# Preventing Separation Anxiety



## beckymnd (Oct 17, 2017)

Hello!

I'm after some tips with preventing separation anxiety with Dexter, our 5 month old pup. 

We got him at 9 weeks back in November, and as per all pups, he was very clingy but we just put this down to his age. Now I know he's still very young at 5 months, but he's impossible to leave anywhere & I want to make sure I am making steps in the right direction to ensure this doesn't become a much bigger problem down the line. 

Currently I have the following issues - 

I cannot leave him downstairs behind the baby gate, even if my partner is in the living room with him, he will cry, bark & bash away at the baby gate if i'm upstairs. This is exactly the same as if I am alone in the house.
So we started letting Dexter just follow me around the house, but I don't give him too much interaction whilst doing so, he does potter off himself & keep himself busy. 
When I'm home if I need to take the bins out, or if the front door goes, he will scream and yelp behind the baby gate while I'm at the front door until I come back. 
If I hop in the shower, he has to be in the bathroom with me, and will occasionally bark & whimper - but again, he's happy to potter about and keep himself busy if i leave the door open. It's like he has to have access to me just incase he needs it, and freaks out if there's a barrier in the way.

It's becoming a bit of a problem at work, if I have to attend a meeting in another building, he will howl and cry for the whole time I'm gone which obviously drives the other people nuts. He shows little interest in food if I leave them all equipped with treats & toys. 
Where my real concern lies here also, is that he actually escaped out of the office just now to find me. He was found by a passer by stood on the porch waiting to be let in. (This is obviously the guys' in here's fault! but it has urgently increased my need to ensure he's okay without specifically me around).

On Friday we went out to the pub for a bite to eat & drink, Dexter will go nuts if one of us leaves the table for a toilet break, or to go to the bar. He will bark & yelp until we return - it's worse with myself as being his primary owner I think our bond is a lot stronger.

What can I be doing here? Has anyone else had a pup with similar behaviour? It really worries me he's going to become very difficult. If I leave him with Kongs, etc, he shows no interest at all


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## cfriend (Dec 22, 2016)

Hey  We definitely had all of the above-mentioned problems with Zelda at some point (except for the office as she doesn't come with me) although I can't remember if she was still like that at 5 months, I just simply can't remember. I think we separation anxiety/ being alone all you can really do is practice practice practice and have a lot of patients. You will likely have to practice at home and at the office as he won't automatically generalize his behavior at both places. You will likely already know the practice protocol but if you don't then here it is. Start with really short periods of time a couple of seconds at a time leaving him in a room and then coming back in, reward but not making a huge fuss. Just treat it as if it was completely normal (which it is), and slowly increase the periods of time. When practicing leaving the house you'll have to make it as realistic as possible. Like taking your keys and bags etc because dogs will really quickly catch that it is fake and you're not actually leaving without your phone or your keys etc. Increase the periods of time that you leave the house/room slowly. Don't worry as soon as he catches on you can start increasing the time more quickly because dogs learn similar things to what they already know more quickly. You could start matt training him at home to help you at work.


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

Molly had huge separation anxiety when I first got her and as Cfriend says you need to start with very very tiny amounts of time and repeat lots so it becomes boring and routine. When I had things to take up the garden to the bin I would deliberately make multiple visits to the bin so practising lots of very tiny leavings with no real fuss on leaving or coming back. The key bit is him accepting you leaving calmly - once you have cracked that you can gradually build up the time but it will need lots of very short leaving and coming back sessions for you to reach that stage.


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## NovaLuna (Jan 11, 2018)

I'm not sure if we've been 'lucky' with the dogs that have joined our family or whether our circumstances have forced our dogs to get used to being away from us. Both my partner and I work full-time (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm), but I work about a 5 minute walk from our house so I have the luxury of popping home for an hour at lunchtime.

We've always started with really short periods of time and built it up and we never seem to have had any problems. With Nova (3 year old Mixed breed adopted at 9 months old), we only had a weekend to accustom her to being left alone before we went back to work, we started with 5 - 10 minutes in the crate every couple of hours and we would leave the room (usually leaving her with something like a kong to keep her busy to start with) we never made a fuss when she was going in or when we let her out. She would whimper if we were in the house but nothing when we went out (we used to video her and she would just snooze). Now she couldn't care less where we are as she sees crate time as her time to have a undisturbed snooze.

We found with Nova that the crate made all the difference, not sure if it's because she's a particularly anxious dog anyway but she's definitely a den creature, she really relaxes in her crate as opposed to being constantly on alert out of it. I only leave her alone out of her crate if I'm in the house as we tried to leave her out a few times and she was so anxious she was sick, though absolutely fine if she knows we're in the house. 

Luna (6 month old cockapoo) is so chilled with being left alone in the day but still whimpers when we're in the house, although after 2 months of having her this seems to be getting less frequent so I imagine she will be the same as Nova and just chill out (also in a crate at the moment). At the minute, when I come in from work I try not to make a big fuss, I come in, take my coat off, let Nova out and then Luna gets let out, they then go out for a pee and only after that they get a fuss. I think the routine helps them as they know what to expect and that few minutes of going out for a pee helps them to calm down any super excitedness they have haha! 

I would suggest just trying small amounts of time to start, even if it's a case of giving Dexter a treat and leaving the room just long enough or him to eat it, try not to make coming or going a big deal and try to do it frequently as the others have mentioned. Try not to come back to him/fuss him when he is crying if you can help it, try and wait for a small gap and then go back to him so he doesn't link crying with you coming back. If you have a crate, it might be worth using that during training to see if that helps! Good Luck!!


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## beckymnd (Oct 17, 2017)

Thanks for all the helpful information  this forums really great for knowing you're not alone with some of the problems pups can produce! 

I actually picked up a book called 'its okay to be alone' on my Kindle yesterday and read the whole thing. It's only about 100 pages. It was really interesting, it separated fear based SA and frustration based SA and has really helped me explain some of his behaviour. For example if I let Dexter follow me into the bathroom, he's happy to potter off out of the room, but would go nuts of he couldn't get into the room where I am.
This is explained in the book as him having control over his boundaries, and that I need to re-establish that I control them. This does make a lot of sense as he even comes into the toilet cubicle with me at work, but will whine and scratch to get out when he's in there! So he's displaying frustration based, as when left behind the gate, he's lost control over whether he joins me or not.

It recommends to use a baby gate, and everyday, go in and out of the room repeatedly until it gets boring for the dog & they don't see it as an 'event' to be bothered by. I tried this last night and by the 10th time, Dexter didn't get up off the couch to wait by the gate! Success! So quickly! The idea is to not make any interaction at all when doing so, to make it no big deal, not even any praise, as even though he's silent, he could still be anxious and I have no way of telling if I am rewarding the anxiety or not.

This is all very interesting! I'm definitely going to build on this and work on it every day. I'll probably also start crating him again at night (he hops between the foot of our bed and his bed at the mo) as I think I've dropped the ball a bit there on teaching him boundaries.


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