Why Is My Dachshund Anxious on the Highway but Fine in the Car Around Town?

When people say their dog hates the car, I always want to ask one question: What part of the car ride? My Dachshund, Otter, doesn’t hate the car. He happily jumps into my SUV, enjoys neighborhood drives, and is usually comfortable while we travel through town at lower speeds. Then we merge onto the highway. Once we reach freeway speeds, he starts panting, shifting positions, looking around, and struggling to settle. He doesn’t usually whine or howl, but his restlessness makes it clear that something is bothering him. For a while, I thought of this as general car anxiety. The more closely I watched him, though, the more obvious it became that the car itself wasn’t the problem. Something about highway travel was. That distinction changed how I approached the issue. Instead of asking, “How do I help my dog stop being anxious in the car?” I started asking, “What changes when we reach highway speeds?” There is very little scientific research specifically about dogs who are comfortable during slower drives but become anxious on the highway. This article is not a definitive explanation. It is a case study based on my observations, reasonable hypotheses, and the experiments I have tried wi...