Advice with seoaration anxiety. LONG POST, SORRY!

[RoystonVaseySmegHead]

sorry if this doesnt make sense and its long, its a half ranty explanation because im slightly frustrated and trying to explain everything We got two 8 month old rescue dogs last friday. Theyre wonderful aside from the odd accident and sometimes extreme nervousness from 1 of them (completely manageable its just new situations and men he's petrified of) these are things we'll work on and I've already seen improvements with them going to the toilet in the house and the nervous one has got a bit better like he doesnt cower away from me anymore and he comes up for a cuddle which i didnt expect him to do so soon, on the first day he was so scared he wouldnt come near us and wet himself when he first arrived which was awful but the thing thats bugging me is when theyre left alone. For example through the day theyre hit and miss, like on saturday i left them downstairs while i had a shower and they cried but werent too bad and the odd times theyve been downstairs alone while i go to the toilet or something they whine a little bit and thats it. But then today and yesterday theyve been trying to get over the stair gate at the top of the stairs (we have cats so cant move it) and theyve been really whiny theyll cry for a few minutes then go downstairs but then they come back and start again. Then when i leave the house they go crazy, i put the bins out yesterday after our walk and shut them in the crate together to cool off (its huge!) but i could hear them crying from the top of the garden and i was only gone for 5 minutes max. Then today i brought the bins in after our walk and left them out of the cage to see if that made a difference as i thought it might have been the shut away part that made them cry, but they still cried and one of them jumped on the kitchen side which hes done a few times. But overnight they seem the worst. I put them to bed the first night at 10pm and they got me up at 6am ish with scratching on the door and barking so i got up and started the day which was fine and i expected early mornings. Through the day saurday they were fine and on saturday night they were ok but woke me up at 6 30 with barking and scratching the door which again is fine i just wish they wouldnt chew the door and doorframes! then on sunday night my partner shut them in the kitchen at 8.30pm, i got home at midnight and they had 2 and a quarter hours with me either outside or in the house. I put them to bed at about 2.15/2.30 by shutting them in the kitchen with the cage open so they had the run of the kitchen which is wbat id done in fridayband saturday but at 5.30am i was woken up by one of them jumping on the kitchen side and smashing all my washing up from the night before but for about half an hour before that theyd barked a few times i just figured theyd go back to sleep since theyd had a late night. Obviously its my fault that things got broken i just didnt expect it to happen since they hadnt bothered going on the sides before. Anyway on monday night they went to bed at midnight ish and on tuesday morning they didnt bother us at all so i woke up at around 8.30. But when i went downstairs theyd took my sons backpack off the hook torn it open and ripped his teddies and blanket to shreds 💔 (sorry this has been so long im almost done!!) So the night before last night i shut them in the crate at midnight ish and went to bed but they cried until 2.30/3.00 so my partner let them out. They then went back onto the kitchen side and shredded the teatowels that were on a high shelf. By this point id had enough and i was in a foul mood all day yesterday because im pretty sure its only 1 dog that does it because i only ever seem to catch him on the sides if i hear anything. So last night i put their cage in my bedroom, and shut them inside and they slept soundly all night from midnight until 9.45 and then they only moved because i got out of bed! They didnt cry or try to get anything or tear their beds up they just slept all night!! So now im thinking its some sort of separation anxiety and im stuck on how to fix it 😣 obviously when ive been to the toilet or overnight and theyve been good i praise them and when they havent i dont shout at them i just dont talk to them as excited as i usually do if that makes sense? But im not sure what else i can do, ill be building up the time that theyre left on their own over the next few weeks.
The one who seems to have the most issues is my foster dog, like he cries so much more than my other dog and he has at last 2 wees indoors every day whereas my other dog has had 2 wees through the whole week and 1 poo which was loose so i dont think he could hold it. I let them out roughly every 2 hours so they should be able to hold it! I just really dont want him to go and have all these problems at his new house and i feel like i need to fix them before he finds a home in case they cant manage it 😣 I also go back to uni in september and while they'll have someone here with them apart from 3 hours max 2 days a week i dont want them to be upset during that time, and ill need sleep at night too. If they were both my dogs id keep them in my room every night which is where the one i keep will sleep. But i dont want to do lots of work with them being on their owns through the day then sleep with me at night if the foster dogs new home is going to have him sleep in a different room, what if it undoes all the work ill have done? Or should i just let them sleep in my room because that way they sleep and i sleep and i can shut them in the cage and not worry about them hurting themselves or being upset. I know its early days and theres plenty of time to work on things plus i expected them to have lots more problems from their background and their age, i just dont want my foster pups next owners to have these problems or at least not as badly as i have them.
If anyone has read to the end then thank you and if youve got any advice id love to hear it!

Are you keeping one of the dogs and the other will be rehomed? Are you looking after them from a rescue center as you talk about fostering if so does that center has a behaviourist that it works with?

Dogs at 8 months are at a very difficult age. Having 2 at that age is hard. Do you know the background and is there a particular reason why they are together?

Normally I would say go back to basics as if they were a small puppy and treat them with leaving etc as you would if they were 8 weeks old gradually getting them used to everything. However, your setup is confusing so would help to understand whether you are working with a rescue center and the background of the dogs and support you have.

If one of the dogs is going I would be inclined to split them now then get a registered behaviouralist to help you settle in the first one properly.

It sounds like you are a bit out of your depth OP and having both won’t be helping.

Theyre from a rescue, romanian dogs but theyd been in foster over there. Im only fostering one because he got let down at the last minute and was booked for travel so hell be going up for adoption soon. Yesterday was good and they slept in my room again in their crate and this morning theyve been good. Theyre good to walk apart from pulling which ill obviously work on but we took them for their first proper walk on thursday so havent had much chance yet. Apart from being on their own theyre really good dogs, the odd accident through the day but i didnt expect them to come and be housetrained etc. I think ive been treating them more like puppies than older dogs, like lots of praise when they do something good like weeing outside or having their harness and leads on, they dont seem to be bothered about treats though so its more vocal. I've tried a clicker but they dont like the noise of it even turned down to the lowest loudness. Theyre getting better at coming when they're called like theyll come in from the garden now which is good. I just wasnt sure on the best way to help them and i domt want to make the problem worse. But ill go back to basics like bitey said and see what that does to help. Through the night theyve not been bothered when ive got up and gone to the toilet or to check on ds which they did the night before and while theyve been in my room theyve not cried or whined or barked which I think is good? The rescue said i can let them sleep in my bedroom if thats where theyre happier but not to let them sleep on the bed which i wasnt going to do anyway. Today im going to try shutting them in the house for a minute while i stand outside and then go back in and do that a few times over the day. If they dont get upset ill give it a little bit longer and hopefully over the next few days/weeks i can get it to where theyre happy being on their own. im not worried about the dog im keeping as much because obviously well have time to work on things slowly and i think his nervousness for example will take a long time to get better but like i said we've got lots of time to fix it. I thonk that if i can get the foster dog tonstop having accidents in the house and get it so that i can leave them for half an hour ill be really happy and inthink thats a realistic goal to work to?

Are you a regular fosterer, or are you just doing this as a favour? If it's just a favour, I think you have been done up like a kipper, sorry. One rescued street dog would be a handful, two sounds like hell on earth. I think you need to contact this man ASAP and get him to take the dog elsewhere, then you can concentrate on your dog. There is a reason why it is not recommended to have two puppies at the same time, because they 'feed' off each other and don't pay attention to their owner, and having one pup is hard enough, let alone trying to train two. Get the foster dog removed, and you will have a much easier time concentrating on your own dog, and dealing with the separation anxiety, which of course may not be such a problem when you can have one to one training in a less fraught atmosphere.
I hope he reimburses you for the damage caused.

lucisky im not giving up on him just because of a few broken plates and teddies and a chewed doorframe! Id exepct that behaviour from any puppy whether it be a 9 week old puppy or these two! especially since they've only been here a week and we're all still getting to know eachother. The gist of their backgrounds that i got were that they were from a dog known to the rescue but when they were 5 weeks old ish she got killed by a car and theyve been in a foster home since then, so theyre more used to being inside a home than in kennels or anything. Like i said theyre getting better and i can tell what theyre getting better at theres just a few things that we need to work on which we will do. Theyre getting better on their walks, and now instead of taking them on a morning they seem to prefer going at night when its not as busy which i only figured out yesterday so i think both of us need to learn more about eachother. And once weve started working on the most important things like being able to leave them and them being housetrained we can concentrate on other stuff so i dont see having them both as a problem at all. I was just worried about working on the separation anxiety and doing it wrong or making more problems for my foster dogs next owners since separation anxiety isnt something ive had to deal with before. Plus its not like i was told theyd be good dogs, i was told to expect them to not know what it was like to live in a house and the possibility of them acting like wild animals which i was prepared for, but theyre a lot better than i thought they would be. Theyre no different to friends young pups i just wasnt 100% sure on how to deal with leaving them so was asking more for advice.

And FYI its nowhere near close to hell on earth, for the most part its lovely but like i said theres just a few issues were having that need to be worked on.

@RoystonVaseySmegHead - as a veteran of foster dogs, sounds to me like you're doing a really good job.

If you think of it from the dog's perspective, they're had a lot of changes in their young lives - from wherever they were, to the pound or shelter and then to you. They don't know any of the rules, they don't know what's expected of them, they don't know what they are allowed or not allowed to do. So you're their beacon of security, and they've really only known you for a week or so - it's not surprising that they're anxious.

So if they sleep quietly and happily in a crate in your room, then let them get on with it. In the first couple of weeks out of the pound rescue dogs sleep a lot anyway, being lost is very stressful for them and a shelter is a very stressful environment. Sometimes young dogs act like young children who are over-tired, they behave badly because they're overwrought and can't settle.

So let them sleep and slowly transition them into another room if that's what you want to do, in few weeks. By then they'll have much more confidence in the routine, in you, in their situation and they'll probably settle quite happily. With the proviso that they're young dogs, so they are likely to chew things and make some trouble, because, puppy.

You can help establish their confidence by setting boundaries and being clear about routines. Give them a nice, predictable framework and they'll quickly learn it and it will help them be calmer. You might find that as they gain in confidence they start to test the boundaries a bit, so start off as you mean to go on. :-)

Really, it sounds to me like you're doing an excellent job.

dance aww thank you 😊 night 3 of them being in my room and they let me sleep until 11 i couldnt believe it! But they really are like cheeky toddlers theyre into everything and sometimes when theyre being naughty they look at me then chew a shoe or something then look at me again like they know exactly what theyre doing its so funny but since theyve been in my room theyve been a lot better through the day and we're getting into a better routine like they go out first thing then they have breakfast then through the day theyre out every hour and a half ish then at 6.30 ish they go for an hours walk then theyre in bed at 12 but i think were going to work towards sending them to bed at about 10 since ds is back at school tomorrow but we're getting there 😊 the one we're keeping is really coming out of his shell and he actually wants to play with me now its lovely 😊😊 theyve put the foster dog on the website so hopefully hell find somewhere soon... but at the same time im gutted because itll be weird only having one 😅 hopefully ill be able to foster in the future though which will be nice 😁