separation anxiety- new neighbours...help.

[rorymoneira]

Hi all

I am just wondering if anyone has dealt with a dog who has separation anxiety and ways to help solve the problem without getting a dog trainer.

I have a three year old Dachshund and she has terrible separation anxiety. It is a struggle to leave the house I can barely get out of the door. I have to get her a treat and throw it into the living room and then shut the living room door on her just to be able to leave. The biggest problem though is her extremely loud bark, I'm not kidding you it echo's down the street and it gives me the worst anxiety because it's obviously irritating for the neighbours.

I live in a semi-detached, my next door neighbour said they could only hear her when we leave and then she seems to quieten down. They didn't seem to mind that much because they were always up early with their children and had dogs of their own anyway. Well I have just gotten a new neighbour and I'm just concerned as I doubt she'd be as accepting. My partner has to leave early in the morning for work and if next door is still sleeping they will be woken by my dogs loud bark as my partner is trying to leave.

I just don't know what to do, should I try harder with the treats or crate her? please help!!!

^ wow that's super harsh and rude.

I have a velcro dog too OP and struggle to even shut the bathroom door on him. I would pop round to the new neighbours and explain the situation, then get a dog behaviourist to come over and help you sort this out.

@Shapesorted

How are you actually dealing with her SA? Are you just leaving her and expecting her to cope? Out of sight, out of mind for you? Just because she goes quiet it doesn't mean she's ok, she's just learnt there's no point in barking as you don't listen even when she is telling you she's not ok. Tbh your neighbours are the least of your problems poor dog.

That's a bit harsh. I'm not expecting her to just cope that's why am on here asking for advice.

Why poor dog she is very well looked after otherwise, walked daily and I am a SAHM so she is only left when I need to do food shopping etc.

I'd get a dog trainer but can't afford one at the moment and there's a backlog for available trainers in my area due to COVID.

Why respond if you don't actually have any advice for me.

@MeredithMae

^ wow that's super harsh and rude.

I have a velcro dog too OP and struggle to even shut the bathroom door on him. I would pop round to the new neighbours and explain the situation, then get a dog behaviourist to come over and help you sort this out.

Yes I think a behaviourist is actually my only option at this point, I did try and get one whilst I was pregnant but she didn't have availability for 6 months minimum.

she seems amazing so I guess I'll just have to wait.

I do think you need to get assistance with it, the neighbours accepting it really isn't your biggest problem as it's not nice for the dog to feel that everyday.
As an aside we've had dogs although don't currently and yes being woken up by a lot us bark everyday and then hearing it every time you tried to leave would annoy me and I would worry about the dog if I heard it a lot or a lot of whimpering. I think maybe your old neighbours were just really polite

There's a Facebook page called dog training advice and support which has really good resources for dealing with SA, as does the Greyhound Gap webpage is it's common amongst greyhounds.
Try those resources to see if you can train your way out of this behaviour- it's a bit of work but worth it.

@balzamico

There's a Facebook page called dog training advice and support which has really good resources for dealing with SA, as does the Greyhound Gap webpage is it's common amongst greyhounds. Try those resources to see if you can train your way out of this behaviour- it's a bit of work but worth it.

Thank you this is the type of advice I was looking for

We have managed to work on this without a trainer (thank you YouTube). It’s a long process but you basically have to desensitising them to signals that you are leaving the house at first. So we put shoes on but didn’t leave, coats, picked up keys, over and over until the dog didn’t fuss. Then it was opening and closing the door, then going out and closing the door then straight back in. When we did this we gave a snuffle mat to teach it good things happen when we leave and the sniffing is apparently calming. Then it was hiding outside the house once we started to get no reaction to leaving a coming back in and hiding down the side and timing. The minute she got too distressed we went back in and gradually built up the time. After a while I think she didn’t have any concept of how long we were away. I think the key was not making leaving the house a performance. We are now up to 3.5hrs which is plenty although not every day and reinforce with regular shorter periods.

We got this from the Zak George YouTube series. He has a couple of videos on this topic.

@Missfelipe

We got this from the Zak George YouTube series. He has a couple of videos on this topic.

Thank you so much for this I’ll take a look!

I’m doing exactly what @Missfelipe is doing. It’s a long process but worth it not to have a distressed dog.

I’m really pleased that you’ve got as far as 3.5hrs @Missfelipe It gives me hope!

It’s taken longer because of lockdown to be honest…it was getting a bit tricky to be out of the house for long periods during all of the various lockdowns when nothing was open except the supermarket. It’s taken about 15months but I reckon we would have managed much sooner if life had been normal. She doesn’t even look up when we go now just face down in her snuffle mat.

Julie Naismith is the guru for SA training. Start with her book Be Right Back. It’ll set you up for how SA training should look. She also has a free Facebook advice group and a paid group with access to a training app.

It is all time consuming and a fucking hard slog but if you don’t do it properly it’s not worth doing.

@Missfelipe

We have managed to work on this without a trainer (thank you YouTube). It’s a long process but you basically have to desensitising them to signals that you are leaving the house at first. So we put shoes on but didn’t leave, coats, picked up keys, over and over until the dog didn’t fuss. Then it was opening and closing the door, then going out and closing the door then straight back in. When we did this we gave a snuffle mat to teach it good things happen when we leave and the sniffing is apparently calming. Then it was hiding outside the house once we started to get no reaction to leaving a coming back in and hiding down the side and timing. The minute she got too distressed we went back in and gradually built up the time. After a while I think she didn’t have any concept of how long we were away. I think the key was not making leaving the house a performance. We are now up to 3.5hrs which is plenty although not every day and reinforce with regular shorter periods.

This is exactly the OPPOSITE of what you should be doing unfortunately.

By putting on shoes and making plans to go out and not going out or going out for a bit and then coming in again will actually rank up the level of anxiety in a dog with separation anxiety.

They will be constantly on edge expecting you to leave. The anxiety levels will be high for a lot of the time rather than when you actually go out.

A dog with true separation anxiety will need a behavioural plan.

Ironically it will involve showing the dog when you are going out and then the rest of the time the dog can totally relax knowing you are not going to pop out of sight at any minute. Stress levels will then be lower and the dog can learn quicker.

I would get in some qualified help to make sure you are on the right track and get the results you need quicker.

@MikeWozniaksGloriousTache

Julie Naismith is the guru for SA training. Start with her book Be Right Back. It’ll set you up for how SA training should look. She also has a free Facebook advice group and a paid group with access to a training app.

It is all time consuming and a fucking hard slog but if you don’t do it properly it’s not worth doing.

Totally agree with this. She has an online course opening soon well worth looking at

here

@PollyRoulson and yet we have a dog who is not anxious when we leave, nor when we return and goes for a nap in between (confirmed by doggy cam). Different trainers have different methods and I’m just sharing what has worked for us (and has seemed to work pretty well for others based on reviews of the training guides we used).

Have a look at ‘Dogs behaving very badly’ which is a channel 5 programme. He has covered this in previous episodes. It’s bound to be on catch up. Quite often it is the owners who need to change their behaviour to help the dogs anxiety. Good luck.

[quote Missfelipe]@PollyRoulson and yet we have a dog who is not anxious when we leave, nor when we return and goes for a nap in between (confirmed by doggy cam). Different trainers have different methods and I’m just sharing what has worked for us (and has seemed to work pretty well for others based on reviews of the training guides we used).[/quote]
But you said in your first post "if she got too distressed". For me I find training quicker and easier for the dog if they do not get stressed at all.

(and it did take a long time to get your results).

I am not being narky or criticizing. Years ago I may have used a similar method however as our knowledge and experience grows we can build on previous method to make it easier for the dog. This is just one of those things.

Tbh if someone said to me that a baseball hat or windchimes would be the way to achieve stress free separation anxiety training I would have laughed in their faces but it works and it works well Always learning

I agree there are many different training methods and I am glad that your dog is happy and stressfree.

Missfelipe as a matter of interest who did the training guides you used?

I second the posters recommending Julie Naismith.
However- the principle of it is that you won't be successful in the training unless in the mean time you stop leaving your dog. Then work out what the dogs 'baseline' is- i.e. how long can they be happily left for? And working up from there.
I am going through this at the moment, I live in a semi detached house with a nearly year old dog who cannot be left without whining and howling- it's not fair on her or our neighbours, so we don't. It's not what we thought would happen when getting a dog, and we are putting a huge amount of effort into the training to try and turn this around!

@rorymoneira the ONLY way to deal with separation anxiety unfortunately is not to leave the dog. Possibly at all to start with. Full on SA leaves the dog having a panic attack every time they are left. So reinforces the fear.
If you’re on FB join dog training advice and support and look up their info on it.

Thank you for all of the advice everyone I've gotten in touch with a behaviourist this morning so hopefully she has availability soon. She did say she could help with the details I have given her about my situation.

in the meantime I'm going to do as much research as I can with the resources you have provided.

We used the Zak George training guides and pretty much followed those methods. It take a while, a very badly treated rescue dog plus lockdowns meant it took longer. We had months to settle her into our home before we started this and then when you can’t leave the house except to go to the supermarket and it’s the dead of winter it’s a bit hard to be gone for long to start building on the time.

Oh ok Zak George tends to come from the school of thought that dogs get separation anxiety if they are not exercised enough.

True separation anxiety is a phobic response to being left not just boredom and would need a different approach to Zak's.

work out what the dogs 'baseline' is- i.e. how long can they be happily left for? And working up from there.
This is what I did/am doing. At first it was literally seconds: eg out to take something to the bins and back. Then it would be minute, two minutes, three minutes, etc.

Popping to the shops didn’t happen. I would book him into daycare and do every single thing I could possibly do on one dog free day a week.

Really long, hard slog.