Understanding Separation Anxiety In Dogs
No commentsSeparation anxiety is the kind of dread a dog experiences when you or someone close to him leaves. This is an emotional experience that humans feel too, so it is easy to relate to your dog’s anxiety, however it is largely irrational because you will return and the separation is only temporary. Your dog doesn’t understand this and must be taught not to get anxious. A dog that is feeling anxious may bark uncontrollably or urinate or chew things up. If the dog is in your home at the time then this is unwanted behavior. It is also not good for your dog’s wellbeing to feel these sensations and you are responsible for the health of your dog. This article will give you some ideas on avoiding 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.
You need to communicate through actions that your puppy will be alone at time but that you will return. This will prevent separation anxiety when the dog 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 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.
Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 1:12 am and is filed under Dog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
