separation anxiety in dogs

frost105

Any hints or tips to deal/help dog with this? Has toys, own kennel in secure quiet place in hours. Maximum amount of time he's left in the day is 4hrs. Isn't destructive but does poo or wee in the house. Owner is changing work pattern so will be home more but will still be left home alone for 4 hrs twice a week. No other behavioural issues, just wants to be with humans all the time

krlyr

I've dealt with it myself, here's my post from another thread which should cover most points

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If he's suffering separation anxiety (and this is something that should ideally be diagnosed by a behaviourist to ensure it's the right diagnosis), remember that it is essentially a phobia of being left alone. It is quite irrational, and therefore difficult to understand at times. If you don't have a spider phobia, you may think it's silly to be scared of such a tiny, harmess thing - but if you do have that phobia, you'll be terrified despite knowing you're thousands of times bigger!

One of mine developed separation anxiety after moving, though hers tied in with her hypothyroidism (she was diagnosed a little while after and improved a lot on medicaiton). What I've noticed is that it doesn't really make much sense. Kiki would become distressed about me going upstairs, even if she could hear I was moving around upstairs. I managed to stop this by ensuring I consistantly gave her something rewarding whenever I left the room (and made sure OH did the same) - and selected this reward to match the length of time I was out of the room. If I was nipping to the bin with the rubbish, I scattered a handful of treats to occupy her for the 15 seconds I was out there. If I was popping up to the loo, it would be a Kong smeared with food to occupy her for a few minutes. If I was going up for a bath, it was a filled, frozen Kong or a tough chew that would last her 20 minutes. The idea is that the dog learns that it is rewarding to be alone, but you return just as, or slightly before they finish the reward to avoid them becoming distressed. By avoiding this distress, they don't rehearse the undesired behaviour (e.g. becoming destructive), and their emotional response to being left home alone begins to change for the better.

You do ideally have to try following this rule for leaving the house too though, which can be difficult. Each time he's left home alone, he'll experience that distress, and rehearse his destructive behaviour. Not just that, but his stress levels will rise, and this stress can linger. So on day one, he may have been OK, day two he got a bit stressed and destroyed the place, on day three he still has some residual stress from the previous day, and gets even more stressed..and so on. Ideally, you want to avoid any further stress and try to avoid leaving him home alone. If you have to go to work, try to arrange someone to come and stay with him, or to take him to someon/somewhere he has company (e.g. family/friend, or a petsitter). You can then work on leaving him for short periods of time, entirely within your control - you want to work up from minutes, perhaps even seconds, rather than expecting him to manage hours straight away.

I have been there, as said, and know this can be quite impractical. I fortunately managed to work from home for a little while to deal with Kiki's behaviour initially, and then between OH's work schedule, and my nan who lives over the road, managed to avoid leaving her alone for the start. This gave her body/mind a break from the stress she was experiencing, and allowed me to work on the foundations of teaching her to be left alone. It really will be harder if you have to keep leaving him each day.

You can also work on things when you're home - as well as rewarding all your little trips upstairs, etc., you can work on teaching a bit more independance. Don't let him follow you from room to room, for example. Make it rewarding for him to settle on his bed - so give him a nice chew or a stuffed Kong with his dinner in his crate, so it reinforces crate = good. Work on training a proper "settle", as opposed to an "on your bed"/"in your crate" - this is where you sit by the bed/crate and reward him for showing relaxed behaviour. I put a chair by Kiki's bed, and started to reward her when she chose to walk towards it. Then the reward was for putting her foot on the bed, two feet, all four feet. Then the reward was for choosing to lay down on the bed. Next, resting her head down on the bed. Shifting her weight onto her side to get ready to lay down. Each step was rewarding with a marker word (e.g. "good" - I avoided using a clicker as this gets her excited, and the aim here is relaxation) and a small treat. If she was only pretending to be relaxed for the treat (I watched for these signs out of the corner of my eye, such as her eyeballing the treat tub), no treat. Once she wasn't focussing on the food, but relaxing on the bed, she got her "good" and her treat. I worked on this a few times a day, and within days noticed she would be much more likely to go and settle on her bed when left (I used my laptop's webcam to record her each day), and she'd settle for longer.

A behaviourist would help a lot, I know it's an overwhelming issue to deal with. I'd also recommend a thorough vet check - like I say, Kiki was soon after diagnosed with hypothyroidism, one symptom is anxiety. Her behaviour ties in a lot with the condition, if her levels drop (thyroid disease is progressive - as her thyroid deteriorates, she'll require a higher dose of medication) then her anxiety worsens. I'd also really recommend Nicole Wilde's book, "Don't leave me" as a fantastic read - it details trianing plans, calmative products (I tried a lot - they can work great for some dogs, not at all for others, and in some cases worsen things - the Adaptil spray made Kiki more anxious) and also veterinary medications (don't rule these out - you're not drugging your dog up to leave it, but medicating to enable you to train more effectively - these must always be used in conjunction with a behaviour modification plan)