Helping Your Dog Cope with Separation Anxiety: Tips and Tricks

The reasons that cause a dog to experience stress due to separation from its owner are divided into innate and acquired. Innate causes can be caused by a mental disorder or breed characteristics of the dog. For example, some breeds are very active, so they need to spend the excess energy produced. Acquired causes are usually caused by stress that the animal has experienced before. Among the acquired causes can be the following: a sudden change in the environment (moving), frequent change of owners, the habit of spending a lot of time with the owner (and then the absence of this), past stress or a formed fear of being abandoned. The latter is especially characteristic of dogs from shelters, which may have been in unfavorable conditions with previous owners, were abandoned/locked in houses, etc.

How to understand that a dog is worried or stressed

Manifestations of stress in a dog can be active or quiet. Quiet stress is when the dog reduces activity, changes its usual behavior, is sad, stops eating normally, drinking water, refuses treats, etc. Disorders of the gastrointestinal tract may appear. If you are not at home for a long time, you will be able to see such manifestations by indirect signs, such as a full bowl of food or water. If the pet does not meet you upon returning home, this is also a clear manifestation of stress.

Active stress is when the animal becomes overly energetic and aggressive: it howls, spoils wallpaper, furniture, and things that smell like the owner, etc. Signs of such a manifestation of stress in a pet will definitely be seen upon returning home. The main thing is to remain calm yourself and not get angry with the dog, thereby causing the animal even more stress.

How to help an animal adapt. Top tips

• Train your dog to stay alone gradually. For example, leave the apartment for 15 minutes at first. Then your dog will gradually get used to the fact that even if you leave, it is not forever. And then the duration of your absence can be slowly increased. In the early stages, a good solution would be to take the animal with you to work, if your office is pet-friendly and the dog feels comfortable among people.
• Monitor the pet's emotions remotely. Install a camera at home to monitor your pet's behavior throughout the day and, if necessary, communicate with it remotely. The owner's voice has a good effect on the dog's emotional state and improves mood.
• Say goodbye calmly, greet joyfully. If the owner is stressed during parting, this emotion is transmitted to the pet. Therefore, say goodbye calmly and briefly, then the dog will be less sad. And greet joyfully and loudly, so that the comforting emotions are more intense. Try to encourage your pet for good behavior by giving it a treat. By the way, the best reward for a dog after the owner returns home is a walk together.
• Organize a safe and comfortable space. Leave things that smell like you, familiar toys, treats - so the animal will feel safe and have ways to keep itself busy. The smell of the owner effectively improves the dog's mood and soothes the nervous system.
• Take care of an extra walk and ask for help. Sometimes the feeling of stress from separation in a dog is added to the physical need to walk during the day, when the owner is not at home - for example, due to the peculiarities of digestion. If the dog starts to get stressed during the day, think about help and contact acquaintances who can walk the animal, to dog sitters or a dog daycare. Such special establishments for dogs allow you to leave your pet in the morning and pick it up after work. This is a good option, because the dog there will be able to get the necessary supervision and feel safe among other animals, its own size, before the owner returns.
• Practice physical activity together. The expenditure of energy during walks, especially for active breeds of dogs (German Shepherds, Dobermans, Jack Russells, Huskies, Beagles, Hounds), should be great. Then the dog will spend its strength, energy, "run around" and is less likely to spoil furniture or aggressively relieve stress at home in another way. If you are absent all day, the morning walk should not be 15 minutes long. For active breeds of dogs, this should be 1-1.5 hours - then after the walk the dog will rest and accumulate strength for a joint evening walk.
• Make a predictable daily routine. Pets, like people, love consistency. They need to know that soon they can count on the next walk, joint play and meals. Establishing a consistent daily routine that you can stick to in the future will help ease the transition to separate living with your pet during the day. Walk your dog regularly, feed it at the same time, play every day.

Use every opportunity to run and spend time together, be consistent in your actions and help your pet feel safe. Thus, the transition to being at home alone will become easier for your dog, and meetings after work at home will be even more joyful.