Think we’ve reached the point of rehoming DDog and so sad about it

[StillRunningUpThatHill]

Please be gentle as this is breaking my heart.

Ddog is a 3 year old sprocker spaniel. From the very beginning he has always had separation anxiety. We did everything right - we are members of Dog Training Advice and Support as well as their separation anxiety group (just because I know someone will suggest that) and read all the books flitting games as puppies, not leaving dogs alone before they can cope with it etc. The problem is he’s never ever learnt to cope. We have tried everything and I mean everything. Julie Nailsmith’s method, meds (all the herbal ones plus Prozac), we’ve spent thousands on behaviouralists as well as using our insurance to cover it. Nothing works. He howls when left and we hardly leave him at all. But we have to leave him sometimes - I have to go to the office three days a week, and on those days we have a dog walker who takes him out or he goes to my parents - but my parents are now not able to have him (for health reasons) so it’s back to the dog-walker, and the problem is he howls before she arrives and after she’s left and the neighbours are complaining.

We’ve tried doggy daycare and they said he couldn’t stay as he wouldn’t settle and was anxious. It would work if he could have home-based daycare but I have made so many enquiries and nobody is taking on new dogs.

Even then, that doesn’t help if we want to go out in the evening. We can’t go for meals out or to friends’ houses for dinner as he howls and it’s not fair on the neighbours to ruin their Saturday night like that. And sure, we go to the pub and take him, but it would be nice to go somewhere other than the pub.

So we’re stuck, and while we love him, this is ruining our lives. Constantly having to think how we will manage and work around him so he’s not alone at all. If he could be with someone who was entirely home-based he’d be a fabulous dog as he’s so loving and keen to please. But we simply can’t be here 24 hours a day and we live in a terraced house. So sadly I think we are going to have to rehome him. I hate the thought of it but I can’t have my life like this for potentially 10-12 more years. Yes dogs are a lifetime commitment, I’ve had them all my life. But I’ve never had a dog who couldn’t be left at all ever without constant howling and when I say we’ve tried and tried to help him, I mean it.

I don’t know why I’m posting really. Please don’t be brutal if you’ve not dealt with this. Please don’t suggest other SA methods. I can tell you I have read every book, research article and blog there is on the subject and I have tried all the methods. This has been my life for three years. I will not give him to a rescue centre, he’s never been in a kennel in his life and he would be terrified. It’ll either be a conversation with his breeder or with a spaniel rescue. I’m just so sad about it.

Another one saying, cross-breeding can be perfectly reputable. In fact, never allowing outcrosses from breeds is bloody stupid as ultimately you will get problems as the gene pool inevitably shrinks. It might take a few centuries but you can already see it in some breeds like Dobes and CKCS.

OP, I too have had a dog from a very good breeder who wasn't what was expected. She's quite neurotic and would have been a candidate for SA but luckily lives with a very stable and confident older dog and has done since puppyhood. Your situation sounds untenable and I can imagine how upsetting it must be. Good luck in finding your dog a new home.

OP I can't say I'm surprised at the reaction off posters on this thread, who bloody cares if he is a crossbreed, would that have mattered to all the pearl clutchers if he was a rescue,?????
I have a cocker. She is is the neediest dog alive, but we're able to leave her, although unlike you I can't put her in one room if I'm in another or she'll try to eat her way out of the room. But we can leave her, I completely understand how you feel trapped, there are times when all I want is 5 mins to myself to enjoy a cup of tea and not have her practically sitting on my knee.
Send you strength for the days ahead, whatever choice you make, you have to do what's right for you and your family, and if having this dog is not right (and sometimes it's just not and we can't see into the future) then you have to do what's best.

Be kind to yourself 💐

Thank you all to the kind and supportive posters. It really does help to read your words. I’m WFH today so he will be fine and will be getting a lovely walk at lunchtime plus some hidden dummy retrieves once I’ve finished and he will be absolutely fine. And if every day could be like today will be, I wouldn’t be posting on this thread. 😢

Unfortunately op there's a contingent of people on MN who appear to believe that once acquired, a dog must never be rehomed or pts until it eventually dies of old age. They'll appear on threads like this and harangue the op like they have done here, and tell you THEY would never even think of it, and they've spent 10 years living in a completely ridiculous set up to manage their very unhappy dog. If that's what they want to do, that's fine, quite often see people who have turned their house into fort knox and cant have people in their house because of their aggressive biting dog. But "that's the sacrifice they make when they get a dog". Or for SA, they'll arrange things so the dog is never left alone for a second. But you've tried that and it didn't work.

Even on threads where dogs have bitten children without provocation, they'll come out of the woodwork to ask if you've tried a behaviourist and in the meantime put up a baby gate.

Sometimes a dog ends up in a home which is not suitable for it and it's better off being rehomed or PTS (which incidentally if your dog can't find a new home, wouldn't be unreasonable to do. He's clearly a very stressed and anxious dog and there's no practical way his triggers can be avoided) you are doing the right thing for yourself and your dog.

I don’t understand the argument for keeping a dog if the dog is unhappy, for the sake of a dog having a “good home” if there is a better home available then why not rehome to a better home. This dog doesn’t sound happy, nor is OP. I know rescues are overran but the fact of the matter is desirable dogs move through them quite quickly. SA to OP is an issue, to someone else it won’t be.

I dealt with SA in one dog and used family and friends and doggy day care (remedies that aren’t available to OP). But had to rehome another dog for entirely separate reasons - actually sounds like we could have swapped OP.

I have fostered and helped rehomed many dogs for a particular working, high needs, breed. I’m not a victim of a backstreet breeder.

Unfortunately the information you were given about not leaving dogs alone young is the issue. Dogs need to be exposed to all the things that will be in their life when young, environments, noises, people etc then you will have a flexible fog?- this includes leaving them. I was given this advice by my vet when ddog went for his initial check up, was even advised to carry him out before his jabs to acclimatise to traffic. Ddog was left for a couple of hours the day after he came home then built up to 3.5 hours per day, as I work pt, no issues at all, vet was brilliant with advice. Lock down dogs are the ones struggling as they simply weren't left as puppies, there's multiple people here struggling with the same issues as op.

My advice is too late for op but if you have a small puppy right now, think about exposing to as much as possible straight away including letting off the lead asap whilst they still are slow enough for you to catch!

You think there are people who don’t ever leave the house even for things like medical appointments, but will somehow be able to keep up with a spaniel’s exercise needs?

There could be households like mine, two adults working from home full time where always having someone at home isn't a huge ordeal.

Yes or mine where I have family nearby. We dog sit for each other.

“The information” is from multiple sources including SA nationally renowned experts. Believe it or not we did try exposing him at an early age and he showed very quickly he couldn’t cope with it. Then the advice is that by forcing it you make the dog more scared. You don’t teach them to be OK alone by making them scared of being alone.

We also exposed him to everything. I carried him for weeks before he had had all his jabs so he came with me to supermarket car parks, train stations, the school playground etc. And it paid off - he is not fazed by anything, except being alone.

Again, I know you mean well but you’ve not experienced SA or researched methods of preventing or dealing with it or you’d know what you’re saying is not correct in dogs with these issues. We did try to expose him and had problems from day one that another dog without SA would not have done. I have had lots of dogs and he’s the first one with SA.

Ddog was left for a couple of hours the day after he came home

Some dogs will cope with this, others won't. The people I know who have dogs where they've had to work through separation anxiety had tried the 'from day 1 approach' and it didn't work. Conversely our older dog wasn't left alone in the house at all for various reasons until she was about 9 months old but has absolutely no issues being alone.

The key thing is to be led by the dog, leaving a dog alone when it's scared and anxious is unlikely to lead to positive outcomes. Some dogs will be ok from day 1, others need a slower approach. It sounds like the op has an extreme case and has tried more than many.

Like I said, there could be homes like mine where not being able to leave the dog is not that limiting. My dogs were probably left for a total of 20 mins last week and that wouldn't have been essential as they could have come in the car with me.

I guess SA is the price to be paid for bonding. Some breeds are supposed to be with people as companions or working closely with one person. Quite possibly whatever OP did this was in her dogs genes.

My dog has zero SA. Happy to be left for hours and just lies on his bed. However the flip side of that is that, whilst he is pleased to see us all when we get back, he is not super cuddly or affectionate. He will often choose to be in a different room to the family and when offered the choice of where to sleep he will stay downstairs on the sofa or the front door mat. He has no interest in cuddling on a bed.

He is a flock guardian breed so is supposed to be left out on a hillside all night hence no SA. What is unfortunately also in his genes is being reactive to perceived threat and barking loudly. I can (and do) try to train and manage that but he will always be more difficult to manage in that way than your average lab. It's like how labs are classically very food driven because that makes them easier to train so humans selected for that. My dog likes food but he doesn't go out of his way to steal it.

I never realised before I had a dog how much temperament is due to genetics/ breeding. It's changed how I think about humans too!

Same.

I have had dogs all my life. All left for short periods as puppies, in a crate in the utility room from day one. All have been happy, healthy dogs who love their quite space to retreat to and sleep.

I was told on here years ago to never leave a puppy for a second. Even to take them into the bathroom when they had a shower, please. Life doesn’t work that way.

Currently have a 16 week old golden retriever, brought home at 11 weeks. Crate trained from day one, in the utility at night in the crate from day one. Had one episode of whining. Firmly told to sleep and not a peep from then on. She’s happy as Larry when we go out too. She’s so relaxed, chilled and happy as she knows her place in the pecking order.

We are in touch with the people who took one of her litter mates. They went the other way, still sleeping on the sofa next to the crate as the dog cries and barks when alone, someone has to be in the house at all times, they won’t leave her alone for a second, even for the loo, or it’s constant crying and barking. It’s a dog, not a baby. You need to be firm from the beginning and of course, normal life cannot stop for an animal, that’s Madness. People let a dog control their entire lives. They are currently looking into behaviour trainers as sleeping on the sofa is getting intolerable after 5 weeks.

I don’t know where this has come from either. my grandparents had dogs, I would bet my life on the fact that they treated them as dogs and didn’t mollycoddle them or sleep next to them as puppies.

OP - I am not getting at you personally with all that. All dogs are different and I’ve known many spaniels over the years who have separation anxiety. I’m just talking about what I’ve seen over the years and the stark difference between my pup and her littermate.

I’m so sorry you are in this position, and good for your for trying everything.

I realise the focus is right now on finding the best solution for this dog.
But I do hope when the situation is resolved that the OP lets the breeder know what has happened.
It would seem - is possible at least - that this dog was never going to be suitable for a 'normal' British home. And I wonder how many of his littermates are affected and how many more dogs the breeder will produce who may end up in similarly difficult circumstances.
This is not to judge the OP at all but just a plea to stop irresponsible breeding. And I do realise that according to the OP (and I don't doubt her for a minute) the breeder in question was a so-called responsible breeder but at the end of the day it's not meant a thing.

Separation anxiety isn't necessarily caused by bad breeding though - it's often just very bad luck.

I have a beagle who suffers with it and none of the other puppies from any other litter has any issues being left alone, neither do his parents or grandparents. It's just something he was born with and something he was showing signs of before we even brought him home.

Yes, by all means let the breeder know but it's not necessarily something they could have prevented or avoided in any way.

Or maybe you got a more confident puppy, and the other puppy was naturally more anxious.

As someone who has trained hundreds of dogs I can assure you that sometimes even the best, well bred, well cared for and well treated dogs don’t turn out as planned! My own is from a really good breeder who doesn’t advertise and operates on word of mouth and repeat business. We’re managing some issues we were not expecting, one of which is not being happy alone (we are getting there though but it’s taken longer than I expected!). She is an anomaly in her litter.

Dogs, homes, owners, environment, genetics and training all play a part in behaviour. Some you can control and some you can’t. Much love to you OP. Nobody knows what they’ll do until they’re there.

I also get a bit sick of all the posts saying "it's because you never left them as a puppy, I left mine and they were fine” when the reality is actually that "you could leave them because they were fine".

If your puppy was so distressed it was vomiting or making itself bleed through fear and anxiety then you wouldn't have been able to just "leave it for a few hours the next day" because your puppy wouldn't have even let you leave the room without screaming or wetting itself with fear.

It's really easy to sit there and say you did everything right and that's why your dog isn't anxious but the reality is that doing everything right only worked because your dog was never anxious to begin with.

Maybe. But I am firm with puppies. They are soft as fuck and put human feelings onto theirs. Maybe if I hadn’t have been firm the first night my puppy started to whine in her crate, picked her up like she was a baby and slept next to her, I’d be in the same situation as them now, miserable with a stressed out dog.

I also get a bit sick of all the posts saying "it's because you never left them as a puppy, I left mine and they were fine” when the reality is actually that "you could leave them because they were fine".

This, 100%.

Dogs are individuals. Just like people. No two dogs are the same - even dogs within a litter vary vastly (which is why some breeders will ‘match’ you to a dog instead of letting you pick).

I’ve had two dogs from the same litter, twice. One accidentally and one deliberately. Both times the dogs were treated the same. Same training. Same diet. Same life. Same experiences and yet on one occasion I ended up with a dog-reactive dog whilst the other littermate was fine.

So, quite frankly, the people blaming OP are talking out of their arses. But, those of us who aren’t idiots (including OP) know they are, so we should stop engaging with their idiocy.

@fieldsofbutterflies You're right but my point is that this dog didn't come about as a result of what would be considered bad breeding (dog was from a respected breeder and had relevant health tests) but as a result of breeding.
I think we should be asking ourselves should we be breeding dogs at all. Especially crossing two working dogs and then selling them on to be pets.

@Mellyisatwat a bit of whining is not what PP are referring to when they talk about separation anxiety, though. Your dog clearly wasn't particularly anxious otherwise you'd never have been able to leave her alone all night in the first place.

My dog never whined, he just screamed, wet himself and vomited in fear. That's what people mean when they say anxiety.

That's an entirely separate conversation and not really relevant to this thread.

Please see previous posts where I have already said we tried leaving him alone from puppyhood and it was very obvious straight away he couldn’t cope. SA is an abnormal phobic response. I left all my other dogs as puppies and they were fine as they didn’t have it. All the research suggests that severe SA is generally not triggered by never leaving a dog alone as a puppy, and that was not my situation anyway.

My last paragraph said it wasn’t aimed at you. It was a reply to that poster.

But the entirety of your post is basically saying you can eliminate SA by being firm from the beginning. This is simply untrue with severe SA. It’s like saying if you give your toddler a healthy diet they won’t develop anorexia as a teenager. Some dogs and people have mental health conditions.