Tried everything for car stress and nothing works

Densil went on his barking mad holiday a couple of weeks ago. We started him on the max dose of zylkene a week before. I sprayed his blanket with adaptil and gave him rescue remedy drops before and during the journey (we travelled with him in the car to his foster family), and he was still stressed out, panting whining and howling. A couple of times he was jumping up and scratching at the car window (they put the dogs in the back of the car in a cage), although we were sitting on the back seat and talking to him. His foster Daddy came back with him in the car on the coming home journey and they said he wasn't too bad until he got to the town where we live and he recognised where he was, then he started stressing. The next option is to try scullcap and valerian which has been recommended to us.

Have you tried putting him in a crate in the car with a toy and covering him up? What about ttouch? I would focus more on changing his mind set than the herbal remedies, these will only take the edge off, but not change the behaviour.

Hi Rachel, Densil only goes in the car perhaps twice a year when he goes on his hols as we do not have a car. When we fostered him from Wood Green they tried covering his cage with a blanket when they transported him but they said he was still "noisy". We have tried putting a kong in stuffed with goodies but he is not interested. Unfortunately we don't have the luxury of getting him aclimatised to a car.

Ah okay. The stress may be due to the fact that he's going away without you also, and the car represents this as it's the only time he's in there. You could try a stronger sedative if needs be? I use diazepam when there are fireworks as Biscuit attacks doors/self mutilates and all sorts when they're going off, but of course in a similar situation to yours, it only happens a few times per year so there's no way of working with it.