New Dog Behavior

[pitc9]

Also, when you make your entrance back into the house, be sure not to make a big deal about it also. My Sierra suffers from SA and when I return home I don't make a big fuss. I just walk in the house and ignore her for a few minuets until I feel she's calmed down, then I shower her with lovin's .
Buddy has helped a GREAT deal with her SA, I am now able to leave them out of crates when we're not home (if I would have before, I wouldn't have a home left to come home to! She used to destroy anything she could sink her teeth into! )

[Giselle]

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about that! Thanks Pitc9 The goal of "alone training" is to slowly acclimate the dog to comfortably being alone. To accomplish this, you have to make your departures and arrivals as non-chalant as possible. Like Pitc9 mentioned, you'll have to wait until your dog is calm and quiet to pet and acknowledge her. Otherwise, you're going to reinforce her rambunctious behavior as OK and cause her to believe that you going away and coming back is a big deal (it shouldn't be).

I just now noticed you asked about the barking. LOL. Alone training covers all aspects of SA - the urinating/defecating, the barking, the destroying, etc. So if you successfully alone train her, then you should have eliminated the barking as well. I wish you lots of luck and hope you don't pull too much hair out ;] SA is extremely difficult to deal with because these dogs find the most obnoxious items to destroy and can't seem to be able to keep their mouths shut!

[BitsyNaceyDog]

I always thought that if a dog suffers from separation anxiety the worst thing you could do is to crate it. My sister-in-laws dog had SA and he would freak out when crated. He loved to sleep in his open crate, just don't close the door or watch out! We use a baby gate to keep our dogs confined to the kitchen while we are gone. The kitchen is big enough to where they don't feel too confined, yet they don't have access to the whole house either.

Often leaving a TV or radio on while you're away helps too.