My dog had severe separation anxiety and after several methods, I ended up putting her on Clomicalm. We had to increase the dosage but eventually it worked. That, along with Xanax and behavior modification. I have the behavior modification papers if you are interested, I will mail them to you. However, my dog needed the Clomicalm and Xanax.

Debarking and shock collars are definitely out. It will cause pain and it does nothing for the anxiety. It just masks it. The problem will still be there. You need to look into the methods I used above. Please talk to your vet about that.

If you need the behavior modification papers, let me know and I'll send them to you.

Separation anxiety is a horrible thing for them. I had to take one dog to work with me b/c of it. As someone else on this thread said, maybe an older couple can watch him while you're gone.

I know what you're going through. I went through it for years.