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separation anxiety

7 replies

starodyssey2015 · 11/03/2015 12:09

My 7 month old doggy won't be alone. As I'm a stay at home mum as oh brings in the bacon I thought it would be a perfect scenario for a dog. Nearly always here. Lots of love and company. But apparently that's a downfall. Bless him he just won't leave me alone. He's always right next to me. Tripping me up. Leaning on me. He has to be in the same room with me or he wines or barks. Most of the time it's okay but sometimes it's really annoying. Not that I shout or anything at him but would be nice to have some personal space once in a while.

If I leave him downstairs (behind the babygate) to go up he whines and barks and if he has any pee or poo he will do a dirty protest. Sleeps in our room so he doesn't waken the baby when he barks. We won't let him on the bed but when I wake up he's always nustled into me. I feel cruel pushing him away but I can't be cuddling him 24/7.

Any tips?

OP posts:
starodyssey2015 · 11/03/2015 12:10

Also if I put him out for a wee on his tie out. If I'm out of reach by more than 5 inches he barks and barks.

OP posts:
MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 11/03/2015 13:37

I don't have any advice I'm afraid, someone might be along in the evening traffic but God, sounds exhausting. Have you got a crate you could put him in? If he likes it he might be happy to snuggle down for a few minutes.

MostAmused · 11/03/2015 20:09

Have you tried posting on the facebook dog behaviour and advice group? They have qualified behaviourist answering every post.

I'm not hugely experienced but I think you might have to start with tiny steps so leaving the room for a few seconds at a time then coming back and then leaving again basically until he gets bored of you coming and going and does something else. Then you gradually increase the time minute by minute until he can cope with longer periods. When you leave you could give him a stuffed kong so he is occupied.

Our 7 month old pup is a bit like this. Follows me everywhere but we crate trained him so that he gradually got used to being alone in there and then I transferred it to other parts of the house. Still follows me but is more settled when I do have to leave him.

LokiBuddyBoo1 · 11/03/2015 22:45

Mines the same follows me from room to room and loves to have his head resting on me even follows me to the toilet. I can't leave him home alone not even for few minutes as he gets so distressed, so he goes to my sisters or my father's for doggy day care as he's ok if he's with someone he knows or even left alone with my sisters dog he's fine.
Then goes mental when I pick him up its like he's not seen me for weeks.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 11/03/2015 22:53

The Labrador Site is a good website, not just for labs. Grin Loads of info on there. Worth a try.

moosemama · 12/03/2015 11:01

Dogs don't do dirty protests. If he wets or messes when you leave him it will be through fear/anxiety.

He needs to learn how to be on his own and that's going to take some time and quiet a bit of effort on your part.

MostAmused's advice is right, you need to get him used to be left extremely gradually. So you'd start by giving him a kong or long-lasting chew/treat and sitting just a couple of feet away, gradually building up to sitting on the other side of the room, then the other side of the baby gate. If at any point he's too anxious to eat the treat or he obviously can't cope you need to go back a couple of steps, get closer and work up even more slowly.

Teaching him to settle on a specific mat can be really helpful for this, as you will already have taught him to lie down and be calm on that specific mat in your presence, so leaving him is then just an extension of that. It's also is something that can then be a really useful skill for him to have when you take him out and about or on holiday with you. There's a good article and links to videos for this here.

Alternatively, crate training would give your dog a place to feel calm and safe when you're not with him, but again, this would have to be done properly in order to make sure he has nothing but positive associations with the crate. You would need to crate train him to be relaxed in the crate with you right next to him first and then very slowly work up to you sitting a bit further away and eventually leaving the room etc.

Either mat or crate training would help him to learn that he has to stay on the floor in your bedroom too.

Loki if your dog is ok when left with someone else or another dog, it sounds more like isolation distress than separation anxiety.

Two really useful books to read so you can get your head around how separation anxiety occurs and how to treat it are:

Don't Leave Me, Nicole Wilde

Treating Separation Anxiety in Dogs, Malena Demartini-Price

One of my dogs has a tendency towards separation anxiety and was a nightmare as a pup. He'll be two in June, can now be left for an hour and is finally ok with me going upstairs or outside without him (he used to yell the place down if I was just the other side of the door). He's an anxious lad generally and we've had to do a lot of work on building his confidence through fun training etc, as well as working on the separation anxiety itself. He has true SA, as he's not comforted at all by the presence of our older dog, even though he absolutely adores him and still cries for me if left with my dh or someone like my Mum.

My older lad developed isolation distress when our old girl died a couple of years ago. (He's happy as long as he has company, be it another dog or person, even if they're not actually in the same room - just in the house somewhere.) We thought that when we got our pup he would be good company for him, unfortunately, being a rescue the new lad had a bad start in life and his separation anxiety was a hundred times worse that our older boy, so actually made the situation worse. Hmm

One thing I would say is, I am a sahm too and it's really easy to fall into the trap of spending all day every day with your dog, so that they never learn to be content with their own company. I now make sure mine spend some time every day - even if it's just half an hour or an hour - settled on their beds with the door closed while I do something elsewhere in the house. On the occasions where I've been ill, so perhaps lying on the sofa, close to them all day, the younger lad slips back into SA really quickly, so it's something you need to keep up, even when you think they're over it.

MsAdorabelleDearheartVonLipwig · 14/03/2015 17:26

This'll probably be me in a few weeks. We should be picking up a new pup after Easter. I'm fully resigned to being chained to the house for a couple of weeks or so while we establish toilet training etc but it will have to be left on its own for twenty minutes each day when I do the school run. We'll have a crate in a pen in the kitchen to start with, which I'll have to make sure pup is happy in before I leave for school!

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