Separation Anxiety/DistressIt’s natural for many puppies to experience anxiety when separated from their mothers and siblings; it’s an adaptive survival mechanism. A pup who gets separated from his family cries in distress, enabling Mom to easily find him and rescue him. Some dogs adapt to being alone without a problem but others that maybe were never alone when they were young or suffered a tramatic experience. Then there are those dogs that are bored or have been punished for doing dog things (couter surfing, digging in the trash, chewing on furniture etc) that view being alone as doggy paradise because they can do whatever they want.
Given the importance of a dog’s social needs, it speaks volumes about the dog’s adaptability as a species that we can condition them to accept being left alone at all! We’re lucky we don’t have far more problems than we do, especially in today’s world, where few households have someone at home regularly during the day to keep the dog company. Our program combines managment, classical conditioning, impulse control, and desensitization to help your dog be more settled when you are away. |
Management |
Start by dog proofing an area for your dog: Bathrooms, laundry rooms or any small room will do. For highly destructive dogs consider a door sheild which can protect the door along with other safety devices designed for small children. Pick up all loose items and provide plenty of safe chew items and activities. This can be a trial and error situation especially in the begining (Many of you might have taken these steps already).
Exercise pens are a good option if you do not have an area of your home you can dog proof. There are sturdy options available and some people have mounted them to the wall for larger dogs. Dog walkers, daycares, and pet sitting: These may be an option to look into. In the begining of behavior modification the it is ideal to limit the amount of alone time. Going to a daycare every day is not a healthy routine for most dogs especially those that are prone to anxiety. See if any family or friends are able and willing to watch your dog a few times a week while you are at work. The less time your dog spends alone while you are working on the behavior modification plan the faster the training will go. |
Counter ConditioningRelaxation Protocol |
Counter conditioning is the replacement of an undesirable or maladaptive response to a stimulus with a more desirable response, by means of conditioning procedures.
The destress your dog shows is the maladaptive response. The stimulus is your leaving. The desired response is relaxed and settled behavior. The conditioning procedures will consist of kong training and relaxation protocol. Once your dog is hungerly chewing on their kong whenever it is offered follow the instructions below: Give kong => walk into another room => come back take the kong Give kong => walk into the bathroom => come back take the kong Give kong => walk into bathroom, run water => come back take the kong Give kong => pick up purse/backpack/keys => come back take the kong Next step is to break down your leaving routines and add them into the kong routine. Make a list of what you do every time you leave your house. Observe your dog to identify when the anxiety starts referencing body language as laid out in the handbook and here. ((NEED LINK)) Do all of these tasks out of order and out of context before trying to put it all together. If at any time your dog leaves the kong to see what you are going you have gone too far too fast. Slow and steady is what will lead to lasting behavior change. An example of leaving list is below.
This program is the foundation for all other behavior modification programs. Its purpose is to teach the dog to sit and stay while relaxing in a variety of circumstances. The circumstances change from very reassuring ones with you present to potentially more stressful ones when you are absent. The purpose of the program is not to teach the dog to sit; sitting (or lying down, if the dog is more comfortable) is only a tool. The goals of the program are to teach the dog to relax, to defer to you, to enjoy earning a salary for an appropriate, desirable behavior, and to develop, as a foundation, a pattern of behaviors that allow the dog to cooperate with future behavior modification (generally desensitization and counter conditioning). This protocol acts as a foundation for teaching the dog context-specific appropriate behavior. The focus is to teach the dog to rely on you for all the cues as to the appropriateness of its behavior so that it can then learn not to react inappropriately.
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