Separation Anxiety: A Balanced Approach to Curing It Through Training

Separation anxiety in dogs can make your life, and your dog’s, much more challenging than it needs to be. The good news is that it is fixable and you can stop the barking, whining, chewing, digging, and pawing. Your leadership is the key ingredient to changing this behavior to create a calm and secure dog.

Separation Anxiety Dogs Symptoms: What Does it Look Like?

Mild to moderate separation anxiety in dogs can look different depending on the dog or situation. Whether you call it boredom or lack of training, separation anxiety is any obsessive way a dog finds to occupy their time. Some examples are: 

• Inability to self-settle without a specific person, or sometimes just any human, present
• Pacing, chewing, digging, pawing, or barking can become so routine that it’s not recognized or called separation anxiety. 
• Following you from room to room, not letting you out of sight

These symptoms can be handled with some basic changes in living with your dog. Dogs with moderate to severe separation anxiety may need additional training support as detailed below.

Leadership: Guidance, Direction, and Control 

The feeling of being in a situation with no clear direction is a relatable feeling for humans. Feeling at loose ends can even make us anxious. When dogs sense a lack of clear direction it can result in some not-so-great behavior choices. When dog owners don’t step up and give clear direction to a sensitive insecure dog, separation anxiety can inadvertently be reinforced. What anxious dogs especially need is an assertive leader.  

What is a Job for Your Dog?

Leading your dog to make better choices starts with managing and determining what your dog can and cannot do. Your essential leadership and management give your dog a job to follow through on. The most direct way to work more management into your day-to-day life is to work on Full Crate Training and Structured Walks. Much of this consists of practicing consistent simple commands. Using training tools properly will make the process go much faster. 

• Instead of letting your dog pace around the house, teach them Place duration work.
• Instead of letting your dog pull you around on a walk or stop whenever they decide, introduce some Structured Walks.
• Instead of letting your dog choose where they sleep at night and nap during the day, work toward Full Crate Training.

These are the easiest and most basic structures that give clear direction to a dog’s daily life that can ease minor separation anxiety and help avoid the onset of future separation anxiety. You’re working towards a calm state of mind, and addressing your dog’s separation anxiety is the first step. 

Even older dogs, especially rescues, can be trained out of separation anxiety. Crate training for separation anxiety in older dogs is one of the most successful ways to manage it. Depending on how anxious/nervous your dog gets, ramping up the management of a dog’s behavior is always necessary to encourage a more secure dog. 

Severe Separation Anxiety in Dogs

For more intense, established separation anxiety, a larger overhaul and more rigorous training routine is required. Moderate to severe separation anxiety includes:

• Continuous barking, howling, or whining
• Peeing or pooping inside when left alone
• Destruction of objects like pawing the front door and doing damage to furnishings 
• Ingesting items that lead to vet visits

A severe state can include attempting to escape by any means possible like jumping a fence, or barging out the door whenever you try to leave. It is common to see an inability to settle when you’re gone, no matter how long you’re away, excessive panting, or at its worst, behaviors that endanger their own life or reactivity that endangers someone else’s.

Crate Training and (Moderate) Separation Anxiety

Many dogs with moderate to severe separation anxiety will try to break out of a dog crate. Do not simply lock your dog up and leave.  Resolving these behaviors can be a slow process and may require professional help. Start slowly, first with Structured Walks and teaching the Place command. If your dog already sleeps in a crate, at night, with the door open, start to slowly move towards Full Crate Training. Feed meals in the crate with the door open. Put your dog in the crate for 5 minutes and close the door while you sit nearby. Learn to correct your dog and instruct them how to settle which is indeed a job you are assigning them. It is a slow process but well worth it for your sanity and your dog’s safety. Resolve your dog’s separation anxiety with confident leadership and don’t hesitate to get the instruction you need to train the family dog you’ve always wanted.