Separation Anxiety Help Please?!

[LindsayA]

Hi,

First off, I have read the thread created by Lisa on separation anxiety, but am looking for a bit more advice.

Ted is an approx 3 year old greyhound/lurcher.  He is left alone in the house 3 days a week regularly for around 7 hours on a wed/thurs/fri.  On the remaining days, either me or my boyfriend are at home with him.  I've just started a new job so on those 3 days when he is left alone, I will likely be coming home for lunch to break the day up for him a bit.

When we'd had him about a week, he was settling down nicely and so we thought we would try leaving him.  We had to nip into town to get some things, so we shut him in the kitchen when we left.  We were out for no more than 40 mins (bear in mind we were not told he had any problems and could be left without issue), but when we came back there were scratches all up the french doors, he had done a ginormous wee up the wall and went absolutely insane when we got back in.

From then on, we started actively ignoring him for periods around the house, ignoring him before we went out, ignoring him when we came back in, not letting him follow us about all the time in the house etc.  We also found that shutting him in the kitchen seemed to make him worse with his anxiety, and he seemed much happier if he was allowed to sleep on the sofa in the front room (we have a small house, so the downstairs is a kitchen and living room with french doors between the two).  We also practised putting our coats on, shoes on, handbag pick-up etc, and just sitting down again but I'll be honest, we have slipped out of the habit of doing this recently.  Also, after we had practised with him, we set up a video camera to film him while we were out, and for the first 40 minutes he was pacing, whining, snuffling at the doors, but for the remaining 2 hours we were out he was curled up fast asleep on the sofa.

Before we leave him, he gets a long walk, is allowed to sniff everything and fully relieve himself, and we ignore him completely for around 15 minutes prior to departure bar low-key praise for an outside wee before we go.  He is left with a stuffed kong, some toys, his nylabone, and a pigs ear or a bulls pizzle to chew.

He rarely poos in the house (he has done it twice ever in the 3 months we have had him) but he can wee in the house when he gets anxious, sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't.  Also, he doesn't chew the house/furniture, however he did manage to somehow get upstairs last week (opening a solid door by himself...) and chewed the doorframe round our bedroom door.

In an altercation a moment ago about our neighbour parking on our drive (don't ask lol), the neighbour turned around and said, amongst other things which were outright ridiculous, that our dog is barking on a wed/thur/fri from 9:30am when my boyfriend leaves until 3pm.  This may or may not be true; we came home a week or two back to hear him barking with a howl at the end.  We waiting until he was quiet before we came in and again ignored him until he was calm.  He also tends to whine if one of us leaves, even if the other is still with him.  When he is whining and pacing, again we just completely ignore him, and once he has calmed down and settled he gets praise.

If it is true that he's barking relentlessly for 6 hours, I feel really really gutted for him.  We've been trying really hard to work with him, and so we're going to have to set up a videocamera again to see what he's like; I had thought we were on the right track with things, but I suppose a change in circumstances at home (me having a week off work last week for example) could have pushed his progress back.

From what I have read, he doesn't seem to have full blown SA, but the fact he only targets doors with his scratching makes me think it's SA over boredom or underexercise.  Does anyone else have experience with dogs with SA that bark/howl?  How do you overcome it?  I hate the thought of anti bark collars and right now I just feel so despondent

Lindsay x

[LindsayA]

* We used a DAP diffuser the first month we had him, and have just plugged a replacement one in Thursday night, (completely forgot they only last a month). This is plugged in in the living room where he/we spend most of our time.

[futuramafan]

Hi Lindsay

Firstly try not to feel despondent as it sounds like you have been working really hard to resolve it. I've had it with both of my dogs, Molly is an ex racer who had been in a home but taken back into kennels and she got really quite anxious about us leaving. However with time she developed trust that we would come back and now she is great. Wallace has only been with us for a month or so and sometimes pees or poos in the house if my husband leaves him which I think will resolve with time. I think try a dap diffuser but also just give it time. Advice and support from the gappers is also brilliant. Lisa from the gap has given us great advice and in fact I'll be ringing her later to chat through how he's getting on!

[LindsayA]

Thanks futuramafan, I genuinely don't think some people understand. I got told the other day that the reason he has separation anxiety is because I "mother him"; ie - I feel guilty leaving him alone for any longer than absolutely necessary, I ask people not to pull his tail, or grab hold of him by his collar or raise their voice around him (even if it's shouting at the footie lol) because it frightens him etc.

I have to just ignore it because these people have had dogs since they were puppies; their pups have always had a stable home, been messed about with from an early age (ears pulled by kids, tails pulled, trodden on etc etc) and learnt really early on that they get left to their own devices. Obviously with Ted, he's been back and forth between homes; he was found as a stray at approx 1year old (so had some sort of home before that), then he was at dogstrust, then with a family for 1 year, then back at dogstrust, and now with us. It's not surprising that he assumes everytime we go out the door we're not going to come back.

Great to hear that your dogs have improved / are improving. I know deep down there's light at the end of the tunnel, I just wish you could explain to them that you (unfortunately) have to go to work to buy them all the yummy treats and toys and to do that, they have to be on their tod sometimes! hah

We will persevere!!

[sharonhigh45]

Hi Lindsay you are in the right place for advice, I know it is hard but you will get through this and it will be all the more rewarding when you do, yes I do think that it is harder with rescue dogs because of their previous circumstances but if you read some of the threads you will see that some of the Gappers have had a lot to go through with some of their pooches but have persevered and have come through. My lurcher who we have had since Oct last year had a few problems with weeing but good advice was given and he is on the whole a good boy now, although we have the occasional wee when he forgets himself with excitement!
Good Luck and best wishes from Shazx

[LindsayA]

Update; we've now been back to DogsTrust to get him on a proper program for his separation anxiety. To be honest, we were not impressed at all at what the behaviourist said; it basically amounted to calling me "selfish" for saying I was reluctant to rehome him with anyone else as we are at least his third owners, and the more people he goes through the worse he is going to be. Additionally they said that if there isn't an improvement within 6 weeks "there probably won't be one". I find this attitude appauling; for an organisation that helps dogs, surely they should be saying to us "you adopted this dog, it's your responsibility to get them sorted, and we're going to help you do that" not suggesting we give him back and give up on him. /rant over.

We're now doing non-interaction signals with him three times a day to teach him that sometimes he has to occupy himself. Normally as soon as the fabric gets tied on the door he just goes to sleep, and we've been filming him to see how bad it is. This past week we've left him with a beef marrowbone to chew on during the day and for the first 3.5hrs after leaving until the video cuts out he's silent and chomping away / sleeping. So it all seems like forward progress!! Thank you for your advice everyone, and even if it takes us 5 years, I'm sure we'll get there eventually!!

[julies]

Sounds like you're doing a fab job Lindsay ... as well as all the great things you are doing and trying do check Tellington TTouch which will relax him and give him confidence. You could sleep on a small tee shirt them put it on him when you are going to leave (tho careful it isn't a signal he's about to be left so practise at other times too).
Rather than leave him with a bone in case something goes wrong (like it splinters or he gnaws some bone off it) I use Kongs which I stuff with food and pate etc some of which is easy to get out and some they have to work at .. you can freeze it too and I would probably leave him with 2 Kongs
I find greys and some lurchers hate the solid door but will respect a childgate tho you may need two or an extra high one as they jump. The theory is too that SA kicks off for about the first 20 minutes then the dog settles unless it's disturbed ...

My view is that we need to understand where the behaviour came from in order to help the dog cope ... greys are never left alone when in training and can usually see another dog so it's totally understandable that they can find it very hard to cope in this whole new world alone and although he's a lurcher if he has been passed from pillar to post you can understand why he feels he needs to hang on to you

BTW what's all that about pulling his ears and or tail? I hate to see any kind of abuse and that to me is expecting a dog to put up with very inappropriate handling for no good reason so please stop whoever is doing that to him - we've had greys returned to the RGT as they have bitten - one bloke had to have plastic surgery recently BUT when you pin the owners down to what happened it's clear they were tormenting the dog BUT it is the dog who suffers - gets a bad name and can ultimately be put down If he's a rescue then shouting may have meant a kick or smack were coming his way in his previous homes so please try to keep him out of the way if the footies on or maybe give him a nice Kong to distract him

How long is your walk? If he's a mix of working breed he could probably do with a good hour at least a day in interesting places and off lead when you have an excellent recall (or can find a closed tennis court) plus a shorter - 30 min walk and a late wee walk before bedtime. You could also tire him nicely by hiding really nice treats in cardboard boxes and letting him use his nose to find them around the house You can also get hollow balls which you put his food in and it drops out thro little holes .. great to keep him occupied

Good luck and keep asking

Julie

[dite]

Just wanted to say thank you for the update and really pleased that you are making such progress. When you have been following a thread it's nice to see how things are going - especially when it is good news.
Well done for coming to this forum where you get fantastic advice, unlike the rubbish that you are wisely ignoring. 'Mother him' what crap, I can't believe how people who own dogs and think they are dog lovers treat their animals - complete lack of respect and understanding.
Keep up the good work

[ritab]

One of my greyhounds has severe SA or "separation issues" the vet says we should call it. She has been with us for 2 1/2 yrs and is still unhappy when left. However there is no destruction/weeing/etc now and hasn't been for a long time. We do leave a webcam running when we leave her and some days she is fairly settled and others restless.

You seem to be doing well and making some progress, but I would suggest that you do film him when you leave him so you can see exactly what goes on, rather than rely on a neighbour you don't get on with.

One thing that works for us, which no-one recommends, is that I muzzle them and say goodbye using the same words each time. They both get on their beds and seem to accept what is going to happen. It works better for us than the "don't let them know you are leaving" thing. I don't know why - I did try the other way, varying which door I used, pretending to leave but coming straight back. I wonder if anyone else finds this. I also don't leave a treat as we now have 2 dogs. Gizzi was so stressed when we left them crated with treats that she didn't eat the treat until I returned. Like you and many others, I found that leaving them with some space to roam around works best.

Gizzi may never be able to be left for long - but she is a whole lot better now. The RGT realised she would be a difficult case, which is why she was waiting for 2 years for a home after being a failed racer. From what you say, I think you will get there - it always seems to go on forever, but one day you look back and wonder what the fuss was about! Try not to feel stressed about it when you leave as dogs sense that. I had to get another greyhound which didn't help Gizzi a lot, but it made me more relaxed about leaving them.

[Flaperoo]

Firstly Lindsay I want to just say you are doing a fantastic job. I personally have never had a lone dog that has had seperation anxiety issues, but I do currently have two dogs that do not like being left alone.

This may not be posible for you but the company of another dog will help. If not, have you tried a crate - I absolutely swear by them, whether the dog has SA, generalised anxiety, fear of whatever or a whole host of other problems in my experience they give them a safe, comfy space that is all theirs to feel good in.

Ted is one very lucky boy to have you. You are doing everything right. Don't give up he WILL get there

Mary

[LindsayA]

Mar 17, 2014 4:36:11 GMT -5 julies said:

Sounds like you're doing a fab job Lindsay ... as well as all the great things you are doing and trying do check Tellington TTouch which will relax him and give him confidence. You could sleep on a small tee shirt them put it on him when you are going to leave (tho careful it isn't a signal he's about to be left so practise at other times too).
Rather than leave him with a bone in case something goes wrong (like it splinters or he gnaws some bone off it) I use Kongs which I stuff with food and pate etc some of which is easy to get out and some they have to work at .. you can freeze it too and I would probably leave him with 2 Kongs
I find greys and some lurchers hate the solid door but will respect a childgate tho you may need two or an extra high one as they jump. The theory is too that SA kicks off for about the first 20 minutes then the dog settles unless it's disturbed ...

My view is that we need to understand where the behaviour came from in order to help the dog cope ... greys are never left alone when in training and can usually see another dog so it's totally understandable that they can find it very hard to cope in this whole new world alone and although he's a lurcher if he has been passed from pillar to post you can understand why he feels he needs to hang on to you

BTW what's all that about pulling his ears and or tail? I hate to see any kind of abuse and that to me is expecting a dog to put up with very inappropriate handling for no good reason so please stop whoever is doing that to him - we've had greys returned to the RGT as they have bitten - one bloke had to have plastic surgery recently BUT when you pin the owners down to what happened it's clear they were tormenting the dog BUT it is the dog who suffers - gets a bad name and can ultimately be put down If he's a rescue then shouting may have meant a kick or smack were coming his way in his previous homes so please try to keep him out of the way if the footies on or maybe give him a nice Kong to distract him

How long is your walk? If he's a mix of working breed he could probably do with a good hour at least a day in interesting places and off lead when you have an excellent recall (or can find a closed tennis court) plus a shorter - 30 min walk and a late wee walk before bedtime. You could also tire him nicely by hiding really nice treats in cardboard boxes and letting him use his nose to find them around the house You can also get hollow balls which you put his food in and it drops out thro little holes .. great to keep him occupied

Good luck and keep asking

Julie

Hi Julie!!


I read somewhere else about TTouch; it will definitely be something for us to look into!!  We've put our clothes on him before which he seems to quite like, especially when it was a bit colder.  Also, he pinched one of my boyfriend's trainers last week and brought it into the little den he'd made himself while we are work.  Was quite cute to see him attempting to cuddle up with it haha.

I have read up on the downsides to bones; we've given him raw bones rather than cooked, as we suspect it was a commercial processed bone that broke his tooth back in Feb.  He also has a rabbits ear and a stuffed kong to keep him busy.  We will have to try freezing one and see how he takes to that!

We think initially it seems to be separation anxiety, which then turns into boredom and he just likes the sound of his own voice after a while.  After around an hour he tends to stop pacing but continues barking and growling / making strange noises.  He will settle for a couple of minutes on the sofa / have another go at his kong and then he gets upset and goes off again.

We were under the impression initially that he is a through and through greyhound, but the more time we spend around him / the more other dogs we meet, we're thinking more and more that he is probably a grey x staffie.  He plays really really rough, very growly when he's playing, whips his toys back and forth, and is generally quite hyperactive.  We think he was possibly used for coursing prior to becoming a stray; it's quite prevalent where we live in Yorkshire and he has a ridiculously high prey drive.  He was a stray for an unknown period of time, and then he was picked up by dogstrust by which point he was quite poorly.  Then he was adopted out to an elderly couple with visiting grandchildren, and I imagine he was just too much for them to handle, so he was brought back after a year and then 3 weeks later he came to live with us.

With regard to what I said about kids, to clarify, we do NOT allow the nieces to be around him unsupervised; I meant that they are used to having dogs that were bought as pups and were used to kids being clumsy from the year dot.  We are so overprotective of Ted because we don't want to put him in a stressful situation, thus far though, muzzled, Ted has been great with them, wanting to play and being gentle, and completely ignoring the baby altogether.

Previous owners have DEFINITELY at some point hit him with a stick; my bf went to scrape some dog poo off his collar that he had recently rolled in whilst out on a walk, and he hit the floor, rolled over and was whimpering.  So I would think he's probably been hit and kicked around a bit as well poor little chappy.  Every now and again, when we see people out and about he makes an active effort to move away from them, particularly people that are clearly drunk / on drugs, so make of that what you will!

He normally gets 40 mins in the morning before work with offlead racing around chasing tennis balls in a local field that is quiet and fully enclosed.  Then I take him out in the evening for 20-30 mins, and on our days off we try and go to new places so he doesn't get bored of our local areas, and on those days he normally has a good couple of hours ramble.

One really positive development is that we have found a dog daycare extremely local to us.  I was somewhat apprehensive at first, but we left his muzzle on and during his introduction afternoon on saturday he dove straight into the group of 8 dogs and raced about bouncing all over them and SO excited.  It's such a nice change from him being on the lead and barking and lunging and going ballistic; proving that when he's on the lead he wants to be friendly he's just getting so frustrated.  The daycare has 5 acres of private parkland to walk the dogs in and has a variety of different breeds and sizes so it will work wonders for his socialisation.  He spent the day there today, and has come back absolutely knackered and flopped out in the living room.  We're hoping to use this daycare 3 days a week so that he doesn't ever have to be left alone in the house while we're working on his separation anxiety.  He's more than happy to be left alone in the car strangely, it's just being in the house that distresses him.

Will have to try the treats and cardboard box idea too!  Thank you

[LindsayA]

Thank you so much for the support everyone! We have been filming him on our days off, but our video runs out of battery after 3 and a half hours, the first week he was literally pacing and barking / howling the entire time, then other days he was better and calmed down really quickly. It's been quite hit and miss. When we first tried leaving him shut in the kitchen, confining him seemed to make him worse, but we did consider looking into a crate for him to think of as his safe place.

Another development that seems to be a good indication is his sleeping pattern;
The first 2 weeks we had him, he slept downstairs all night by himself. Then overnight he attached himself to us, and for 4 weeks straight, point blank refused to sleep anywhere other than on our bed with us. Then he started sleeping on his dog bed in the corner of our bedroom, and climbing up onto our bed around 3/4am. The past 2 nights, he's started off in our bedroom and then slept on the sofa by himself all night.

One other thing; anyone had any experience of dog nightmares? 4am yesterday morning, both me and my boyfriend woke up suddenly (I am a heavy sleeper so it must have been loud!) to hear a dog barking and growling and snarling. I looked around our bedroom in a panic and couldn't see Ted, and we both launched ourselves downstairs convinced that we must be being broken into. When I put the living room light on, Ted put his little head up from the sofa and did sleepy blinks at us both and looked a bit surprised we'd come down haha. I've never heard anything like it; it literally sounded like he was moments away from attacking. Any input?

[julies]

Hi Lindsay

Ted's a lucky boy to have found you Just to clarify ... I'd never give cooked bones too -like you I only give raw but I don't leave the bones with my dogs without me being around in case they get stuck or the dogs start to bite bits of bone off

Another thought - greys and their crosses can have food intolerances which (amongst other things) can make them hyper ...a grey in my class became aggressive on a cheaper complete food and when he was fed Burns he settled down. If you feed a complete that's over 20% protein and/or has brightly coloured food it'd be worth feeding him something like Burns or similar which is less than 20% to see if his behaviour changes. My grey gets itchy on beef and has now decided not to eat it if I run out of lamb, rabbit and lamb tripe

Good luck with him Oooh did I mention the treat ball that you can feed him his complete food from- that would keep him occupied for a while ... you put his feed into the ball and he has to push it around for the food to fall out

Jim Greenwood says that sleep twitching is the dog 'unloading' its brain of experiences so generally a good thing
Julie x

[LindsayA]

Mar 20, 2014 2:39:37 GMT -5 julies said:

Hi Lindsay

Ted's a lucky boy to have found you Just to clarify ... I'd never give cooked bones too -like you I only give raw but I don't leave the bones with my dogs without me being around in case they get stuck or the dogs start to bite bits of bone off

Another thought - greys and their crosses can have food intolerances which (amongst other things) can make them hyper ...a grey in my class became aggressive on a cheaper complete food and when he was fed Burns he settled down. If you feed a complete that's over 20% protein and/or has brightly coloured food it'd be worth feeding him something like Burns or similar which is less than 20% to see if his behaviour changes. My grey gets itchy on beef and has now decided not to eat it if I run out of lamb, rabbit and lamb tripe

Good luck with him Oooh did I mention the treat ball that you can feed him his complete food from- that would keep him occupied for a while ... you put his feed into the ball and he has to push it around for the food to fall out

Jim Greenwood says that sleep twitching is the dog 'unloading' its brain of experiences so generally a good thing
Julie x

Hi Julie,

Yeah I do worry about that.  He is quite good at gnawing on it rather than outright chomping but always a concern.

We read about food intolerances and greys; and about the protein content so wanted to have him on decent food from the off.  At Dogstrust he was on wainwrights, but he's now on James Wellbeloved cereal free lamb and veggie with a sachet of the wet food as a topper.  He's fed twice a day, at 8am and 6pm approximately.  Online, the protein content is down at 21% so maybe it would be worth looking for food that is even lower.  Wainwrights was coming up at 23% so we wanted him off that pronto.

Another dog I used to dogsit when I lived down south had one of those treat balls and he would knock it around the room for ages.  We have some little teeny tiny training treats that we could put in it too!  I will have a look online for one tonight I think.


Thanks so much  xx

[julies]

Hiya Lindsay

Oh I remembered another friend's grey was on JW but can't remember the flavour She changed her girl to Burns Pork and Potato and it changed her behaviour so well worth a go - you can always change back

Good luck with him, you're doing a great job

Julie xx