Kris­tel-Marie Ram­nath

Sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety hap­pens when a dog that is su­per-at­tached to its own­er gets stressed when left alone.

Part 1 looked at the caus­es of sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety, and symp­toms to di­ag­nose sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety. Part 2 will dis­cuss pre­vent­ing sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety from de­vel­op­ing.

It may be dif­fi­cult to di­ag­nose that your dog is suf­fer­ing from sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety, es­pe­cial­ly when most dogs will not show any signs as long as you are with them. If you sus­pect that your dog is dis­tressed in your ab­sence, in­stalling a cam­era to ob­serve his be­hav­iour when you are not around is rec­om­mend­ed.

Learn­ing to cope with be­ing left alone is a very im­por­tant part of your dog’s train­ing and should start as soon as you get a new pup­py or dog. This will help to pre­vent sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety from de­vel­op­ing in the first place. The aim is to grad­u­al­ly in­crease the length of time that you leave your dog alone while cre­at­ing an as­so­ci­a­tion be­tween your ab­sence and a pos­i­tive ex­pe­ri­ence (such as treats and toys). Each dog is dif­fer­ent, and no two dogs will re­spond the same, so it is im­por­tant to progress at a pace that your dog is com­fort­able with.

Kong dog toy

The first step in­volves teach­ing your dog to “stay” while you move away (but re­main in the same room), al­ways re­ward­ing your dog when you re­turn. Build up to mov­ing pro­gres­sive­ly fur­ther away and for longer pe­ri­ods of time, the dis­tance and length of time de­pend­ing on your dog. If your dog re­acts or moves, do not re­ward and do not pun­ish, sim­ply go back to a short­er dis­tance or less time away. You want your dog to re­main re­laxed and un­con­cerned.

The next stage in­volves leav­ing the room and shut­ting the door, pro­gres­sive­ly stay­ing out­side the room for longer pe­ri­ods of time. If you have a glass door or bur­glar-proofed gate in your home, you can use these to start with. This way, your dog will still be able to see you even though you are not in the same room with him, and he can hear you as well, but he will not have phys­i­cal ac­cess to you. You can then progress to us­ing a sol­id door to sep­a­rate you and your dog, once he is com­fort­able be­ing left alone with a glass door or bur­glar-proofed gate sep­a­rat­ing you.

Dur­ing this stage, you should give your dog a puz­zle toy (such as a Kong stuffed with treats) to pre­oc­cu­py him while you are gone. If your dog has a toy to play with or a treat to gnaw on, he is far less like­ly to fo­cus on your ab­sence as he has some­thing to do rather than sit around get­ting bored. Once you reach the stage where your dog is hap­py to be left alone for up to an hour, leav­ing him alone for longer pe­ri­ods should pose no prob­lems.

Part 3 will look at treat­ing sep­a­ra­tion anx­i­ety that has al­ready de­vel­oped in dogs.

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