Dog Separation Anxiety
How to Cure a Dog’s Anxiety Issues
Dog separation anxiety is a common issue that many dog owners have to deal with. It can be devastating to find that your dog is not able to handle being left alone for any length of time but there is hope. One of the most common reasons that separation anxiety develops is a lack of confidence in the dog. Just like humans, dogs need to be and feel loved and to feel safe –love gives you confidence. Does your dog lack attention from you?
What is dog separation anxiety?
Dog separation anxiety is when your dog starts to behave in a different way when they are home alone. He or she may whine, cry, or howl all day long. Destructive chewing is also a common occurrence – chewing wood furniture, causing damage in an attempt to find an escape route from the home, and destroying items left around the home are some of the results people have found when they come home.
Some dogs have a mild case of separation anxiety and others have a major, causing major destruction.
I’ve had some experience with dog separation anxiety. My very first greyhound chewed a section of our wall; taking a huge chunk out of the wall within a few hours alone.
How to cure separation anxiety in dogs.
The first step to fixing this problem is to determine what is causing the issue as well as the severity. The milder the case, the easier and quicker it will be to deal with the problem.
Causes of separation anxiety
There are several reasons that dog separation anxiety comes about but don’t fear it, there are a variety of ways this can be treated – mostly depending upon how severe it is.
A few of the more common reasons for dogs’ anxiety are:
- early separation from the mother
- abandonment issues
- if your dog feels a high-stress level in your home
- when a dog has trust issues
- low confidence/low self-esteem
Once the cause is determined, it will be easier to find what will work to cure the problem. Understanding is the most important
What can be done?
Anyone who has had the unpleasant experience of dog separation anxiety will undoubtedly want to find a cure. You have the choice of several ways to treat this issue; what you want the most is to have a normal routine with your dog so that you can all live a normal life without the stress caused by anxiety.
Some of the treatments you may want to consider include:
- Playtime – if you give your dog lots of exercises, enough to tire him or her out before you leave the home, you will find that your dog will sleep while you are away. Your dog may eventually associate a time to rest and relax with the time spent alone.
- Behavior modification – this method takes a while to take effect but is a permanent solution to the problem. Behavior modification takes time, commitment, and effort from both yourself and your dog. Obedience training is not effective for separation anxiety issues.
- Medication – you have the option to medicate your dog while you are away but this should not be considered a permanent solution. Before medicating your dog you will need to determine the severity of the condition. The purpose of the medication would be to help your dog gain his or her confidence back. You would want to work with the behavior at the same time as medicating your dog. Two of the more common types of anxiety medications for dogs are Fluoxetine and Clomipramine.
When trying to determine what will work best to help your dog, you should do your research and evaluation of the dog separation anxiety problem, and then you will be able to figure out what will work best.
