Housebound due to dog's separation/isolation anxiety

gettingready

We are having problems getting past the 10 minutes that clearly is Zara's tolerance of being alone limit.

I have almost finished the book on separation anxiety and the more I read the less convinced I am that this is an issue with Zara.

She is very happy to be in another part of the flat, way away from me. Right now she is in the garden while I am in the living room. She can not see or hear me from there.

At night I am in my bedroom at the back and she normally sleeps either by the front door or on the sofa in the living room - so again other side of the flat where she can not see/hear me.

She does not follow me around the flat.

She is fine as long as I am somewhere in the flat - she has no need to see me all the time.

All the separation anxiety cases are described as clingy dogs following owners all the time and not being able to stay in another part of the flat/house or behind closed doors - this is not the case with Zara.

Bit confused now to be honest

annandale

If your dog gets distressed when you leave the house then that is separation anxiety. She knows you haven't left home when she's in another part of the flat.

Person_one

gettingready wrote: »

We are having problems getting past the 10 minutes that clearly is Zara's tolerance of being alone limit.

It might be now, but don't just give up and decide that it always will be!

Do you have a stopwatch? Are you timing to the second?

Fosterdog

The foster that I mentioned was also fine when I was in the house even in another room, ok sometimes she'd follow me to the bathroom or kitchen but that was usually if I had just been playing with her and she still wanted attention.

krlyr

You have a dog that gets stressed when left home alone. You don't need to call it separation anxiety, you don't even need to call it anything - you just need to change her emotional response to being home alone. Which is exactly what the protocols in the separation anxiety books will do.

Recognising that 10 minutes is her limit now is good - but you will be able to extend that. It might only be 11 minutes, in a couple of weeks, but that's 1 more than it was before. And you'll find progress slow at first, but it will snowball - once you reach 15, 20, 30 minutes, you'll probably be able to jump by 5/10/15 minute increases instead of just a minute or two - even half an hour, perhaps.

It's not easy, but you have a lifetime of distress you're trying to tackle, it's not going to be fixed after a couple of days of reading a book. It will take time to implement and to see change - but persistance will pay off.

bouicca21

That she doesn't follow you round means she's got beyond the first stage of clinginess and feels safe in the house as long as she knows you are around. The next stage is teaching her that she is safe even without you. You know it's ok for 10 minutes; try 10.5 and then 11 and so on ... Small steps will get you big gains.

krlyr

Some trainers do distinguish between separation anxiety and isolation distress though - the latter is when the dog struggles to be even in a different room to you in the house
http://thek9coach.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/separationanxiety.html

Fosterdog

It really can be a slow process but at least right now you have the luxury of time to be able to work on it. I know it seems bad but just in the last few days you managed to get her to stay alone for 12 minutes the one time. That's a 20% increase in the time she could previously be left. Is she now back down to 10 minutes or is she still up to the 12? It really is tiny baby steps at this stage.

How is she in a different part of the flat with doors closed? Not just overnight but through the day too?

gettingready

We seem to be stuck on the 10 minutes no matter what, I am not sure I can move past it with Zara to be honest.

Not updating here as nothing to update

krlyr

It's only been a few days - you won't fix years' worth of habit/behaviour in such a short period of time.

What exactly is it you've been doing so far? How often are you doing training sessions to teach her to cope with being left?