Separation, Anxiety, Barking: Dogs and people

Anxiety is one of the biggest problems that people ask me about. One of the next biggest is dogs not wanting to eat, and barking is way up at the top, too. I’ve written about all of these here at The Dish.

Until we can calm our own minds and hearts, we’re not going to have a lot of luck with calming our dogs.

The steps to turning separation anxiety into rest are pretty easy when it’s a simple matter of moving the dog’s mind to a better place. And the steps have been written down a million times by trainers and authors. There are great books on the subject, please do buy some and learn all you can about why dogs do the things they do when they fear. Watch “It’s Me or the Dog” on TV. Victoria Stilwell is a really good positive trainer. Go to some training seminars if you. Talk to people who have well behaved dogs to see how they did it. Please do stay away from any TV show that tells you to hang, alpha roll, excessively exercise, or pressure your dog, it doesn’t work and it will make matters worse.

There are so many dogs barking when they are left alone. Dogs refusing food. Dogs being turned in over and over again to rescue because they aren’t calm, “good” or “normal” dogs. And the people who love the dogs are just as confused as the dogs are.

I feel a soap box coming on so let me just step up here for a minute. I feel like writing, so here we go. LOL!

Separation anxiety is hard on our dogs and on us and anyone who hears a dog making the noises of “left behind”. Each time it happens, it gets worse, it grows on itself. Our goal is to help the dog learn to be alone, safe and not concerned about our departure or our return. You will probably have to work on this with each dog first, and then with them together. One’s fear may be feeding on the other’s anxieties.

I believe that our dogs are just like us in many ways. We both have beating hearts, brains, physical bodies filled with energy so it makes sense to me. We lock pain, abuse, loss, changes, and even experiences that were beyond our control inside our physical body. It’s impossible to function with any element of true happiness and joy when that memory holds us hostage. I know I sound a little wacky and eccentric to some people (the dogs never question me) but if it’s true and maybe I’m right, if our energy gets stuck and our physical bodies hold this junk in, what’s the harm in trying to let it out?

For all of you cynics out there, maybe you can think about it like this. If your computer doesn’t have a virus, running a virus checker won’t hurt your computer. But if there is a virus, running the checker will find it so you can release it from your computer and everything starts to work safely and properly again. You don’t have to know how to program a virus checker or know how it works exactly and you don’t have to know what the ‘virus’ looks like or where it is  for the program to do it’s job. Let me explain.

Our bodies are like our computers. We hold that ‘virus’, heartache, loss, hurt, fear, uncertainty, inside until it cripples us. We might still turn on and off and do some things but we’ll never do it all without an argument or an occasional control, alt, delete. We won’t do it with a happy heart. As adult, intelligent people, you’d think we’d understand how to let those old memories go, that we can think and will and move our way to complete health. But there are so many things beyond our surface daily lives, beyond our conscious brain, that we just haven’t found how to do that yet. We haven’t because that’s not how were made.

When was the last time you were feeling sad or angry again over an old hurt? You reached for food to feel better? You had a drink to forget your pain? Reached out for a person who you knew wasn’t going to give you what you wanted just because they were the only one there? Were lonely because you weren’t confident that you could entertain yourself? Had a fight because somebody’s words wounded you? Those kinds of thoughts and feelings are the reason we make poor choices. Choices as simple as where to eat lunch all the way to the person or the dog we choose to live with. Those thoughts and feelings are so strong sometimes, they’re beyond our control…until we get unstuck and get our energy flowing again.

Our dogs go through that too. I don’t believe the dogs and we harbor grudges and bad memories because we want to be mean or afraid, we do it because we’re stuck. In a person it looks like mean and uncaring, pouting, sad, angry, abusive. In a dog it looks like separation anxiety, growling and biting.

I do believe that dogs hold memories just like we do, and they react when something triggers the memory. I see it in rescue dogs all the time. A dog bites a man in a grey hat. Why? Maybe a man in a grey hat tried to drown him when he was little. It doesn’t matter what the thing is or what happened back then, if we can help release the old memory so he and we can move again, I think we’ll all heal. Sometimes it’s simple behavior therapy and confidence building. All too often that’s not enough, we all need some hands on healing.

I believe that dogs live in the moment when they are well and stress free, that is their ‘natural’ way. When they’ve been hurt or they are holding in fear, they can’t move past it without some help. It’s our natural way, too, and we can get there, too, to live in the moment. To love every moment for the rest of this lifetime. It’s called peace.

Before somebody says I’m going to far with the love and peace thing and the moment to moment thing, do a virus check. Are you stuck? Are you living in love, acceptance, and true happiness? Can you smile and mean it when you wake up in the morning?

I’m saying that if you get unstuck, get your energy flowing again, you’ll make better choices and moment by moment, you’ll enjoy your life. And you’ll be better able to work with your dogs to help them get unstuck, too.

Wouldn’t that be nice! Our dogs waking up with us, happy and joyful, and no matter what gets thrown at us daily, we will have our living in the moment, natural wellness. It doesn’t mean that we don’t plan for the future or that nothing bad will ever happen to us or around us. It means that there is a better way.

I believe that we are connected to our dogs and every other being. You can read that ‘spirit’ or ‘soul’ or simply energy, whatever fits into your belief. I believe that when we are hurt, in fear or pain, that we’re just stuck, our energy can’t flow through us. Like a clogged drain or a broken plug in. When that happens, our love and our energy and our help can’t flow through to all other beings. If you’ve ever had a really strange thought, something so totally out of the blue for you, that’s probably not your thought at all. Let it pass on through, it’s for someone else’s lesson today.

I get long winded sometimes. It’s because I love the dogs and I love people and I want the whole world to be a better place. Wouldn’t it be nice if all the dogs and all the people could just be?

Let’s help the dogs and all the people that we know heal and lose this fear and anxiety. If you’re a person and you’d like to know what I do to try to stay in the moment, Ask Darcie. I’m not perfect, I may not always do the perfect thing, but I’m right here and I’m still doing the best I can. I really do love my life.

If you’ve tried everything for anxiety relief in your dog, you might like to read this. You might like this article I wrote, click on this link Anxiety and Fear. Click on the other links in that article. I’d suggest that you try the simple things before going to the exercise. It could be that your dogs simply don’t know that you’re coming back.