Back story:
Leo was brought to the shelter at the age of 3 after being found on the street. He was adopted and returned more than once afterward because he was barking, screaming and hurting himself whenever he was left alone for more than a couple of minutes.
I spoke with a couple of trainers and behaviorist, and they said it would take 6-12 months to cure him, and many of them had a waiting list of 3-6 months.
I took on the challenge, and for the first month, I consumed hundreds of YouTube videos, blog posts, forum comments, experimented with many techniques, and took notes of what worked.
After 6 weeks, I was finally able to leave him alone for 30+ minutes.
He can now stay alone for 4-5 hours without a problem.
Disclaimer:
I am not a behaviorist or a trainer, and this is not a professional advice, so YMMV.
What worked for Leo:
- Your dog is smart, and is most likely motivated by positive reinforcements. I would not recommend using anything that would make them feel that his behavior is WRONG. No vibrating or spraying collars, no scolding, etc. It would only make things worse.
- At its core, separation anxiety is your dog not trusting that you will come back as promised. This is likely due to some kind of past trauma where the dog was abandoned. One of your top goals is to make the dog trust that when you go, you will be back. I did that by leaving him in a room, telling him “I will be right back”, and then literally re-entering the room as soon as I left. I did that 10-15 times each day, and increased the time every day by 15-30 seconds, until he was able to be alone for 15-30 minutes.
- Never get your dog excited when you come home. I know this is much easier said than done, but it is super important to reduce the adrenalin rush when your dog sees you in order to eliminate the anxiety when you leave. You can say hello, give him/her a pet on the head, and then go about doing other things, and later on when the dog is calm, say hi.
- Randomize the order of things that you do before you leave. Dogs are trigger based. For instance, if getting dressed followed by the sound of keys would trigger their anxiety, then randomly get dressed and then stay home, or hold the keys to make a sound then leave them and go to the kitchen. This would scramble the triggers in their heads and confuse them as when they should start getting worked up
- Your anxious dog associates the owner leaving the room with pain, and returning with pleasure. You need to reverse their psychology. In other words, they need to associate leaving with pleasure, and returning with pain. I did that by giving my dog a bully stick, leaving for 30 seconds, and then returning and taking it away from him. I’d then wait 5-10 minutes and repeat the same exercise. I did that a few times a day for several weeks.
- Before you leave, give the dog a sweater or t-shirt that smells like you. Put it where you’d like them to wait for you while you’re gone.
- Do not leave your dog with full access to your entire place. Large spaces make them anxious. Leo always stays in my bedroom when I am gone. He either lays under my bed (his safe spot), or lays on my bathrobe by the door. I crated him for a week or two, but that was too claustrophobic for him
- Monitor your dog when you’re gone for the first few weeks. I used a free app called Manything, which allows you to turn an old iPhone or iPad into a remote viewing camera that also allows you to talk to your dog when you see him/her getting anxious. My favorite feature is that you can record a voice message and have it played automatically whenever there is a loud sound (your dog barking) or too much movement (your dog pacing around)
- Thundervests are very useful during training, but I wouldn’t recommend leaving them on your dog all day. I remember the moment I put one on Leo, he felt so relaxed that he almost collapsed sideways!
That’s pretty much it. There is no magic formula, or one thing that worked best, but it’s the combination of those things that worked really well.
- I found that a dog’s mental and emotional states will always be a mirror of the owner’s. If you want your dog to be calm, your need to train yourself first to be calm around your dog and not react emotionally to his/her anxiety. A grounded dog is a byproduct of a confident owner.
At the end, it’s putting in the time and effort that paid off, so don’t give up too soon.
Let me know if you have any questions in the comments below.
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/qpq7yb/how_i_cured_my_dog_from_separation_anxiety_in_6/
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