Cure for separation anxiety

[wizzler]

Writing on behalf of NDN, who got a young dog earlier this year.
He is a lovely little chap, as long as someone is in the house with him , but if everyone leaves he immediately starts to howl and bark, and will soil.

He has been to see a doggy behaviouralist whose guidance they have followed to the letter. They have ensured that for months he was never left on his own in an effort to reassure him, but still he will become distressed as soon as anyone leave. Have also bought him interesting toys to keep him occupied but nothing seems to work.

Its sad to think he is obviously so distressed

I have every confidence in the wisdom of MN.. has anyone had this problem and cracked it ?

Never leaving him alone isn't going to improve his separation anxiety. He needs to get to a point where he's OK with bring alone for a short while.

Our girl howled and whined the moment we went to the front door, so we filmed a 20min period of her alone to see what she did. From that we figured out the level of anxiety wasn't as horrific as we thought, just noisy. She wasn't destructive, drooling, screaming, or a danger to herself. She just paced and sang the songs of her people.....

We started her training by walking to the door as if we were going to leave, the taking coats and bags off again and sitting back down. We did that several times a night and in no time she was totally desensitised to that.

After that we built up to opening the front door, closing it and coming back in. Then stepping out the door and back in. Then key in the door, locking it then immediately back in. Then locking the door, walking to the end of the path then back in. Then building up 5 mins at a time until we had her up to an hour, and we had it cracked.

We now have her up to 4hours and all good.

When we started to walk away, we used another phone or tablet to video call between that device and my phone, places it in the living room with the dog and watched and listened to what she was doing. If they do that, they need to turn the microphone off on their end so the dog can't hear anything!

It took about 6 weeks beginning to end.

Oh, and don't greet the dog when you come back in - act as though nothing at all has happened and greet them when they've calmed down.

Thanks, will pass that on... sounds not dissimilar to the methods I used to get DS to go to sleep, when he was small !

I was recommended to get an outside pen for ours when we got him years ago...a safe space of his own where he couldn't chew up the house and where he would learn that we would return...he used it for years when we went out....still very needy but can be left alone in house without going bananas....he was a stray and rescue dog..

what I found useful when I had my last dog who being a rescue was a bit pathetic about being left.
I did the leave for a few minutes and then return for a while - gradually increasing the time interval
what I also found worked well was to use a differant door (assuming most people have a front and back door ) for going out if it was 'walkies' and he was coming with me or I was going out and leaving him.
It worked on him and he did not have the 'disappointment ' of being left behind.

My Schnauzer suffered terribly with separation anxiety. I tried everything. Leaving and coming back quickly, not greeting him, plug-in pheromones, thundershirt, stuffed kongs, radio on, TV on, darkened room, etc.
Finally found a cure after 7 years which worked immediately.... we got another dog.