5 Things to Do to Resolve Your Dog’s Separation Anxiety

Separation anxiety is one of the most challenging behavioral issues a dog guardian can face. If you’ve ever returned home to find doorframes chewed or furniture destroyed, dealt with noise complaints from neighbors because your dog incessantly barks while you’re gone, or guiltily watched your dog tremble, whine, howl, or pace on your home security camera while you’re away, you know just how difficult this condition can be. Separation anxiety is more than just a minor inconvenience, it’s a very serious problem that affects a dog’s mental and physical health, as well as your quality of life. Fortunately, it can be resolved. With the right methods, your dog can learn to relax and even enjoy alone time!

Let’s dive into the five best strategies to employ to resolve your dog’s separation anxiety, so you and your dog can get back to living a happy, more relaxed life together!

1.) Temporarily Suspend Absences

This means avoiding leaving your dog home alone for any longer than they can comfortably handle. This takes some strategizing, however, it’s a crucial step to overcoming separation anxiety so you and your dog can eventually live a normal life without needing to suspend absences ever again. It’s an important means to an end!

See, any time your dog is left alone long enough to reach the point of fear and panic, their separation anxiety gets worse. If you want to change their mind about alone time and teach them that it’s nothing to be scared of, it’s imperative to protect them from the very thing that they’re afraid of while you slowly train them to feel comfortable being alone. Enlisting the help of dog sitters, daycares, friends, family members and other support will help you suspend absences and move forward effectively towards resolution.

2.) Consult With Your Veterinarian About Anxiety Medication and/or Supplementation

The choice to utilize meds/supplements is a personal one and not to be taken lightly. However, many dogs fare significantly better on the right medication(s), enabling them to overcome their anxiety faster and more efficiently. There’s a lot to consider when deciding on medication such as efficacy, potential side effects, any pre-existing health conditions, and your behavioral goals and a board certified veterinarian is the best person to consult with when making your decision.

You may also choose to talk with peers to hear about their experiences, but please keep in mind that meds can produce vastly different results from dog to dog so one dog’s experience on a particular medication can be drastically different from another’s. Many times, it takes some trial and error to determine the best medication and dosage, so if you do give meds a try and you don’t see the results you were hoping for, don’t hesitate to reach out to your vet to discuss a medication change, and remember, the goal of anxiety medication is to help your dog relax and improve their quality of life. It is NOT to sedate them, knock them out or completely change their personality, so if you’re seeing any of those changes, definitely consult with your vet about your concerns right away.

3.) Ensure Your Dog Is Getting Enough Exercise and Enrichment

Regardless of the false claims out there, you absolutely cannot exercise the anxiety out of your dog. However, the proper exercise and enrichment can give a significant boost to your overall training protocol. If your dog has a lot of pent-up energy, it’s going to be harder for them to relax during training sessions, so ensuring they get appropriate exercise will help make your training more successful.

For dogs who suffer from anxiety disorders though, even more important than physical exercise is decompression activities. Many anxious dogs benefit tremendously from opportunities to decompress and de-stress, especially if your dog has other triggers or fears along with their separation anxiety. Check out this post for ideas on decompression activities that your dog may enjoy and benefit from!

4.) Avoid Trigger Stacking

Some dogs with separation anxiety suffer from additional fears, with the most common one being noise sensitivity/phobia. In fact, it’s estimated that about 2/3 of dogs with separation anxiety also suffer from noise sensitivity/phobia, with some other common fears including strangers, children, other dogs, vehicles and novel environments. Stress is a part of life for dogs, just as it is for us humans, however, just like us, if dogs are under excessive or constant stress, that can make them less able to cope with daily stressors. There’s a phenomenon known as “trigger stacking” that occurs in dogs (as well as people), which is when a dog encounters multiple stressors in a relatively short period of time, causing their stress to ”stack” or build up. This then leads to the dog reaching their coping limit faster than if they had had time to decompress in between stressors instead.

Avoiding trigger stacking as much as possible will improve your dog’s ability to learn to relax while alone. It’s impossible to eliminate all stress from your dog’s life, but with some management strategies in place, you can significantly reduce it. Sound masking, suspending absences, avoiding triggers while on walks or replacing walks with other exercise/enrichment (no, you don’t have to walk your dog every day!) and medication are some ways to reduce your dog’s overall stress and limit trigger stacking.

5.) Slowly Desensitize Your Dog to Alone Time

This is the ticket, the “insider’s secret,” the holy grail of separation anxiety. Desensitization involves slowly exposing your dog to alone time at a pace they can comfortably handle, thereby gradually extending the amount of time they can be left for. This is by far the most effective strategy for overcoming separation anxiety. It’s helped thousands of dogs go from panicked to relaxed while alone at home. Desensitization only works, though, if you go at your dog’s pace. If you push too fast, you risk them experiencing fear, stress, anxiety and/or panic and the problem getting worse instead of better. The name of the game is to give them such great experiences that they think, “Huh. This alone time thing is no big deal!” and that can only happen if they’re never pushed past (and rarely pushed TO) their limit. It requires careful observation of your dog’s body language to analyze how they’re feeling, and strategically designing sessions to move the needle forward, while never pushing your dog to their panic point.

To effectively desensitize your dog, you’ll need to find their starting point (whether that’s 5 seconds, 15 seconds, or maybe even just cracking the door open for a split second) and then gradually build from there. It’s a slow process that requires patience and great observational skills, but when done correctly, it’s so very effective for resolving separation anxiety!

Separation anxiety can be challenging, frustrating and downright awful, but you and your dog don’t have to live with this condition. With patience, consistency, and the right training, you can overcome this problem and improve your and your dog’s quality of life. If you’d like the support of a certified trainer, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I offer separation anxiety training worldwide and would be happy to help you and your dog achieve the life you both deserve!

With wags and aloha,

Cori Tufano- Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT)