u/RomoJBChamp

Hi! I am looking for a good daily CBD product for my anxious pup.

Romeo / 2.5 yo / Pyreneese-pittie-mutt / 53 lbs

Mr Romeo has been to a trainer/continues daily training at home and is obedience/off leash trained. He listens very well for the most part, however engagement is a big work in progress for us when distractions are present. (Let me clarify, I only take him off leash responsibly in areas he is comfortable in, and not around random people. He does not blow my recalls off. His lack of engagement is more so a lack of eagerness and excitement.) I am simply looking for a product to help put him at ease and make environments out side of the house less distracting/stress inducing for him.

He also struggles with car anxiety, I am working on desensitizing him however it is a confusing situation because it is a contextual issue. Given the context tho I feel like a CBD product might help him out.

Anyone who has personally tried products and experienced results both good and bad please let me know!! Again, I am not looking for anything that has any sedative effects, simply a mild, daily relaxer that allows him to function as normal, without him feeling like he has to constantly be so alert. Price isn’t a HUGE concern for me because I really want to help him out, however I cant be out here splurging 100 bucks a month on a product haha.

Seeking advice on contextual dog car restlessness/anxiety.

Romeo / 2.5 yo / Great Pyrenees-pittie-mutt / 53 lbs. / obedience trained / anxious & reactive

What: Romeo gets severely restless on car rides longer than ~15 minutes. He experiences heavy panting, excessive drooling, restlessness/pacing, full-body trembles, and incontinence (poop only).

Context: Romeo experiences these symptoms on the way TO places, but frequently doesn’t display them on the way FROM places, back home. For example, today I took him to check out a new park-- 35 min car ride; I expected the anxiety but not at the severity it was today. For starters, I had to lift him into the car because he refused to willingly get in (more context on this later), from there, as the drive progressed, his anxiety kept building until he eventually pooped all over the back seat (he did have the opportunity to go potty before the ride). Once at the destination, he pretty easily recovered and was able to enjoy the walk anxiety-free. We walked for about 50 minutes, 2.3 miles. In contrast, on the way home, he was extremely calm. No panting, drooling, or trembling. He calmly stuck his head out the window and even lied down for the majority of the ride, which is a fairly new car behavior for him. While I cannot exactly pinpoint when these behaviors started, I want to say they have been happening for around 1.5 years.

Hypothesis: My current hypothesis is that he may be anticipating that I am going to take him to work with me. My workplace is also Romeo's training facility, where he did a 5-week board and train program (Oct/Nov 2025). About 2 months after the program, he continued to come to work with me once a week for 6 hours while I worked so we could maintain his socialization/reactivity progress. He would go on a “down stay” in the training club. This made him anxious despite the fact that he could see me passing by throughout the day, but he would eventually settle. This continued for around 8 weeks until I had to stop bringing him due to a location change/farther drive. Understand that he is NOT afraid of his trainers or the building; he is anxious by nature and fears being left in unfarmiliar/uncomfortable places without me. One factor throws this current theory off, though: he displayed these behaviors before training, so I don’t believe it is the sole cause. I am unsure what negative association he could have had with long drives prior to training. While anxiety is my initial assumption because of the context dependence/his personality, I am aware motion sickness could be a possibility and plan to discuss it with his vet at the next visit.

Additional details:
- We go on daily walks at a park less than 10 minutes down the road. He does fine on these rides, so he definitely has daily positive associations with the car.
- Sometimes he will refuse to willingly jump into the car. This happens in the mornings, and I suspect it is because he thinks we are going to work. We only recently started morning walks, so before that, his only association with the car early morning was work.
- Romeo is not kenneled in the car and rides in the back seat. I have attempted crate training him separately but he has significant kennel anxiety. I also have a sedan, so not the best car for a kennel setup. I put the windows down for him, and he sticks his head out (we have tried car rides with no windows as well but no improvements)
- Trazodone does eliminate his anxiety; however, it is not my ideal medication. Most of our long car journeys are to get to cool new walking spots, so having him sedated defeats the purpose of even going.
- For some reason, he seems to not be as anxious in my mom’s car; however, he doesn’t go in it often, so this very well may just be coincidence.
- He shows less anxiety when his two doggy siblings come in the car with him and happily jumps into the car with them any time of day.
- Say I were to just hop in the car and sit, he doesn’t get anxious about this. He may get antsy/whine out of boredom but he doesn’t display his anxious tell-tales
- I have not explicitly attempted systematic car desensitization yet, as I am unsure how to go about it given the odd circumstances.
- I think it is also worth noting Romeo is not a super treat / toy / praise motivated dog. When he gets very anxious, he sees little value in anything but his surroundings, including me. He will not take any reinforcement once over the threshold. Engagement is another huge work in progress for us.

Any advice on how to reinforce positive association with car rides is much appreciated! If any additional context/information is needed, I will happily provide it. We keep our long car rides to a minimum but I don’t want his world/experiences to be limited because he cannot handle the car. It breaks my heart seeing him so anxious, and I would love to help him work past this.

I’ve tried to find this game so many times and it’s driving me crazy!! Me and my brother played it when we were little on our Apple iPads first and second gen (I think) and cannot find anything similar. If I saw a photo I would be able to call it out but I have absolutely no clue about the name. Pls help my find it and ask me questions I really want to find it!!! My assumption is that it was a random Unity game that got deleted from the App Store years ago. Here’s also a really terrible drawing from my memory but maybe it will spark something…

I was picking chatGPTs brain about it and this is the description it made up of the game from what we talked about: “Looking for an iPad game from around 2011-
2013. It was a single-player 3D driving game with a camera behind the car. You drove a small blue low-poly car using on-screen arrow buttons (forward, back, left, right). There were no other cars—just obstacle-course style levels. The roads floated in the sky, and if you fell off you restarted. The game had different themed worlds. I specifically remember one level with little yellow geometric chicks hopping across the road, another with giant rib bones forming a tunnel, and another rainbow-themed world. The graphics were simple and low-poly/geometric. It was definitely on iPad.”

We tried firing up the iPads bc we still have them but they aren’t wanting to power up and we think the Apple ID they were signed into is long gone.