Your Complete Guide to Separation Anxiety in Dogs
Separation anxiety in dogs can become a source of frustration and stress for you as a dog owner. No one wants to leave their dog alone when she’s whining and crying, but at the same time you can’t sit around babysitting your dog every day. Dog separation anxiety, put simply, is when a dog feels an intense anxiety every time she can’t be near you. As I’ll explain, this anxiety is deeply rooted in a dog’s basic survival instincts, so it’s a natural phenomenon and requires a careful approach to overcome. As with any dog training that requires you to train against natural instincts, you’ll need to be patient. But first, let’s look at why separation anxiety in dogs happens in the first place. Then we’ll discuss how to recognize separation anxiety in dogs, and finally some methods you can use to combat the problem.
Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Dogs Are Pack Animals
The first step to understanding why separation anxiety in dogs develops is to learn about how dogs live in the wild – in packs. Dogs are descended from wolves and they still have the same strong pack mentality imprinted in their genetic code. If you’re a wild dog, your pack is your lifeline. If you end up on your own your chances of surviving drop dramatically. This is especially true for dogs at the bottom of the pack hierarchy, who have little or no hope of catching food on their own.
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Causes of Separation Anxiety in Dogs
You may already start to see where I’m going with this. In the wild, getting separated from the pack and ending up alone means almost certain death for a dog. So you can see why many dogs are afraid of being alone as if that equals death itself – because in their genetic code, being alone does equal death! It not only severely restricts their ability to find food, it also opens them up to attack by other animals. That’s why being alone is so terrifying. The same is actually true of human beings, which is why small children cling to their parents and immediately get distressed if they get lost. As humans we are socially conditioned to understand that being alone is not the end of the world and we aren’t going to die because of it.
So now you can clearly see why separation anxiety in dogs happens. Your dog will see her human family as her pack, and usually she’ll see who feeds her and walks her the most as being the pack leader. As soon as she is separated from the pack, especially the pack leader, she will panic. It’s simply her natural instinct kicking in and telling her, “If you don’t find your pack right now you’re done for!”
You can also begin to see the solution to the problem here: you have to condition her to let her know that when she’s alone she’ll be safe. Nothing is going to attack her and she’s not going to starve.
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Symptoms of Separation Anxiety in Dogs
So now you know where separation anxiety in dogs originates from, but how do you actually know when the problems your dog is suffering are a result of dog separation anxiety or something else? Well, dog separation anxiety is fairly easy to recognize because, not surprisingly, it happens when your dog is separated from you.
Here are the telltale signs that your dog is suffering from anxiety every time you leave her alone:
- she’ll whine in a high pitched tone
- she may scratch at the door of the room she’s in
- in some cases she might wet herself
- she might also engage in destructive behavior
These are all signs you’ll see when you leave your dog alone, but there are also signals of separation anxiety when you’re with your dog. For instance, a dog suffering dog separation anxiety will often feel the need to constantly sit in your lap or follow you as closely as possible.
I recommend you also read the other pages on this site, Stop Dog Barking and How to Create a Happy Dog.
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Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Puppies
Separation anxiety is totally natural in puppies, and in fact there are few puppies that won’t experience this problem to some degree. Some will simply get over it on their own as they grow up – others will require the application of some of the techniques explained at the end of this article. In any case, just recognize that it’s totally normal for a pup to want to be around you all the time. If you don’t want your pup to get into the habit of sleeping on or in your bed, be prepared to go through a few nights of whining. Pups are not used to sleeping on their own – when you get a new pup she has just been taken away from her mother and all her littermates, who she is used to sleeping with every night. This is a big shock to the system.
There are a few things you can do to ease this early separation anxiety in dogs at nights and get your pup used to sleeping on her own. For example, you can provide her with a heat pad or a microwaveable wheat bag. This provides warmth and something to nuzzle up to, which helps replace the feeling of cuddling up to her mother and brothers and sisters. Leaving a TV or radio playing in the background is another often used technique to help a pup feel more comfortable. The ticking of a clock can also be useful, as this mimics the natural rhythm of a heartbeat.
Even with all these things, you can still expect to get some resistance from pup for the first few nights at least. She will probably make a lot of noise. It’s important you don’t give in and let her jump into bed with you unless you want this to become the normal thing. Dealing with dog separation anxiety requires a bit of firmness and “tough love” on your part.
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Separation Anxiety in Dogs : Rescue Dogs
As well as puppies, separation anxiety in dogs is also a common problem with rescue animals. When a dog ends up at a rescue organization it’s typically because her previous owner couldn’t handle her, which is due to the general lack of knowledge out there about how dogs think and how they should be trained and treated. So sometimes a rescue dog will come with some “baggage.” If a dog owner doesn’t train separation anxiety out of their dog at a young age, that anxiety with stick with the dog as she grows up.
Eliminating dog separation anxiety with a rescue dog follows the same process as you’d use with a puppy or an adult dog that you haven’t trained properly in the past. But with rescue dogs you need to tread extra carefully, because you don’t know what their experiences have been like with past owners. Some rescue dogs will have had abusive owners – others will have had owners who let them do whatever they wanted. Inexperienced dog owners generally deal with dog behaviour they don’t understand by trying to alter the behaviour with force and punishment, or simply giving up and letting the dog misbehave.
So if you have a rescue dog with separation anxiety, take things slow. Try to be sensitive to what her past experiences might have been – is she particularly submissive? She might have been treated harshly by a previous owner. Is she bold and seems to think she’s in charge of the house? Chances are she has never has any real training and discipline, so you’ll need to give her that structure.
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Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Separation Anxiety Urination
As I mentioned above, separation anxiety in dogs can sometimes lead to urination problems when you’re not around. It’s important to make a distinction between separation anxiety urination and a simple lack of housetraining.
Let me clarify what I mean here. If you leave a puppy alone in a room there are two reasons she might wet herself. One is because she’s anxious and that anxiety leads to urination. The other is that she simply hasn’t been housetrained properly and she can’t hold her bladder for the time you’ve left her alone without being able to get outside. In both cases, the result is the same: she pees on the floor. But the solutions are different. In the first case, you need to treat her dog separation anxiety. In the second case, you need to work on housetraining.
So how do you know when urination is happening because of separation anxiety? Because you’ll see the other signs of separation anxiety in dogs discussed above – things like whining and scratching at doors.
Now how do you treat the problem? You do it the same way you’d treat any dog with dog separation anxiety. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first let’s discuss one other ugly way separation anxiety can pop up.
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Dog Separation Anxiety and Destructive Dog Behaviours
Many dog owners have to deal with dogs who destroy everything in site every time they’re left alone. This can be very frustrating, especially if you don’t understand why it’s happening. Sometimes destructive chewing can be the result of nothing more than boredom, but often it’s actually the result of separation anxiety in dogs. This is probably the case if your dog has a tendency to chew up items that carry your scent every time you’re not around – shoes, socks and clothes for example.
Many owners react the exact wrong way to this problem, getting angry and yelling. Punishing your dog in a situation like this only creates confusion. Your dog will associate any reward or punishment with whatever she just did, so if she chewed up a shoe an hour previously and you come home and punish her – she’s not going to know what’s going on. She’ll just end up confused and afraid of you. 
The solution, again, is to treat the dog separation anxiety at its source.
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How to Deal with Separation Anxiety in Dogs
Alright, the part you’ve been waiting for: how to cure separation anxiety in dogs. As I already hinted earlier on, the key is to condition your dog to be comfortable when she’s alone. You can do this using a combination of tactics and techniques.
Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Don’t Make a Big Deal of Leaving
One of the ways owners make separation anxiety in dogs worse without realizing it is by making a huge fuss over their dog just before they leave the house. They make the assumption that by giving their dog lots of attention before they leave, the separation won’t be so bad. In fact the opposite is true. When you go from giving your dog lots of positive attention to suddenly not being there, it actually makes the anxiety more intense.
So what’s the answer? Simply don’t make a fuss of your dog before you have to leave her alone. In fact, you should go out of your way to ignore and anxious dog for a good ten minutes before you leave the house. Don’t look at her, don’t talk to her, don’t pay her any attention at all. Doing this will mean she won’t feel such a sudden withdrawal of attention when you leave.
Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Don’t Make a Fuss When You Come Home
The flipside to not making a fuss when you leave is not indulging in your dog’s excitement when you get home. An anxious dog will generally be bursting with energy and ready to jump all over you when you get home. If you immediately get down and pet and praise her, you’re actually rewarding and reinforcing her behavior. Instead, just ignore for ten to fifteen minutes after you get home. You generally want the dog to see you leaving the house and coming home as “no big deal.”
Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Leave Her Some Entertainment
Now, while these two tactics can definitely help ease the problem, they’re usually not enough to solve it on their own. That’s where entertainment comes in handy. I’ve already mentioned the idea of leaving a TV or radio on for a puppy when you want her to sleep on her own. The same can be done with any dog experiencing separation anxiety. The constant sound of voices in the background makes her feel less alone.
It’s also a good idea to leave her something to keep her mind occupied – namely, toys. Chew toys are a great tool for combating dog separation anxiety. One toy I recommend you invest in is a Kong – this is a rubbery toy with a hole through the middle. You can fill up this hole with some sort of food (peanut butter works a treat) and then give it to your dog. She’ll spend a good ten minutes trying to lick all the peanut butter out of it. If you give it to her a few minutes before you leave the house, she might hardly even notice you’re leaving.
But you also need to leave her something to chew on for a long time, if you’re going to be leaving her alone for hours. Nylon bones are a good option here – they give her something to do to take her mind off you, and to prevent her from chewing up your clothes if she’s prone to destroying things when she gets anxious. It’s quite possible to train your dog to direct her chewing tendencies towards toys that you say are okay. This is much more effective than trying to stop chewing altogether, since chewing is a natural dog behaviour.
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Training Your Dog: Make Use of the Crate
Now we get to the real granddaddy, the “heavy weapon” of dealing with separation anxiety in dogs. I say that because it’s so effective, not because it’s in any way cruel to your dog. Believing that crating a dog is cruel is a common misconception many dog owners have. The crate can be your best friend for keeping your dog happy and under control as long as you use it right. Problems arise with crates when the crate is too small for the dog to be comfortable, when the owner leaves the dog in the crate for too long or when the owner doesn’t introduce the crate the right way to get the dog comfortable with it. When you do crate training properly, your dog will see her crate as her safe haven against the world, so she won’t get anxious when she’s left in there alone. Here’s how you can crate train your dog:
- First you need to make sure you get a crate that’s big enough. Buy a crate which is large enough so your dog can comfortable stand up and turn around without touching the sides or roof.
- Start out by giving your dog her meals in her crate. If you have a new puppy you can start this right from the beginning to create an early positive association. When you feed her in her crate she’ll develop a positive feeling towards this space. Let her eat with the crate door open at this point.
- After you have allowed her to eat her meals in the crate for a few days, she should start to get comfortable with it. Now you can start to close the door while she eats – but don’t lock it, so she can come out when she feels like it.
- After a few days of doing this, you can start locking your dog in the crate for short periods. You should stay nearby when you do this. Try to let her out before she gets uncomfortable and starts to whine. When she comes out reward her with some treats, hugs and praise.
- Now you can gradually start to increase the time you leave her in the crate. Try to increase a few minutes at a time at first. The idea is to let her out before she stresses out or gets uncomfortable.
- At least, once she’s fully accustomed to the crate and feels comfortable there, you can start leaving her in it when you have to go out for several hours at a time. Leave a chew toy or two in with her and she’ll be perfectly happy.
Where most owners make a mistake is that they simply try to cram their dog into a crate and leave her there for hours the first time. This gives the crate a negative association, so when you put her in there she’ll actually get more anxious. There’s no magic in the crate itself – it’s all about the positive association you’re creating.
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Why This Works – The Den Principle
As I already explained dogs are pack animals, and that’s why separation anxiety in dogs occurs. Well, dogs are also den dwelling animals – they naturally prefer to live in a den with their pack. When you condition your dog to the crate you’re actually creating a kind of “artificial den.” This is her area to feel safe against any threats that might be “out there” in the world. One of the other big benefits of this is that dogs are naturally clean animals and they won’t go to the toilet in their den. If your dog is urinating every time you leave the house because of anxiety problems, the crate should be able to solve the problem. It’s also useful for general housetraining – for example, for dogs who can’t last the night without needing to pee.
This illustrates a very basic principle of training your dog that you should always remember. You should try to use your dog’s natural instincts to your advantage whenever you can, instead of stubbornly trying to change behaviors that are built in genetically. As with any exercise in training your dog, you need to be patient when trying to cure separation anxiety in dogs. Results won’t come immediately but if you follow these principles and stay consistent, you’ll notice the problem starts to disappear.
Go to the top of this page,
Separation Anxiety in Dogs
Also visit the other very informative pages on this site,
jump to Stop Dog Barking, Choosing a Dog, Dog Wisperer and How to Create a Happy Dog
If you are interested, I will suggest that you also visit my site Fish Oil for Dogs.