Canine Anxiety Separation Drama – My Terrier Is Going To Evict Me!
If your dog exhibits destructive behavior, you are both actors in your own canine anxiety separation drama. You’ll never see it on Broadway, but the stage is set every time you leave home for work or an errand. As if it wasn’t bad enough knowing that your dog is having an emotional breakdown when you leave, you are now facing an eviction and expensive repair bills. Here’s an idea of why your dog falls into her pattern of dog separation anxiety and how she can begin to bring it out.
First, a little background on the nature of dogs. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that dogs are pack animals. Except you, your family, and maybe other pets are now his pack. Your dog considers his human family to be his main social group. When your dog becomes separated from his ‘pack’, this makes him anxious and he engages in problematic dog anxiety separation behaviors such as digging a hole in the rug or howling forever.
Second, you need to understand that a key component to successful treatment of dog separation distress is for you, the dog owner, to understand that the dog is not trying to “get back at you” or get back at you. His destructive or upset behavior is deeply intertwined with his anxiety about losing connection with his pack.
Third, stop telegraphing your own anxiety when you’re about to take an action that you know will invoke Poochy’s dog anxiety separation drama. Do you wake up in the morning, drink your coffee, stay in the shower too long, change into your work uniform, and finally kiss the dog before leaving for the rest of the day? Think about what you just communicated to him.
No, he doesn’t speak human, but you said something to him. You don’t realize it, but your routine, tone of voice, attention and then feeding have just communicated to your dog that you are about to leave the pack and that there is some food here to help you. You gave him the clue to get ready to start his drama and then reinforced the dog’s anxiety by giving him breakfast!
For pet owners, dog separation anxiety is one of the most common issues pet parents have to deal with. It’s very easy to get caught up in accidentally teaching or reinforcing your dog’s anxiety separation behavior. Animal behavior specialists have a number of different protocols that they can fall back on to help you break your dog out of this destructive pattern.
Counterconditioning is one and it is where you work with your dog to break the routine that leads to your dog’s anxiety. This also helps decrease his nervousness. The dog is taught to sit or stay in a certain area where the dog is comfortable while the owner prepares to leave. There’s more to this workout, but that’s the general plan.