Major seperation issue causing lots stress

[ovedio]

Our dog has been causing our stress levels to go out the roof!
My partner and I have had our our resscued Medium mix dog for the last five months. We've been lucky cause he is well house broken, has never peed or pooped in the house, has never barked. Our biggest issue has been his seperation issues. Now, we have tried the following, Crate-both wire and plastic, he has managed to brake out of one and chew his way out of other. We've left him artical of clothing and toys out to play with, but he never touches them. Medication that's suppose to help with the curving the anxiety, but it has not worked. Now we never leave him for more then 3-4 hour at a push. Our dog has scratch the door to the piont that it needs to be replaced, chewed through a window pane, pulled down window blinds and curtains. We spent time time training him through many books we've purchased and nothing sticks! We are at the end of our rope, I mean he is never like this when we're home but the minute we leave we come home to such destruction...

Can anyone tells us what else we haven't tried!!! we need help!

[Dee M]

No wonder you are so stressed. Every time you go out you must worry about what the dog is getting into!!

Your poor dog must be terrified of being abandoned again. Have you tried leaving the radio or TV on when you leave? The noise may be comforting to him. I hope you find something that works.

[emc]

Have you tried leaving him for just a few minutes and then gradually increasing the time he's left alone?

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[Karen]

As emc suggested, you need to gradually up the time you can be away without him getting anxious. It will be annoying to you, but if three hours is fine, start with three hours, then the next day make it 3 hours 15 minutes, keep it at that for a few days, then increase by another 15 minutes. Don't make a fuss over him when you do come back, either. It will be hard, ignore him as much as possible when you first get back - "no big deal, nothing happening here," and then when it is your choice, call him over for some petting and praise.

And a Kong filled with peanut butter is a good time waster for a dog - will keep him busy ...

[ovedio]

We have done what you've suggested from day one.
We started by leaving him for like 10 minutes then gradually building up on the time. At one point it felt like we were making strive, but then he goes back to stressing out (That's why we went to medication, both natural and prescribed)
We've done everything that every books has mentioned. We don't acknowledge him for about the first 20 minutes of when walking through the door, even if he is acting like Dion from the Flintstones, then I give him a treat and rub. We never make a fuss when either of us leave.

It really does feel like he turn in something else the minute the both of us leave, I mean total Jeykell and Hyde issues!We're at our wits end.

[Karen]

We have done what you've suggested from day one.
We started by leaving him for like 10 minutes then gradually building up on the time. At one point it felt like we were making strive, but then he goes back to stressing out (That's why we went to medication, both natural and prescribed)
We've done everything that every books has mentioned. We don't acknowledge him for about the first 20 minutes of when walking through the door, even if he is acting like Dion from the Flintstones, then I give him a treat and rub. We never make a fuss when either of us leave.

It really does feel like he turn in something else the minute the both of us leave, I mean total Jeykell and Hyde issues!We're at our wits end.

Have you tried distractions like the PB-Kong? Does he get long walks to tire him out before you leave?

[ovedio]

Yes with the Toys.
If we are going to be gone for more then an hour, like to the movies or dinner we leave the toys pack with treat and he has like six of them. But what we've notice is that the toys will be in the exact same place that we placed them before leaving. He ignores them completely. We once also left out some of our t-shirt so he would have our scent, but that didn't work.

Walks, he gets two 20 minute walks in the morning, 30 min. late evening walk and long walk in the afternoon (depending on the weather and hour walk or a run around the park).

You see, I mean we have done every by the book...I mean Like I sad he is so normal execpt when we leave he's side.

[littledog]

ovedio, I can sympathize with you. We have a similar situation with our dog, so if you ever reach a solution I'd love to know how you went about it. Our dog is still young (12 months) but has longstanding separation issues. We've tried everything by the book, including toys, kongs, increasing separation time, ignoring him upon returning, etc. He just ignores everything we leave for him to do, including kongs. We never leave him long. So far, he's never ben left longer than 20 minutes, but this is really starting to impact on the life of our family - for instance, we can't all go out as a family because someone always has to stay behind with the dog. We're thinking about trying to find another small dog to see if this will help reassure him when we're gone. Does anyone have any experience with this? I don't want to make the problem worse, just help him relax, and give him something to do until we return.