Understanding Separation Anxiety In Dogs
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 begins when a puppy is separated from it’s mother too soon. A puppy should have at least 8 weeks with it’s mother before being re-homed. If a puppy was re-homed before this time it may experience separation anxiety in later life.
Separation anxiety training can begin as soon as the puppy enters your home (it’s new home). It is hard to resist a new puppy but you should not make a big fuss of it too much. This is especially the case when you are leaving it at night time. Place it in the sleeping basket and walk away. This will get it used to you leaving and being alone for extended periods.
If you make it clear to the puppy that you will not always be there then it will get used to it and will probably not suffer from separation anxiety when it gets older.
Training a puppy is relatively straightforward, however it may not be as easy with a grown dog that is suffering from this problem. The dog may have been given to you by a previous owner or you found him at the dog shelter.
If it has spent anytime in a shelter or pound it may have been neglected before this. This may lead to insecurities and anxiety. It may have also been deprived of affection whilst in the shelter too which may add to it’s insecurity.
If the dog has come from a previous owner there is often a reason for this. And this is not always the fault of the dog. The family may be experiencing problems themselves, like redundancies, money difficulties or relationship problems. A dog is a social animal and will pick up on this tension. These tensions may lead to behavioral problems like separation anxiety.
So for an older dog the first step is to heal old emotional wounds. In terms of separation anxiety, you will have to leve at some point so start off slowly. Practice leaving. Leave for a few minutes and then return. Don’t make a gbig deal of the leaving and returning, so as to imply that this is a normal process.
Continue doing this but increase the length of time that you a separated from your pet. If the dog starts to howl or get anxious then go back to a time period that is comfortable. Although this might be tedious, you should continue it until the dog does not get anxious when you leave.
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.
