Dog Separation Anxiety and Solutions

All right I believe you're on line now and hello and welcome we are live and welcome to the broadcast I'm a dog trainer and also coach dog owners you are reading my topic about solutions for dog's separation anxiety that I have chosen today to talk about on my channel and we're going to talk about separation anxiety and how to deal with it and this is one of the questions that I get a lot and I'm going to try to explain and give you some advice on how to deal with this issue if you are pure online and you're reading this please feel free to go ahead and type in your questions that you have as well and in the chat area in chat box and I'll try to answer them so if your your first time here here also please make sure to go ahead if there's some time left I'll answer some questions so I'm in my office there's some sounds around if it it's something that is bothering you let me know through the chat line and I will fix them so let me start with the idea of what is this why is this a big problem separation anxiety many dog owners they delete that dog's room for you know certain hours or few hours maybe or you know long hours or even short hours they leave their dog home alone and the dog is either destroying the house or furniture or engine express and howling and barking and all kinds of things like that so it could it could be something that either the dog is expensive in a goal level or a high level but the dogs are in general experiencing stress so excited so we call that a separation anxiety there's actually some kind of anxiety that goes on going it's not only separation anxiety septum it could be broken down to fume levels money could be that there they are separated from humans and airspace it could be that they are separated from the certain person that they are attached to and they're separated and they get stressed because that person is not there could be also location separation anxiety in the wanna meet so it could be that they are stressed because they're either in the house or they could be in an other location and they are missing the house for example they're missing the house environment and if they are staying somewhere else with someone else it could be also the stress because their feelings are not balanced they are they're feeling either alone they're feeling sad they feeling some anxiety also the feeling can cause - for them to be having that anxiety

Dog Separation Anxiety Symptoms

As well so basically what it means is and the dog could either be stressing or getting anxious because of Warren feeling or could be combinational reasons that the dog gets anxious now what I'm gonna explain in this part is if you understand this part I'm sure is gonna help you to deal with most of your dogs in behavioral issues dogs have been bred and designed to live and work and be with humans so the naturally they want to be with their humans and if the human is not around it's kind of unnatural for them so you have to understand this concept that dogs naturally want to be without so if they if they are feeling that you are there all the time and all of a sudden you are not there it's kind of unnatural for them so it becomes a stressful meaningful and stressful situation for them so they get stressed some dogs the you know some dogs they can tolerate being separated or away from you for few hours maybe for few days and then the we can sum some pecans some they can tolerate and some they can it just individually different it's not something that you can fix this it's not something that it's fixable it's not something that you can't you say oh we can fix the dog to not to feel anxiety many separated from us it's just like humans and every other creature.

I believe individually each for each one of us we feel differently but and tolerate things differently when it comes to certain situations that when feelings of certain conditions for example myself I just lost my older beagle in January and and for a month that he had passed away I was anxious I was really anxious because I was missing it I was the separation that I had of him it was causing me to be cut to feel stress and because for the past 16 years 15 16 years he was always with me 24/7 and all of a sudden he was in there I was feeling stressed so somehow I had to deal with it somehow I had to get over it and somehow I had to learn to cope with you so dogs also you can't teach them you can teach them too you can't get them to get rid of anxiety but you can teach them to tolerate that feeling and that happens only that only when we start teaching them we have to teach them we can't just let them learn it on their own on their own they can't figured out how to solve that problem because you go back to the beginning is natural it's naturally they've been bred to live with women so if you are not there again automatically they go to the different zone of being stressed you're not there so you have to teach them how to deal with the idea of being separated from you.

Dog Separation Anxiety Medication

So the way you teach this and the way you start helping a dog to deal with this issue is like many be hidden like many behaviors that dogs learn it takes time to teach a dog how to deal with this issue the easiest way to understand how to teach the dog to learn this behavior is rather than starting to live live dog alone to learn to cope with being alone is to start way ahead of time maybe few months or three weeks or a few months before you actually see some result so it takes time if you want to focus on building that tolerance see in the dog so they can start slowly and eventually learning to tolerate you not being there so the way you do that is first of all you start coming up with a plan plan a long-term plan a few weeks or few months and you work on it slowly so one of the things that I suggest is also not to depend on tools and gadgets oils and something like undershirts you know gadgets that calm the dog down and music and all that these are quick solutions and there are like band-aids motions they don't really get for get over the behavior they mask the behavior the behavior is always there just hidden in there it's just you're masking it with whatever tool or gadget or whatever you're using the behavior has to the key here is to teach the dog to learn to tolerate.

The behavior finn'll on me so I wasn't on the shirts and things like that they are not the answer the answer is to focus on investing in a long term of learning and teaching how to get down all right separation anxiety and being away from you so the easiest way now this is what I call shot a shot to you the easiest way that you can teach a dog to tolerate with you is start training your dog now you're going to say what you mean I have to start training you now so either you go back to basics you start restart training your dog or you continue on training your dog so the way you do is I would say for this treat for this issue sufficient anxiety we're gonna need three clans that we need to focus on we're going to teach their dog three commands three basic obedience commands you start with a sip then you go to stay and after stay you go to wait there's a different bit difference between the stay anyway now explain what what the difference is the difference between stay and wait is stay your dog is learning to stay in that position for certain time that's a minute up to five minutes and you are in in his or her point of view you the dog can see you now can see you and knows where you are and feels that we're there and we can start learning that okay when I been gonna have been told to sit and stay my human is right there and I can see it and is telling me not to move.

How to Break a Dog's Separation Anxiety?

So that's how you start building the tolerance so the dog learns that if I stay here and my owner is my human is there I can sit and stay as much as my owner wants me until my owner gives me a release now and then I can learn the next lesson the next lesson you can start teacher a rock is the way now the dog is sitting or staying that spot you know sit and stay there telling the doctor sleep and then stay and then you can change to wait wait is your dog is in that position that you have left it or it could be released from that position that is input in the original originally let's say and you're not in dogs point of view in this connect and it's longer so it goes for five minutes to a four hours maybe so you're teaching the dog tolerate not seeing you for five minutes up to four hours so the way you teach a dog to wait is you start just like sit and stay we start with a ten-second sit and stay and then you move on to 20 seconds and 40 seconds 50 seconds and 1 minute then move to from a minute to two minutes and three minutes four minutes and five minutes on the way come on you teach the dog to wait for you for five minutes or you can start even from again from 10 second what you do you tell your dog to sit and stay in a room and you leave the room and you come back after 10 seconds then you replace your dog then you teach your pack is small.

You tell your dog to sit and stay and you leave the room or 20 seconds and you come back you crazy dog if the dog is still in sit and stay position and you increase little by little every day or every week and you get to that point that you can tell your dog to sit and stay and you leave the room you say wait you leave the room and five minutes later you come back then you keep going more and more to get to 10 minutes 20 minutes half an hour an hour and on and on that's how you teach a dog to tolerate separation anxiety it's by teaching the dog mentally the dog has learned mentally that this is doable I know a dog has to say and feel that I know this I know what's coming I know what's going to happen I'm not going to be surprised when all of a sudden my owner leaves me and goes to work or goes here and there I'm not surprised I know exactly what's going to happen we've done this we've done this practice the dog has to say we've done this practice then we practice this or a long time I know exactly what's coming I know if I'm sick if I sick and stay here and my owner says wait and he or she lived the room over the house he or she is going to come back sooner but my job as a dog is now just to sit and wait their job.

Now is to wait to remember this when you separate even you leave your dog home alone and you don't say anything you're cured of or you leave your dog just as is or you leave toys and treats and things like that proposal I can't just leave it's not that your dog knows what it's supposed to do that your dog gets all those throughout the day they don't know what they're supposed to do when you live when you live when you leave your dog in there in the house and say would be a good fall of the other girl and then you leave what happens your dog says what happened why did you leave me what did I do why am I being punished why are you all of a sudden leaving me and going so what you want to do is sorry so what do you want to do you want to prepare your dog or for what is coming we don't want to surprise your tongue you want to prepare your dog from what it comes next so you're done off so it has to be not surprised and also be aware what is supposed to do so as I said in the beginning dogs have been bred designed to live and work for and with humans so in this case for example what you're doing you're telling your dog to wait for you the dog is getting into that work mode leave the house you tell your dog to stay your dog gets into that working mode of my job now is to wait for my moment.

Dog Separation Anxiety Training

So what you do is you ask your dog to wait for you because you want them to tolerate the behavior of being left alone and for them it becomes a little bit kind of a work so when they start feeling that I can can tolerate this and I can learn this behavior and practice it then they become more relaxed it's not a surprise so most of the time when when dogs are left alone it's because of that surprise that they get that they don't know what they're supposed to do and then get stressed they get surprised because they don't know what they're supposed to do - because they they have you haven't practiced with them what they're supposed to do when they are left alone number three is just they're not familiar with that position did they become in their own familiar with that feeling and number four you can ask them to work for it so what it means is if you stay let's say for example when you're teaching your dog to great for you and you ask your dog to wait and the dog if you ask your dog to wait for you your dog waits and you play with it are you crazy your dog learned that that becomes the job for it so after after a while they learn that which okay for them to be alone and they were gonna we're going to work for it so what happens is when you leave them alone for real this time and say my job is to wait for my mom pulled out so they don't stress themselves and actually work they're working mental in that part.

That point of view they're working mentally so what I mean by that is they're waiting for you and mental mentally they're just waiting for you to do that now the last thing that I would suggest is that you shouldn't leave any dog in my opinion more than four hours you shouldn't leave your dog home alone more than four hours it's just too much for dogs to be left a lot more than that unless again adoption tolerated but physically and physically they need to be stepped out and go and do their business mentally they just too much for them for most dogs to be left alone more than that and also again figure out what is exactly your dog and she support is it anxious about because you left humans have left the dog home alone or certain person has left the house for example and me and my wife with which we have harmie a beagle if I lived if I leave the house Harvey doesn't care much and if my wife leaves he's really concerned about it so he's Mark's patch to my life so therefore he is more he gets more stressed if my wife lives and he's left alone without my wife right so he stresses only big but I helped him to express himself so he has learned to tolerate that yeah so then figure out if it's the certain person or it's just humans that dog is stressed about being left alone is it is it the location even the house dog your dog is missing or you know if we leave your dog with neighbors place.

Your neighbors or friends place it is the dog stressing because it's not in the in their form or is it because they're stressed again because they're separated from you or from their regular humans so all of these things you have to consider it but start focusing on helping your dog to be able to tolerate being away from you or separated from the easiest way is just to go back to training and start training your dog start with teaching your dog to sit staying you know release command and wait so sit stay release wait those are the few men that can start focusing on in this case and what we filled out for few weeks maybe few months until you get to down level that you can say and sake that your dog is able to tolerate being separated from you for maybe a few hours even maybe an hour start with an hour in in a month and see how your dog does and then start increasing and don't depend on tools and gadgets those don't really solve the problem they mask the problem that the main solution should be focused on the dog's mental state of mind mind of the god I hope this makes sense to you and I hope you got something out of it if you have any questions or comments please leave the comments in the comments area and I'll try to answer them.