Separation anxiety can have a massive impact on everyone’s quality of life.  It can also leave you feeling stuck and resentful.   There may be issues with your neighbours due to barking and you may start to harbour some resentment towards your dog as you feel you can’t leave the house and when you do there is destruction or toileting inside the house when you return.

If your dog settles into their crate with the door open it’s a good sign that they view this as their safe space

What is Separation Anxiety

Our dogs form strong attachment bonds with us.  We meet all their needs for food, shelter and affection so it can be difficult for them to tolerate separation.  They are pack animals and need their pack to feel safe.  Dogs with separation anxiety genuinely start to panic when they are left alone.  They may act it out with barking, whining, property destruction or toileting inside the house.  Or they may try hold it in with more pacing, panting, drooling, self-mutilation, vigilance and refusal of food treats and more.  Dogs with separation anxiety rarely sleep or eat when left alone. 

This can be differentiated from boundary frustration or fear of confinement.  Dogs with low impulse control with a fear of confinement have been known to try and eat their way through a metal crate even if you are in the room and similarly jump stairgates when you are standing right at the stairgate. Boundary frustration may form part of the puzzle that we need to solve, because in order for us to leave them there may need to be a boundary involved.

What isn’t it

If your dog has a light moan when you leave, alert barks at the postman while you are out but then eats treats left out and sleeps soundly for the rest of the time this is not separation anxiety.  If they are sound phobic they may bark when you are out at sounds of vehicles or birds, but they may also bark at the same stimulus when you are at home.   If they have been routinely traumatised in a crate they may bark, cry, urinate and defecate in their crate even if you are still in the room – this is crate trauma and not separation anxiety.  Setting up a nanny cam can really help identify what exactly is going on.

How does it develop?

Dogs have several different critical early periods of socialisation during which they need to comfortably and happily experience all aspects of what will form part of their adult life.  Two aspects of this socialisation are critical:

  1. Comfortably experiencing a boundary such as a stairgate or confinement such as in a crate while less than 16 weeks old
  2. Being left alone for at least an hour while less than 16 weeks old

During the various lockdowns through the pandemic a dog may have missed out on being truly left alone, or even left with a puppy sitter.

Research conducted by Furbo found that some breeds are more prone to separation anxiety than others, including pups such as Border Collies, Jack Russell Terriers, German Shepherds, Vizslas and German Shorthaired Pointers.

Separation anxiety may co-exist with a range of other anxieties such as visitors to the house, fear reactivity to other dogs, people or vehicles outside the house.  Where multiple issues exist it’s critical to get professional help because your dog may be triggering fight or flight level responses several times a day and they may be learning that the world is in fact an unsafe place.  This will make it very difficult to ‘cure’ their separation anxiety.

How to prevent Separation Anxiety?

Set up a ‘safe haven’ for your dog at home and teach them that this is their safe space by giving them all the treats, toys, food and even training and attention in this space.   Never imprison them or frighten them in this space.  Don’t allow other pets or children to invade this space and never remove them by force always lure them out with a treat.  Make sure you leave your puppy happily alone for short periods from the first few days after they arrive home.   Make sure you leave your puppy with someone else for short periods too.

How to cure it

  • Stop the stress

Before we can even start working on Separation Anxiety you have stop leaving them!  You’ll need to find solutions to daily issues which are currently requiring you to leave them which may mean taking them out with you on the school run in the car or asking a family member to puppy sit whenever you leave.  The critical thing for your dog is that stop repeating this cycle of fear, anxiety and stress.

  • Condition a Safe Haven

There are several aspects to dealing with separation anxiety.  Firstly, conditioning a dog to feel blissed out in their safe haven takes time and patience.  It’s well worth getting this right first.  I suggest using an adaptil pet pheromone diffuser and white noise in this space as well as giving them the lion’s share of their daily food allowance in long lasting kongs, snuffle mats, lick mats and treat dispensers.  Ask a professional about your set up.   A well covered crate in a playpen or separate room can be ideal but there are no one-size fits all solutions.  All dogs are different, but as a guide I’d allow at least few weeks to get this sorted before moving on, you’ll know when it is sorted because they will be choosing to be in this space.

  • Teach them that Confinement is Safe

Teach them that barriers keep good stuff in rather than preventing them from getting out.   They can relax and feel safe.  If you have a stairgate, then leave them with a treat ball or scatterfed food when you first close the stairgate.    If there are in a crate then sit next to the crate and trickle feed them through the bars of the crate.  

  • Desensitise the separation

Once they are comfortable with confinement then we are in a position to start introducing separation.   Separation training responds well to desensitisation whereby you start with very very small separations and incrementally increase them, sometimes just a few seconds is enough to start with.  It can be easy to start with when you only leave them for less than a minute at a time, but can be labour intensive when you are leaving them for 10 minutes at a time several times a day.  You have to make sure you include the various ‘tells’ that you are actually leaving like car keys jingling and putting coats on too.  Avoid making a huge fuss of them when you leave and when the get back, just let them know you are going out and that you are back so that they can pick up from you that this is an everyday experience.