location of the muffler in relation to where it was on the 16 is causing some vibration only she feels. I would think she'd want to be up on the seat then.
 

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how's the door alignment in the back? if it's not spot on and sealing 100% then a nasty whistle at speed is possible. if you can, have someone sit in the back and pull on the door while driving to try and keep it "extra" closed and see if it helps the dog.

check the cab to bed noise suppression strip. if you look down from above and see road between the cab and bed of the truck, you are missing a strip of rubber that cuts down on whistling in the cab.

the cab rear air vent to outside is center below the window and if that strip isn't there, road noise from below and air currents can cause whistling and increased presence of exhaust/engine noise in the back.
 

silver billet

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You can try disable the "frame shakers" too, the little pucks they attached to the frame to try and cancel out shaking.
 

jkm312

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No quick tumbles, and she seems fine when the truck is off. We do leave her alone at times for quick trips into a store, but she doesn't protest. But in my 16 she would always find her way to the front seat. This truck has a console with the cup holders on the back, so she's never made the jump up front.

I have mentioned it to the vet. I get the standard "give her meds" an hour before a trip so she calms down. Great idea for vacation but silly for short trips to the park. Today we go to the park and I'll let her ride up front to see her reaction.
Is it just this truck she is having troubles in? How does she do in a different car or truck?
 

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