Separation Anxiety...

[Tonya]

I just saw my aunt at a party today. She has four dogs and one of them has severe separation anxiety. My aunt got her at a shelter last year and she'd obviously been abused. My aunts says she literally has to take her everywhere. She'll eat through walls, thick gauged chain link fences, wood fences, etc... My aunt is afraid she'll hurt herself. I guess this poor dog has the most severe case my aunt has ever seen.

The only suggestion that I could think of is crating her, but my aunt said that the dog will make herself totally sick and hurt her own self even with that.

Any other suggestions?

[aly]

Well, if the dog is that bad, she needs to be medicated. I wouldn't normally suggest that, but if its a severe case, they really need to see a vet.

The thing is she needs to get the dog used to the crate VERY SLOWLY. Reece had BAD seperation anxiety when I adopted him. Crating helped immensely, but I didn't just throw him in there. I started with crates around the house with the doors propped open all the time. I moved all the dog beds and pillows into them so that the only comfortable place to sleep was the crates. I also put stuffed kongs, stuffed hollow bones, and string cheese (his favorite treat) in them all. He eventually learned that REALLY good stuff came from the crate and he started lingering in there longer and longer. Then I started shutting the door on him for short periods while I sat near the crate. I'd calmly let him out if he was calm. (Never treat a dog when they come OUT of the crate, only when they go IN). Then I started covering the crate with a sheet. That way he couldn't tell when I left. The first time I left him alone was maybe for 10 minutes and I kept gradually extending the time.

After a couple months of crating, he overcame a lot of the anxiety. Then I adopted Lolly and that really helped.

I know of a lot of other techniques, but the dog has it so bad that I doubt they'll work I think seeing a vet or behaviorist is the first step.

[Shelteez2]

She may want to think about seeing a behaviorist. The behaviorist may suggest drugs that the vet can give your aunt for her dog so that it can calm down enough to learn. The drug therapy in conjunction with behavior modification could help.


This was discussed on another board I visit a few months ago. I'll post the discussion for you.

Person 1:

Jack is a 7 year old Havanese. My parents are his 5th home, 3 of which were "garage" breeders, I'm assuming that's somewhere in between BYB and millers. So it's pretty obvious the little guy would have a few issues when he came to us - we just never thought separation anxiety would be this bad.

I thought we could crate him, make his world as small as possible until he felt he could handle more. But after today, there's no way. He'd hurt himself so badly if he were in a crate.

So the scenario is this. My dad is retired, and spends most of his time at home. My mom works full time, and comes home at lunch. This has worked since they got Jack on November 17th, but this week is different - this week my dad is out of town, so Jack is alone from 08:30 to 12:30, and from 1:30 to 4:30. They keep him gated in the bathroom when they're gone because of his marking when they're not around (he doesn't mark when they're around). They leave an item of clothing in there that smells like them (a shirt), the radio is on, they leave a full water dish (that's empty when they return) and a couple things for him to chew on (he ignores them).

Today when mom came home at lunch, she came home to sheer destruction in the bathroom. Every surface had been marked (he has a bellyband but he wasn't wearing it today. It doesn't matter if he wears it or not, he still marks). He had pooped, too - a lot. He pooped right in front of the baby gate - and that's where he spent most of his time on his hind legs, scrabbling/pawing at the gate. He was just covered in poop when mom got home, and she had to use a paint scraper to get dried poop off the floor.

The worst part is she found little drops of blood on the floor, from his paws working at the baby gate.

The same thing happened when she returned from work for the day at 4:30.

He gets himself worked into a frenzy... he pants like crazy, he drools like crazy, he continually paws at the gate... he's going to make himself sick if he continues like this. He's completely exhausted when she comes home. And so hot - all he wants to do when she takes him outside is lay in the snow and eat snowballs.

How the heck do we deal with this?

Person 2:

The Patricia McConnel book "I'll be home soon" is
probably the best book on how to treat SA out there.

With a dog this severe leaving the room at all is moving much too fast -- even for just a second. The protocol for working with SA is too complicated to describe here -- you'd be much better off buying the booklet. You can buy it through http://www.dogwise.com

Also, as extreme as this dog is you might want to put him on anti-anxiety medication. This will be short-term until you can get through enough of the behavior modification treatment plan that he's comfortable with short departures.

Person 1:

This is what I don't understand about SA - what do we/they do in the meantime? Mom has to work, dad has to leave the house for a couple hours at a time here and there...

Person 2:

In the meantime you medicate him. If you can't do that, then you create two places to keep him -- one that is safe where he can't do any damage. This is the place where he'll go when you actually leave the home. The other is the place that you work on conditioning him to feel comfortable in. This is the place where you will practice desensitization sessions, where you work your way through the leaving routine, and where you don't actually leave until he is 100% fine with it. This is where he will eventually be left when you leave once he's feeling good about you leaving.

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I hope that wasn't too confusing to follow. And I hope it explains a bit of what I meant by seeing a behaviorist and a vet for some meds.

[aly]

Yeah thats what I meant to say - the meds in conjunction with the behavior modification so that you can wean the dog off the meds. I hope I didn't sound like I was suggesting to medicate the dog forever I'm tired and sick so I don't think my words are coming out right. Sorry if I'm confusing !

[Tonya]

Good information! I'll forward that on to my aunt. Thank you.