New dog stressing when alone

[WorstCook]

Hi! Hoping you guys can give me some advice, or tell me you have experienced similar and that there's hope!
Just over 5 weeks ago we adopted a retired greyhound. She seems to have settled in well, no problems with house training, walks beautifully, nice and relaxed in the house, but...she is so attached to me she follows me everywhere I go in the house, and if I leave the room she starts whining and howling. Obviously it's a bit of a funny time as we're all at home, but we have been trying to leave her for short periods to see how she gets on. She just paces and howls when we leave her, and is obviously quite upset which is awful 😪 We've been trying to close doors to stop her following us to the toilet etc so she's getting lots of very short times alone, but even those tiny time periods are stressing her out, and I'm convinced she's now following me around even more! We've tried leaving kongs etc as she's very food oriented but they only entertain her for a few mins before the pacing and whining starts again. Strangely, at bedtime she settles wonderfully on the landing with the bedroom door closed so she's not with us.
Any tips? Is it too soon to worry? Any hope some of her nervousness will ease as she settles in more, or are we doomed? My husband and I are WFH for the foreseeable, but I would really like us to be able to pop out for a coffee or whatever when we're allowed to without worrying that she's so stressed.
Thanks for reading, bit of an essay there! I think I just really want some reassurance that we could get to a better place with it all. Thanks

I would let her follow you or use baby gates (assuming she won't jump them - mine could but never has). A closed door upsets my dog whereas a baby gate seems to be ok.

I think if she follows you eventually they get to understand that actually nothing exciting happens so just do your thing but don't interact. Then once she is more settled you could get her used to actually leaving her for short period of time.

If she's a rescue, will the rescue offer you any behavioural support? It may be the case of going back to square one and slowly building up time left, even if that means mere seconds at first. When she's getting stressed and anxious, it's gone on too long.

So you leave her quietly with a kong and zero fuss. Go out the room, shut the door, come straight back in the room and sit down, again zero fuss on her, don't make a big deal out of it. Only leave and return when she's relaxed, the second she starts getting anxious it's been too long.

There's some advice here:
www.dogstrust.org.uk/help-advice/training/what-to-do-if-your-dog-is-anxious-when-theyre-left-alone

She has separation anxiety.

I would get the help of a behaviourist - it can be a very difficult problem to resolve and you can easily (unintentionally) make it worse. Do the rescue offer any kind of support?

Thanks for the replies.
I don't think there's any formal support from the rescue but I will ask. I didn't know whether some of it could just be teething problems as she settles in and gets to know us so I've probably been a bit slow to get professional help. She's come from a kennel environment where she wouldn't have had human company all day but would have always been with other dogs, but I'm not sure another dog would help (this isn't an option for us anyway) as even if she's left with my daughter she still cries after me. Trying to make sure I'm not the one who always does food/walks but it's not made any difference yet. Really hoping she can get better with it as I hate the thought of going out and stressing her out, but we're a busy family so not going out is definitely not an option ☹ Any success stories to give me hope??!

My first hound had AWFUL separation anxiety. (Tried to chew through a wall when I left her so I could go for a wee!)
I followed the advice on the FB group dog training advice and support for separation anxiety. She’s sooooo much better. Sometimes if I come back and my entrance wakes her then she sighs at me in a long suffering way!

Even baby gates are a barrier which can upset a dog with separation anxiety. What you need to do is to let your dog know it could follow you if it wants, but let it choose not to. If you are on Facebook try the group Dog Training Advice & Support - they explain it far better than me, but the basic idea of the flitting game is you keep moving from one room to another room. Every time your dog settles down to nap in the room you’re in, you move to the other, the dog follows, settles down to nap, and you move back to the other room etc. Eventually the dog can’t be bothered to move but knows it could if it wanted.