SEPARATION ANXIETY

Do you dread leaving your dog home alone because of what you might find when you get back? Does your dog bark, urinate, defecate or do a house wrecking number when you are gone?  If so, your dog may be suffering from separation anxiety. 

The plain fact is that dogs like company and so when you leave them home alone they may become anxious and to relieve the tension this causes may bark, dig, chew or soil the house.

Try to remember when you come home and find your prize possessions in pieces or an unwelcome deposit on the floor that your dog is not being deliberately naughty - they are genuinely stressed.  So keep your cool and don’t give in to the temptation of punishing your pet as they won’t understand why they’re getting smacked, they’ll just remember that you smacked them when you came home and associate you coming home with them getting punished.  And guess what that does?  That’s right; it adds to their stress and anxiety about being left and increases the likelihood of them wrecking the joint again.  And please don’t mutter to yourself that the dog understands that they’ve done wrong because if there is damage or mess they won’t come near you when you open the door and if they’ve ‘been good’ they’re leaping all over you.  What they understand is that mess equals you becoming a vengeful tyrant and no mess means you don’t.  Their part in this equation is not understood at all.

Just because your dog is wrecking your home or soiling it does not necessarily mean they’re suffering from separation anxiety so it’s a good idea to have a vet check your dog just in case there is some physical cause for the behaviour.

What you can do

• If your dog follows you around the home, try preventing this so that the dog learns it can survive for 5 minutes while you’re in another part of the house.  How do you stop the dog following you around?  Just shut the door!

• Leaving home and arriving home are the most stressful events for your dog, usually because you make a big fuss of the dog before you leave and again when you come home. Don’t! If you usually feed your dog his dinner as soon as you come through the door, don’t!  You’re making your homecoming a really major stress event! 

• If you go to work all day and your dog is left home alone all that time without access to the great outdoors, then it would be good to arrange for someone to come and take them out for a walk which would break up their day.  Besides you don’t go all day without visiting the bathroom do you, so why should your dog? 

• It may help to leave the radio playing when you leave home or to make a tape recording of your voice so that the dog hears familiar sounds and doesn’t feel so alone.  Toys are good too, have one that they don’t normally have access to, and preferably a hollow toy that you can put bits of biscuit or cheese inside so that they can spend time extracting the food.

• Some dogs are better if they’re limited to a small part of your home and some dogs will be worse.  Indoor kennels can be useful as they will restrict where your dog can go but you should not think of using one either as a ‘punishment cell’ or if you’re going to leave the dog for more than a couple of hours.  Using an indoor kennel with a small puppy can be very useful and gets them used to the concept early on – older dogs will need a gentle introduction to the idea.

• Make friends with your next door neighbour so that you can pop in there for a quick cup of coffee while you accustom your dog to being left for short periods of time. Gradually increase the time you leave your dog.

Homoeopathy can help. We have two products which may help with the problem by relieving the stress without sedation, NO BARK and NO CHEW . Click here to order.  If you have any questions please email me.

 © Frances Gavin 2003