Did you know the pain faced by humans during panic attacks is similar to separation anxiety experienced by dogs? Certified separation anxiety trainer says.
We might be familiar with panic situations where our heartbeat goes to a high level, the mouth gets dry, and the body releases extra sweat. This is exactly what our dogs experience when we leave them alone in a home, resulting in mild distress such as whining, pacing, and sometimes injuring themselves while attempting to escape.
This happens when your pet isn’t well trained to be separated from their loved one.
In this blog, we’ll share all about separation anxiety and how we can prevent further damage caused by it. Let’s start with…
Table of Contents
What is Dog Separation Anxiety?
Dog separation anxiety is a stress response when they’re left alone by their loved ones. Commonly they experience stress, fear, or anxiety which can happen to every age of every breed.
Dogs are social animals and want to be around us 24/7. When they’re not trained to understand that alone time is just a normal thing and people return after a while, they learn to fear being left.
This extreme fear can triggered when the most adored person leaves a dog alone and the dog takes it as if they had been abandoned. Symptoms of anxiety may be mild, moderate, or severe and cause damage to property in the home or self-injury to dogs.
Causes of Dog Separation Anxiety
There is no exact conclusion as to why dogs develop separation anxiety, but far more dogs who are adopted from shelters have these issues than those who a single family raises from their early life. Even small changes can lead to these disorders. Some examples:
Change in Guardianship or Family: when puppies get a new home and start a new life with them, they might develop a sense of separation anxiety.
Change in Residence: Shifting to a new residence possibly triggers separation anxiety.
Change in Schedule: It’s common to have a change in a person’s schedule, but dogs never understand it. Instead, they tend to develop separation anxiety. For instance, if there is a holiday vacation for a month and the owner spends most of their time with the dog, a new routine will be established for dogs. But with the end of the vacation, they’ve to return to a work life, and this shift could trigger the development of separation anxiety in dogs.
Change in Household Members: Uncertain death or moving away from one place to another can make dogs feel the absence of members of the family and develop potential separation anxiety.
Sign of Dog Separation Anxiety
Said earlier, dog separation anxiety could happen to every age and every gender of every breed, but most commonly, it can be seen more in below 2-3 years of age.
There are different levels of severity of dog separation anxiety. Commonly in less severe cases, dogs might refuse to eat unless there are people around, while in the high-end, dogs might show extra aggression and may destroy home belongings including their crates, and even try to escape by breaking windows, just to find their family.
Every dog has their own way of reacting the situation but the most common are excessive barking/whining, drooling, and house soiling. Some dogs might lick their own body spots until they cause wounds, while anxious dogs may follow people from room to room when people are at home and never want to be separated.
If you’ve anxious dogs, never be surprised if they urinate or defecate (even if they’re well toilet trained) in the home when you leave them alone.
Unfortunately, some owners never believe these things happen when their pet suffers from separation anxiety, rather, it’s the naughtiness of their pet, and end up punishing them (sometimes)
How to Prevent Dog Separation Anxiety
Before heading on, it’s essential to know what exactly is causing the anxiety in dogs. Some cases might be caused by boredom, frustration, or maybe fear. Identifying the real cause helps the owner to take further steps to treat it.
Most of the time, providing mental and physical exercise could work better to keep them happy and healthy. If they’re not getting enough exercise, their unused energy makes them feel weird, and they could potentially start searching for something where they can show their energy level. It could be chewing brand-new furniture or carpet or something that you don’t want to be destroyed (it may be your favorite shoe).
Sometimes, if your pet has gone through something unusual when you left them alone, it could trigger their fear and anxiety. That’s why understanding the real cause helps way better for preventing these things.
After that, you can do these things:
Introduce training
We know you’re well aware of how training plays a crucial role in making a dog happy, especially if it’s positive reinforcement.
It means training has a great role in preventing separation anxiety in dogs. If you’re unsure about it–we got you. To start separation training, you can begin by knowing how long your dog can sit happily when they’re left on their own. For this, you can leave the room and shut the door behind you, just to prevent your dog from following you. But, remember to pay close attention to your dog’s stress level. If there is a high stress, get them quickly.
Once you’re aware of this happy time, you can introduce a practice session of leaving them, just for the time you identified. But before that, there must be a well-maintained environment for a practice session by keeping harmful and dangerous material away from their reach. If possible, the camera works better to keep your eyes on every behavior.
Remember to give enough physical exercise before training. Make them comfortable by providing enough food and toys to keep them engaged with them. This helps dogs to associate separation as a good time and surely the person will come back after a while.
Confidence build-up
If you’ve fearful and anxious dogs, this is more useful to understand for getting success in training.
When the confidence level is low in any dogs, they become more fearful and anxious, which can be reduced by rewarding them. Praise with high-value food works way better to boost confidence, just like humans.
You can start boosting their confidence by practicing other known behaviors such as sitting, down, and paw, or teaching them other new tricks. Try to reward any independent behavior that your dog shows unintentionally with gentle praise.
Encourage Dogs to be Independent
From birth, puppies used to be taken care of by their mother 24/7 and built a habit of dependence on them. After distancing from their mother, their dependency shifts to new parents and they seek attention anytime like they used to get from their mother.
This is how anxiety develops in dogs, and now we’ve taught them to be independent. If your pet is anxious and never wants to be separated from you, even for a short time, you can teach it to settle on its own.
To do this, you can do simple things such as giving food toys or dog chews and placing them on foot while you’re watching a movie or doing some work. Make this habit and gradually increase the distance each time. This way, you’ll teach your dog to settle down and engage in activities without you. Also, you can go in and out while they’re busy on the food.
Remember it’s just training and never expect the result quickly. Sometimes, it might work within a week or could take a month of session. Be consistent with the training and try to make it fun, whether it’s by giving dog chews or interactive toys of Hugsy Pets Nepal. This is how you can prevent separation anxiety from your dogs.
