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The doghouse

If you're worried about your pet's health, please speak to a vet or qualified professional.

Breed least prone to separation anxiety.

28 replies

Verysad1978 · 27/05/2025 21:31

Anyone can help with this one?

OP posts:
CoubousAndTourmalet · 28/05/2025 10:50

ThePure · 28/05/2025 08:13

Mine is a rescue live stock guardian breed
he has many issues but separation anxiety isn’t one of them. He does not give a stuff about being left as he likes guarding the house. In his eyes he is doing his job.
We have a camera and when we leave we can see that he behaves exactly like he does when we’re at home. He sleeps downstairs and prefers that. He often chooses to be in a different room to us!

The flip side of that is that he is not really a cuddly dog, He gets excited when we come home and he likes a scooch and some belly rubs but he won’t curl up with you on the sofa. I think you can’t have a cuddly Velcro dog and expect it to be happy to be left.

He’s quite a niche kind of dog and I would not wholly recommend as a 1st time dog (we did not know what we were getting ourselves into although would never give him up now). He is reactive to cats and motorbikes and very territorial but he certainly has no separation anxiety. Livestock guarding is a solitary pursuit and he’s bred to ‘operate independently’ This does not make him very trainable either.

We have a livestock guarding breed also.

Yes, LGD are very independent minded and do not work to command, that is true. They are not trainable and rarely have reliable recall. I agree that not all of them are cuddly, though some are. However, unless the dog is kept outside with livestock, the family becomes the flock and without them, the dog is lost. So it is not true to say that LGD are not prone to SA.

Some LGD suffer terribly when they are left alone. We've had 9 of them, all as house pets, all reared by us from 8 - 10 weeks old. A couple of them were as you describe, not fussed about being left on their own, the others had some degree of separation anxiety and would whine and bark. Three of them lived as a multi dog household so obviously that had some bearing.

Our current girl is a lone dog and is not too bad about being left for short periods. She also sleeps downstairs and often chooses to be in a different room from us. She is not clingy and not a cuddler. Our previous boy was also a lone dog and was the total opposite - cuddly, clingy, hated being left alone, would bark and whine. We literally could not go anywhere without him.

Both the same breed, both from working bloodlines, reared by us from 8 weeks old, same house, same routine. Totally different characters.

So, in our experience, the level of SA varies greatly from one dog to another. It is not breed specific. They are all individuals.

I definitely would not recommend that anybody take on a gigantic guarding breed with the idea that it will be so independent minded that it won't have separation anxiety. Because, in our experience at least, it's more down to the individual dog, not the breed or type.

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 28/05/2025 21:57

When People say that owners are too soft treating their puppies like babies and their dogs like a family member. … makes me wonder why, if you think this, you bother getting a dog? To me the whole point is they are each that - a family member. Not an accessory

ACynicalDad · 28/05/2025 22:33

Whilst the people who say it can happen to any breed are right, you can improve your chances, don't get any dog that had a companion breed in the mix. I grew up with labs and retrievers, all were good. Our Labradoodle took a while but we can leave him a long time now but it wasn't until he was past 18 months, in part as I worked from home.

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