Separation Anxiety In Dogs

Meet Bob our youngest family member.

Bob suffers from separation anxiety, he’s 14 months old and we are his second owners. Poor Bob was given to us after his previous owners were unable to keep him due to various reasons, their reasons were completely unforeseen – so they are not to blame. As we had met Bob when he was a little puppy, my wife and I decided to take him in when he was six months old. Bob settled in well and got along well with our two other dogs and three cats (yes we now have a zoo! lol), that was until about three-four months ago.

We would go out for the day or dinner and when we came home, we would find things from inside the house, now outside in the backyard. Our dogs are house dogs, so they have their doggy door and they come and go as they please. It started off with just one item, then next time it was two or three items, then it was a few more, then he started dragging things outside and destroying them. This had to stop!

Bob looking miserable just before bedtime.

You’re probably thinking that we should just lock him outside when we’re out. . . This has been suggested… However it would not actually solve his anxiety, yes it would save our belongings, but poor Bob would still be psychologically traumatised. The other problem with this is, that one of our other dogs is a rescue dog, she was locked in a tiny yard and neglected when she was a puppy, and as result she completely freaks out if she’s locked outside. So we can’t lock the three outside, and we can’t lock Bob outside on his own, because the other two need access to the backyard to go to the toilet.

So Bob and I went to visit our vet last week as my wife and I were at our wits end, our vet is also an animal behavioural specialist! What a bonus! We have some medication to trial, while video recordings are made in our house while we’re out. We also have some un-training to do, such as pick up the car keys as though we’re going out, and then put the keys down on another bench etc. Training tricks like these are supposed to teach Bob, that keys don’t necessarily mean we’ll be disappearing, because keys rattling equals the start of his anxiety kicking in. We have a bunch of other things to do as well to break the ‘cues’ that we are leaving, it’s very time consuming and it also means not getting angry when he does take a step backwards – which is difficult, especially if he’s just majorly destroyed something. 

Bob ‘helping’ me build an office chair.

You’ve probably noticed that Bob doesn’t look happy in the photos. . . This is the look on his face constantly. He always looks worried/miserable. We take loads of photos of our furry family members, and unlike the others he never truly looks happy. I’ve been to the vet today to drop off our first recording for her to check out, here’s hoping that we can sort Bob’s anxiety out – for all involved.