Separation Anxiety

Separation anxiety is a panic disorder or phobia, similar to when humans have a panic attack.  It is not something that will naturally resolve on its own.  To help a dog with separation anxiety, we need to do systematic training often coupled with medication from a vet to help get the dog’s anxiety to a manageable level in the dog’s brain chemistry, like someone with depression who takes medication to help them.  Medication options should be discussed with your vet or I can make a referral for you to a specialist, if needed.

Just like a psychiatrist would be unable to predict a timeline to cure someone’s depression, there’s no way to predict a timeline for your dog’s separation anxiety.  Every dog is an individual and there’s many factors that go into each individual case, including your ability to complete the training and suspend absences.  The rate of progress is completely determined by your dog and can be slow, particularly at the beginning, but often accelerates as training progresses. I encourage you to think in terms of months, not weeks or days when committing to working on this with your dog.

After your initial assessment and consult are done, 4-week packages are and renewed as long as needed to accomplish the duration you’re looking to achieve.  I require a 4-week minimum commitment as this is minimum amount of time to allow me to learn about your dog, their body language, progress for you to learn how protocol works. Once you’ve done at least 2 months of training, you may be eligible for for one of my step-down packages, depending on how your dog is progressing.

Absolutely not. While it can be easy to think this, the reality is, your dog is afraid of being left alone. And, dogs don’t have the same depth of emotions as humans to experience things like guilt, revenge, resentment or anger.  It’s just not how they’re wired.  This isn’t a choice he’s making. 

Separation Anxiety is most effective when done remotely, within your own home, with the use of easy to use video technology. You can use anything from your laptop, smartphone, tablet or an inexpensive, standalone Wifi camera.  Don’t worry! It’s all really easy and you don’t have a to be a tech wizard to use it!

Well, because your dog needs to be truly alone.  If I were to show up to watch your dog being alone, he would know I was there and he wouldn’t be truly alone.  Video allows us to monitor the dog in a real-life absence.

Possibly, but not likely.  Very often strict confinement can make separation anxiety worse and, in some cases, the dog could injure themselves if confined – biting the bars, pinching paws or digging furiously, breaking nails.  For some dogs we do use a larger confinement space like a room with a baby gate during their alone-time but many dogs do much better when they’re not confined at all.