Can anyone recommend any (good)books or other information on the web about separation anxiety in dogs.
I've just taken on a rescue Lab x Doberman, 6 months old. He suffers with separation anxiety quite badly. He whines, barks and scrabbles at the door even when one of us just goes through and shuts it for 2 seconds.
We are his fourth home already
I know it will take a long time but some helpful reading would give me more confidence to tackle the situation.
Also, any tips on stopping him from chasing the cat who is now living in my bathroom upstairs! Ideally I want the cat to biff him on the nose to let him know who is in charge but at the moment she runs away and the dog chases her. Wish I could just get her to stay still and swear at him! Arghh.
Yes, I know, it's a challenge and not a problem but sometimes I wonder how all the psychologically batty ones end up at mine???!
Sorry, can't help re books but my first thought is let him settle in for a bit before labelling this separation anxiety and trying to tackle it. I appreciate that might not be very practical.....
After so many homes and still being so young he must have so much to be afraid of. Help his self-confidence as much as you can, in the short-term with consistency and anything he likes. In the long term you could do some CT.
Dunno about the cat - shut the bathroom door????!!!! Not really!
I can't remember who the speaker was but I attended a conference last year and they recommended the following:
1) A period of time when you spend all the time with the dog to help establish a 'comfort zone' and so the dog can build up the foundations of feeling safe and positive associations with the house etc.
2) After this a process of gradually, very gradually at first, building up the time you spend away from the dog. Firstly giving the dog something yummy/good and just be outside while he/she is eating it. Some dogs will cope fine with this in which case you can move on. Others won't eat without someone present as won't feel secure enough so need to go back a stage.
3) Building up time spent away from dog etc etc.
Made sense to me....
As any behaviour issue you need to check you have the basics covered. For dogs this would be ensuring can chew bones etc for around 2 hours a day, appropriate diet, sufficient exercise, good quality sleep (if separation anx at night time and you don't want him in your bed then consider a baby gate outside bedroom with dog bed the other side of it etc). Also check in that he isn't frightened of general household items such as vacuum cleaners, phones etc, if he's not then won't feel safe at home and need to address that first. To get really good at interpreting dog body language I love the book 'Canine Body language' (photographic guide) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canine-Body-Language-Photographic-Interpreting/dp/1929242352/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225138434&sr=8-1
I thought I knew about dog body language but learnt some stuff from this book and has quizzes to test yourself.
Shut the bedroom door? Good idea, hadn't thought of that Catherine! You make everything sound so simple!!!
As far as I can see, I have three big things to tackle.
1. Dealing with the cat problem. This is the most upsetting for me because I hate it that my cat feels her home has been invaded by a noisy, scary black thing. Funnily enough, my other dog has accepted him and new dog just thinks the old dog is boring because she's an old lady who doesn't do playing!
2. Dealing with the separation. I can cope with this. I know it will take time but I also know it is do-able.
3. Barking in the car. It takes me half an hour down the M4 to get to work every day (and then back again) He barked for an hour and a half back from Clapham on Saturday. I'm kind of hoping he'll just get to realise that going in the car is a good, fun thing to do and it doesn't mean he'll be going to a different home. He's not sick or anything so I'm hoping it will go away on its own. I don't think he's travel sick. In the meantime, I bought some earplugs at Tesco tonight because he's given me a real good earache!
Good news is that tonight we did some really good training (with treats) and he was excellent. Very quick to learn. And as I was watching him sleeping I thought how lucky he was that he ended up with me and not someone that my other half knows who has said that on TV this Dog Whisperer guy was great and knew exactly how to deal with these kind of things....
Meantime I think I fed him too many bits of carrot (bits of cheese were just too exciting because they smelt so good I think) and now he is lying on the floor at my feet and has a bit of wind problem! Ewwww
Will check out the book Suz, many thanks.
And throw away the labels - Pah! - who needs labels anyway...!
Some good advice above. All respect and good wishes to you for taking on your new challenge! When you start working on the separation anxiety try to break the activity down into the teeniest chunks. E.g. when you even move towards the door that you are then going to close, leaving you on one side and the dog on the other, the dog will start to get anxious even when you start that movement before you've got anywhere near the door, so you need to reward whatever calm behaviour the dog's doing before you think about leaving the room, then reward for staying calm when you move a few steps away, then a few more, then a few more, then even break down opening the door so that you reward staying calm while you touch the handle then open it an inch then another inch, tiny tiny steps till you can open the door and the dog stays calm. Sounds like a long drawn out plan I know but time invested now will reap you rewards for the rest of your time together - the smaller and more numerous the steps are the more established the eventual desired behaviour will be. The less likely you will be to get spontaneous recovery of the sep anxiety: the thing you really want to avoid is pushing things too far so that rather than staying calm, your dog becomes anxious again - then you're all the way back down the snake to where you started from, all that good work wasted! Surprisingly, the RSPCA do quite a good separation anxiety leaflet.
Re the cat, Sarah (surname? forgotten, sorry) I think has written "Why Does My Cat....?". She does rely rather a lot on "controlled desensitisation" which isn't universally popular, but your options are rather limited with the dog:cat dynamic! If I remember rightly she would have the dog in a restricted area like a child's playpen, and reward it for staying calm while the cat was invited (bribed, probably!) into the same room. So the cat is in control of how close it approaches and when it makes a run for it. Eventually the playpen is removed, probably having the dog on a lead as an interim measure. The more you set up a situation where the dog can chase the cat the more it will chase the cat(!) and the harder it will be to change that behaviour when you do try. Years ago I had a lurcher (rescued on what had been planned as his final one-way trip to the vet's - cat-worrying was one of his "sins"), by an amazing stroke of luck the first time I took him to the yard he made the mistake of chasing one of the "dead 'ard" yard cats, which stood it's ground and swiped him across the nose. No cats were ever threatened by him again! You might be tempted to set up a similar situation, but the possible outcome if the cat tries to run away, or misses with its first swipe, doesn't bear thinking about! Also, a lesson learned in a different environment probably wouldn't translate to your domestic situation, so your house cat would probably still be at risk.
With both procedures you need to remember to vary the context (different rooms, clothes, times of day, sounds) when you've established the desired behaviour initially.
not sure if this is deja vu but i had exactly the same problem. Having rehomed two cat haters over the years (in the past) i really didn't think this one could be so much worse but she is / was.
Iam fortunate that the house is on three levels so it was easy to put a baby gate on the bottom of the third and the cats could stay up there until they bucked up courage (so i thought) Mitzy arrived in june and it is only now that if i or my husband are in the room or house the cats will walk around but Mitzy stalks them. She does however now lay down and the cats swish her with their tails and she does not respond..sigh.... however any running or jumping creates the chase response and so both cats move v e r y slowly..
Hi everyone, many thanks for your replies and advice.
Things are slowly improving. Well, sometimes we take one step forward and three steps backwards and I do keep forgetting it・s only been a week, but he is definitely a lot better already.
Debbie, certain doors in the house (the solid ones) he is fine with now, so long as I・m quick and I can even spend a penny by myself now, but we have a glass door from the kitchen to the hall and he just can・t handle seeing me the other side and not being able to touch me. Same with the stair gate at the bottom of the stairs but now he will get down to let me through which is excellent progress!
Joan, my cat is also living upstairs! She has her food, water, dirt box, toys etc and she SEEMS ok but she must be so so bored because she was such an outdoor cat before. She has progressed to sitting at the top of the stairs and just looking at Louis as he・s barking at her so that・s a bit braver than before. My daughter said the other day the cat ventured all the way down the stairs and was watching the dog sleeping! There have been plenty of opportunities for the cat to come down and go outside whilst Louis is out with me but she hasn・t done so I think she is pretty scared. I・m sure it will just take time, even if it is months which is what I・m thinking it might be
Update for anyone interested. And we do like positive progress in our shaping plans.
I slept downstairs with Louis for the first 3 weeks, gradually moving myself further and further away from his bed under the kitchen table. Started off by 2 dogs and me sleeping in the lounge. Then gradually moved to me sleeping on kitchen table (its a farmhouse kitchen table so quite big!) with Louis sleeping underneath. Then buying another stair gate to fit in the doorway from the kitchen to the hall. Then sleeping in the hall and gradually moving further towards the stairs. And on Saturday I couldnt go any further away from him so had no choice but to sleep upstairs. Well, would you believe, he barked for all of 2 minutes and then put himself to bed (I heard the thud as he got into his bed with a sigh!) SUCCESS! Dont know what all the fuss was about really!
The cat is getting braver and at least she goes out during the day now because I was worried she was depressed/bored. I feed her on the top step of the stairs so Louis and she can see each other and he now knows to get down from the stair gate and look away when she is there. My plan is to gradually move the cats feed down a step each time but thats not working so well because all the cat does is wait until Louis is well out of sight and busy doing something else before shell eat! Might need another plan.
The car journeys are also much better now that Louis is in the boot (I have a hatchback, I dont shut him in the boot of a saloon although that would muffle the noise eh?!) He used to be secured on the back seat and the barking drove me to insanity. My journey to work and back is long and I didnt have the luxury of being able to just do a short journey and build up, as would have been the ideal. However, a rawhide bone keeps him occupied and I think now he has just chilled out anyway. Still have the occasional spontaneous recovery but its all learning.
Still have issues about me going upstairs and leaving him but much much better. He still follows me about wherever I go but I think part of that is his breeding, as any Doberman owner would confirm. Louis comes everywhere with me so it hasnt been necessary to actually leave him by himself. Although I did pop down to the doctors (20 minutes) on Monday and the kitchen was still in one piece when I got back and I couldnt hear barking! Think we have a training issue as opposed to a separation issue.
We still have loads to learn but we are getting there and he is teaching me soooo much which is great.
Helen
PS. Found a really good book (so far anyway) Canine Separation Anxiety Workbook by James OHeare. Only read a quarter but so far good.
PPS. Better just mention horses as this is a horse forum.. Louis loves horse food, um well, any food really!
well done you .. it is so jaw dropping to know that you have just applied such common sense. You don't want me to leave you? ok i'll stay, close enough for you not to be distressed. what a star. thats you and him.
Wow! That's good news for you, Louis and cat, what great successes!
I chuckled at your comment about shutting him in a saloon boot, and mentioning horse food at the end of your post!
Re. dogs in car boots, I used to go walking in Turkey with a couple and their dog, we'd walk for hours through this valley then someone from the pansiyon would pick us up at the other end and drive us back. The guy just opened the boot of the (saloon) car and the dog hopped in, and they shut the boot! It was only a 20 min journey, and the dog lived with a family who worked where they lived, it had the freedom of the village and beyond and dined on raw bones, so lots of its needs were met I guess. I remember being a bit surprised when I first saw it jump in the boot but then I thought duh, how do we transport horses? In a dark enclosed box! Incidentally I've just reminded myself of a brilliant EBF journal article about the horse's view of domestic life (not the washing up obviously) which I'll post as a separate thread.
