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Separation anxiety is the dread or fear that your dog experiences when someone that they are attached to leaves them. So a typical instance of this might be when you go to work in the morning, the dog might get tense or anxious. Typically this anxiety produces negative behavior in the animal. It may howl or bark, urinate or defecate in the house, start to chew things or bite itself. Obviously this is not good for the dogs state of mind or your home. So what can be done about separation anxiety in dogs ?

Separation anxiety is something that a dog learns early in life. A puppy that isn’t weaned off it’s mother properly can have this problem later on in life. The puppy should spend around eight weeks with it’s mother before being separated.

Start teaching your puppy about separation anxiety as soon as it gets into it’s new home. although it is hard not to cuddle a puppy, try not to be too affectionate. This is pertinent at night times when you are going to bed. Place you puppy in it’s sleeping basket and walk away. Don’t make a fuss of it. It will learn that there will be times when it is alone.

Try to communicate the fact that you will not always be there and your dog should not suffer form separation anxiety when it gets older.

Teaching your puppy about separation anxiety should be quite straightforward. This may not be the case if you take on a grown dog. The dog may have come to you via the dog pound or maybe a previous owner has given it away.

A dog that has spent any time in a shelter or pound has effectively been abandoned by it’s previous owner. Thus anxiety over a past or future separation may be a completely rational conclusion to draw from past experience. It may also have had little affection in the shelter making it even more anxious.

If it has been given to you by the previous owner there is generally a good reason why they have done this. It may be that there were family problems, a divorce, money problems or that the person had to leave the country. As a dog is a social animal and needs the support that a family gives to it, it is also aware when there are problems in the family. This can trigger emotional problems that could result in displaying separation anxiety at some point.

The way to train a grown dog for separation anxiety is to take the softly softly approach. Practice leaving your pet. Start off with just a short separation, say a minute or so. Close the door to indicate that you have left. Wait a minute and then come back in. Don’t make a fuss of the dog when you leave or come back.

Continue this mock separation process but increase the time each time you separate. If you hear the dog getting anxious then return to a separation interval that he is comfortable with. Gradually the dog will be completely adjusted to separation and will not get anxious.

To break up this process you could also try taking the dog’s mind off the fact that you have left. So you could give it a tasty treat or a meaty bone. This should keep it interested for a while by which time you may have returned. Although this will not solve the problem, it may break up the training for you.

Tags: Dogs

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