“My dog has separation anxiety” is one of the most overused terms I’ve heard in my consultations with my clients. You returning home to a messy living room or chewed up furniture, doesn’t always have an underlying cause of anxiety. It could also mean that your dog isn’t getting any! … (Exercise… Perv!)
Separation anxiety is essentially a condition where a dog exhibits signs of distress and extreme behaviour problems, in some cases, almost to the point of self-harm on separation from the owner. If you see even minor signs of it, it’s best to resort to positive reinforcement training techniques to desensitize the dog to his anxiety triggers. Nipping signs of anxiety in the bud is crucial as it doesn’t take time for this problem to escalate.
Signs of Separation anxiety in Dogs
- Excessive whining, barking and/or howling when you’re about to leave the house or after you leave your house
- Destructive behaviour inside the house (sometimes even after exercising him well)
- Digging and scratching at doors or windows attempting to reunite with their owners
- Urinating or defecating, especially where the humans of the house spend most of their time, like bed or couch
- Pacing
- Coprophagia (dog eating his own poop)
- Excessive whining on seeing the humans at the end of the day
- Drooling or panting
- Not eating or drinking in the humans’ absence
There could be a lot other signs apart from the ones I’ve listed out. The above-mentioned ones are the most common signs that are experienced by dogs having separation anxiety
Separation anxiety in crate
Crate anxiety is very common in a lot of households. This usually happens due to wrong crate training or lack of it. When I say ‘wrong crate training’ – if you have a puppy who cries inside the crate as soon as he’s put inside in it, or causes excessive vocalization inside the crate or runs away from you as soon as you try to put him in, you’ve crate trained your puppy wrong.
The crate needs to be a safe haven for your dog. Meaning, he should love going inside the crate and that space should provide him with comfort and comfort only. If you’re leaving your puppy inside the crate ONLY when you’re not around to supervise him, naturally the crate will start becoming an association of isolation for your puppy. In his mind, the crate makes his Hoomans disappear.
On the other hand, if you start leaving your dog inside the crate for long hours, without prior practice and ample stimulation, you’re going to return to a bored, frustrated and depressed dog.
The Solution – Spend a good amount of time crate training your puppy early on in life. Spend a lot of time hanging around the crate with your dog inside the crate. Keep reinforcing calm behaviour and ignore the vocalization. Once your dog is comfortable with that, start leaving your dog alone for short periods of time moving on to longer hours.
How to help separation anxiety in dogs
- Identify the triggers
Have you heard of Pavlov’s theory? As a way to dig deep into the learning procedure that involves pairing a stimulus with a conditioned response, Ivan Pavlov designed an experiment using a bell as a neutral stimulus with his dogs. As he gave food to the dogs, he rang the bell. Then, after repeating this procedure several times, he tried ringing the bell without providing food to the dogs. On its own, an increase in salivation in the dogs occurred immediately at the sound of the bell. This proves that dogs learn a great deal through association. The dogs then associated the bell ring with food.
When it comes to separation anxiety, your dog is associating minor behaviours like you packing the bag, wearing shoes, getting ready, etc with you leaving the house, thereby, him, alone.
Hence, in a lot of cases, the vocalization and anxious behaviours start happening before you leave your house. In almost every separation anxiety case, the dogs have their triggers. As a pet parent, it’s your job to identify these triggers and work with them.
- Desensitize your dog towards those triggers
Desensitizing your dog towards these triggers involves associating these triggers with something positive. An example would be to get ready, pack your bags and not go anywhere. Or leave the house for a couple of minutes and come back home. Repeating this multiple times a day can help ease the anxious behaviour the dog exhibits at these triggers.
Medication and solutions
Before we dive deeper into talking about medication for separation anxiety in dogs, you need to make sure any kind of medication or drug does not alter the dog’s personality in any way. If you see behavioural changes like lack of interest in surroundings or grogginess while administering any kind of behavior medication, you must let your veterinarian know so that they can consider adjusting or altering the dosage or using a different medicine altogether.
Oral medications
A few oral medications like Alprazolam, Amitriptyline, Diazepam are a few go-to options in terms of drugstore medications for separation anxiety. Apart from that, CBD oil administered in small dosages are also considered to be natural and effective when treating behavioural issued in dogs. These medications can be given to dogs directly (orally) or by mixing it in the dog’s food or treats. CBD solutions includes hemp chews given in limited quantities.
CLICK HERE for a full guide on CBD oils for dogs.
Essential oils
Some Essential oils have similar effects on a dog’s mind as humans. However, a dog’s nose is much more powerful and sensitive as compared to us. Hence, it’s vital to administer the concentration of the aroma. High concentration can do more harm than good.
Different oils are meant for different types of behavioural issues and sensitivities. Typically for separation anxiety, Sweet Orange, Lavender and Ylang Ylang are most commonly used.
CLICK HERE for a comprehensive guide to essential oils for dogs.
Calming collars
Dog collars function on scent-based treatment. However, instead of aromatherapy, they work on a chemical called pheromones. Pheromones are a type of chemical communication between members of a species. Calming collars are known to mimic natural cat/dog pheromones that help in calming them down a great deal in stressful situations.
Snuggle buddies
Snuggle toys meant for anxious dogs come in various forms. Some of them have removable packets inside of them that can be heated in the microwave and put back in. The warmth in the toy makes the pup feel comforted. Some snuggle toys have a heartbeat mechanism in them. The heartbeat sound makes the toy come alive to the dog and almost acts as a companion to him.
However, not all of these toys might be able to endure the voracious bite of dogs. So, if you’re sure your dog will rip the toy to pieces, keep the toy away from him.
Calming toys
There are so many options when it comes to picking up toys for dogs. Interactive, chewy, durable, plush, rubbery and so on. One such option is the Busy Buddy Calming Toy. These durable rubber toys are chamomile-scented for extra calming power. Stuff them with treats or your dog’s food to keep your dog focused and busy in your absence.
7 Training Tips for Separation anxiety
1. Exercise your dog well before leaving him alone
I’m very serious when I say 80% of all behavioural issues with the dogs I’ve trained stem from the fact that they’re under-stimulated. Dogs are active and agile beings. They NEED exercise to thrive and be sane. Unlike us, they’re not someone who’d be willing to skip a workout.
If you’re planning on leaving your dog alone for a few hours at home, make sure he’s tired just before you leave, so he can rest while you’re gone and stay out of trouble.
2. Leave him with something to keep him busy
An idle mind is a devil’s workshop. This is true in each and every living being’s case. If you’re planning on crating your dog for several hours, make sure you’re leaving him with ample things to do while you’re away.
A few examples would be putting his food in an interactive toy and leaving him durable and safe chew toys. Preparing a scavenger hunt of sorts with hidden treats and your dog’s favorite toys can be a fun way to exercise his mind while you’re away.
CLICK HERE for more tips on keeping your dog busy while you’re away.
3. Teach your dog to stay alone even when you’re inside the house
I cannot stress the importance of teaching your dog to be on his own for a few hours during the day. Not only does it help nip separation anxiety in the bud, but it also reduces your dog’s overall dependency on you. Meaning, if your dog’s whole and soul is dependent on you for physical and mental stimulation, you’re already setting him up for severe anxiety issues.
Right from puppyhood, it’s vital to teach your dog to settle down on his own on command. Apart from teaching him to be alone while you’re away, it also teaches your dog to settle down in a separate room when guests are over and allows you to have some me-time when needed.
READ MORE HERE on how to keep a dog entertained indoors.
4. Calming music and essential oils
A dog’s nose possesses up to 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses, compared to about six million in us. This itself magnifies the effects essential oils can have on our dogs as compared to us. Selected essential oils can really help calm down a dog’s nerves in case of fear or anxiety. However, not all aromatherapy oils may be safe for our pets.
Music therapy is also known to have calming effects on dogs. Just how we like listening to calm instrumental music while working or meditating, music can have similar effects on our dogs as well. While you’re away try leaving your dog with some calming music. You’ll be able to find tonnes of audios and videos on the internet.
5. Audiobooks or a recording of your voice
Countless dogs thrive on human companionship. For many of these dogs, even the voice of a human can help a great deal in easing anxiety. As offbeat as the solution sounds, it has worked in a lot of cases.
HERE is one such story.
When choosing an audiobook, either choose a children’s book which has multiple voices and modulations (it can help in stimulating dogs) or choose something that comes closest to your voice.
6. You coming back home should NOT be the highlight of his day
Coming home to a super happy, jumpy, whiny dog who goes crazy at your sight is definitely the highlight of the day for most of us. Controlling this excitement by ignoring the dog as soon as you come home can be the most difficult thing to do. But, trust me, you’ll be doing your dog a huge favor if you can pull it off.
When greeting a dog with separation anxiety issues, it’s important to keep it low-key. The reason being, with anxious dogs, over-excitement can quickly turn into anxiety. When we come home and allow the hyper behaviour, we’re helping the dog transition into anxiety. This can magnify the severity of separation anxiety in many dogs.
As soon as you come home, completely ignore the dog if he’s hyper and vocal. Wait a few minutes for your dog to calm down and transition into a more neutral zone from an over-excited one. As soon as that happens, go to your dog’s level and pet him. If he gets excited again, repeat the exercise.
When we favorably respond to our dogs’ whiny, jumpy behaviours, we’re encouraging them to stay in an anxious state of mind. What we give attention to is what we reinforce.
READ MORE on how to deal with jumpy dogs.
7. Make the crate a more positive place rather than just using it while leaving the dog alone
Crate training goes wrong when humans end up using it as a “time-out zone” for their dogs. The dogs get sent to their crate as a “punishment” for bad behaviour. DON’T EVER DO THAT. You’re setting your dog up to Hate the crate by doing so. After all this, leaving the dog alone in the crate for long hours WILL be a challenge.
Use the crate for fun stuff inside the house, like feeding the dog in the crate, giving treats inside the crate. Give the dog his favorite chew toy/ bone only inside the crate. Doing so will help in associating the crate with positivity in the dog’s mind and he would like going in the crate more often than not.
Separation anxiety in dogs can be a very challenging behaviour to deal with. However, with time, consistency and a little extra effort in training, it’s possible to work around the behaviour and co-exist happily and peacefully.