Need to get my dog to be ok alone

[cheeseisthebest]

My lovely shih tzu boy is one this month. He's a gorgeous boy and perfect in every way, he's actually being castrated on Monday and having 4 teeth out but once he's recovered I really need to work on leaving him alone, just for an hour would be great.
Any ideas? If we try he barks and cries. Loads of people have said just leave him and put him in the kitchen in case he poos which he has done when left alone for few minutes. But I don't think that's very fair on him and he's clearly anxious.

The book Be Right Back is a great starting point for this. It has everything laid out in programs for you to work through. It can be a long journey though so is often worth working with an APBC registered trainer for your encouragement!

have you tried leaving a radio on

Separation anxiety is really tough to deal with and if he's so bad he poos within minutes I would be getting the help of a registered behaviourist.

If you speak to your vet, they can refer you and you may even be covered by your insurance (double check your policy though).

Also, castration can make dogs a lot more anxious, so make sure there are pressing medical needs and it really needs to be done, especially so young.

How long are you leaving him for when you try? We're working through separation anxiety through the sub-threshold method and whilst it is slow it is working - the idea is that you never let your dog get distressed, certainly not to the point of soiling. I would definitely recommend contacting a behaviourist, we used one who trained under Julie Naismith (author of the book above). Our starting point was standing up, not even leaving the room let alone the house!

I would avoid blindly following advice such as leave the radio on. If you dog really hates being alone and begins to associate the radio with that you then have the problem of them panicking every time the radio is on even if you are saying in. However if you have it on as background noise generally I would definitely not turn it off as you leave, if that makes sense.

Thank you. When he pood he'd only been left alone for few minutes, weirdly before that he had been ok for longer and never pood.
I'm not worried about the castration adding to his anxiety because he was chemically castrated 6 months ago and over the past months has generally become much more chilled not more anxious and hopefully the chemical will have same impact as actual castration.
I will have a look at that book, thank you.

I do leave the radio on anyway, its on all the time.

We adopted a 4 year old dog with SA. Not a huge problem as I was WFH full time and as it was peak pandemic I knew we had time to go slowly.

We left her for seconds to start with. And that was after just getting her to be ok with us being in different rooms. Flitting is good for this.

It's a long process. We can leave her for a couple of hours now but conditions have to be right. No doors closed, bit of a walk before hand but nothing too exciting, a licki mat and ideally a nice patch of sunshine to lay in! We leave the radio on too but it's usually on during the day regardless.

Dog training advice and support on Facebook is great and have a whole section dedicated to SA.

One of our rescue dogs had bad separation anxiety, the first time he was alone in the house (just one hour) he went on a wrecking spree, so unlike his gentle sweet nature.
I trained him out of it by teaching him I would come back; went out the front door, closed it, came straight back in. Repeated gradually extending the departure to a few minutes, 5, 10, 15 etc until he'd got the message and was relaxed about being left alone.
Don't make a big deal of leaving him; don't pet and cuddle him , kiss goodbye etc. Don't make a big deal of excited greetings/reunions on your return. Play it cool and low key.

Thank you. Will work on it!

Do you walk him before you leave so that he is ‘empty’ ?

cheeseisthebest you have had loads of advice on here on previous threads.

I would think it best to bring in the professional trainers/behaviourists now and get an individual plan sorted for you to make progress.

Have you searched my previous threads? Why?

We also did walk-out-walk-in the front door, very gradually extending from a few seconds, to minutes, finally several hours.

What also helped:

Always doing the same routine before leaving
Nice walk before we go out
Radio on
Dog pillow by the front door so he can snuggle in to wait for us
A biscuit on his pillow

Then we go.

We use a dog cam to measure his progress and make sure he's not distressed.

We also found he was much better having the run of downstairs rather than restricted to one room, but then he is not a chewer or destructive.

Thank you, good tips. I have posted before but its always good to get some fresh ideas/advice. I can't afford a behaviourist.

If you speak to your vet, you should be able to be get them to refer you and it will be covered by insurance.

Separation anxiety won't be cured without proper, professional help. My own dog has separation anxiety and I had to contact a behaviourist - no amount of following well-meaning advice on the internet made the slightest bit of difference unfortunately.

A dog that poos within seconds of you leaving is just going to panic if you keep going in and out as PP have recommended - it means they're constantly on edge and in a state of panic.

Please speak to your vet and get professional help - your insurance should pay if it's been vet-referred.

Thank you I didn't know that will speak to them.

Good luck.

I really sympathise as it can be soul-destroying and it really limits your life, but a good behaviourist is worth their weight in gold - they really can change your life.

No I have not searched your previous threads but I have read them and just remembered this is an issue that you have had for a while.

Jjust thought it might help to get professional help as it has now been going on for a long time thats all ....

Ok thank you sorry.