DEAR SUZYDOG: MY DOG
HAS SEPARATION ANXIETY
Here's a recent behavior question and answer from this site, from a woman in New York whose 2 year old pitbull rescue was starting to destroy her house. My feeling is that the dog probably was stressed by the owner's absence, but that insufficient energy expenditure was also a major cause for the destructive behavior.
Read on....
Dear Suzydog:
People in Household: 47, 47, 16 (son)
State: New York
Dog Information
Age: 2 1/2
Gender: female
Spayed/Neutered: yes
Breed/Mix: Pit Bull Mix
Type/Brand Dog Food: SPCA brand
Daily Food Schedule: 2 cups in the morning
Current/Prior Training: not sure
Other Pets/Ages: 2 year old cat
Owned dog for how long: 6 months
What is your Behavior Question (How can I solve...):
she goes through extreme separation anxiety. the more you are with her, the worse it gets
Other Pertinent Information:
we adopted her from the SPCA - reported as previously having lived with a homeless man
When did Behavior Problem Start:
since we adopted her. with holiday season, have been home more often, and has become noticably worse
Frequency of Behavior Problem:
every day
Attempted to Correct Behavior Problem, Describe in Detail:
have tried leaving her home for short periods of time and gradually build it up. does not matter. can be gone for 15 minutes and still occurs
If Physical Injury, Describe in Detail:
when adopted, she had stitches in head - came to SPCA with cut, they stitched. not sure of how occurred.
Dear _______,
Please write back with a detailed description of exactly what she does to whom or to what when she is exhibiting separation anxiety. For example:
"She follows me around continually, even into the bathroom."
"She chews on the window frames when I leave the house. She has destroyed 3 windows in the past week."
"She barks and whines for the first 15 minutes after I...."
Please be detailed in your description, including duration, severity, and if/when it happens a certain period of time after or before something else happens. Also describe if there has been any injury to anyone (including her) or if anything has been destroyed or had to be replaced. Also describe exactly how is the behavior worse when yuu are home more.
Thanks
Suzanne
Dear Suzanne,
Well, the good news is she has never injured anyone else. The only time that she injured herself was when we first brought her home and tried to crate her. She would break out of the crate, so the next day, we put zip ties on the crate, she got out. Next, we tried tie downs (used for tying down cargo on a car or trailer). We would come home, and near the door of the crate, it would be a pool of drool as she was so upset and tried to get out. Within a couple of days, she figured out how to chew the tie downs enough where she could force her way out - that is when she got hurt. Her face was scratched and bloody. It has healed as we babied her with lotion, and wet clothes, etc...
So, our next thought was, let's leave her in the shed. It's a two story shed with loads of room. At first she would pee and poop, and occasionally find something to chew up - nothing major. As each day went by, she would get worse - first she clawed at the insulation in the overhead door until is was gone. The next day she clawed at the regular entrance door. My husband put a steel plate on that door - so she literally chewed the door knob like it was a piece of tin foil. So then one day, I thought, I'm going to try and leave her in the house with the television on - as she seemed to be fine when around people - I was gone for 4 hours, and she was fine. We thought - great! This will work. Well, it's been hit or miss. Up until this week, the most she would do is pee or poop in the basement and occasionally upstairs. If we didn't block off the cupboard with the garbage, she would drag that out.
This past week with thanksgiving, I was home thursday through monday. I had to go out on Tuesday for a funeral - came home, and I wanted to cry... She had moved the chair away from the cupboard - got the garbage out and dragged through the house. She took a cushion off of the kitchen chair and took all the stuffing out, chewed a couple of CD cases, and peed in the basement. Could not believe she did not add poop to all of that. Today I was back to work, and it was pretty much the same.
She is only left home for 6 hours a day. My son comes home every single day because of her - thankfully - and doesn't go out until I am home.
She is truly a loving dog, and we all love her to death. When we are around, she is very very well behaved. Can go for a walk without pulling, will play with other dogs, rides nice in a car. And if I have to go the store quick, she sits in the car (with the window open a bit, of course) like the model dog. People are amazed when they see her sitting there so good.
She does follow me around - but, not all the time. I can get up and go to another room. Sometimes she follows, but not always. If I take her to another house with me - she usually doesn't let me out of her sight.
I think I've told you everything - let me know if you have any more questions, and I would greatly appreciate any advice you can give us.
Dear ________,
The following takes into consideration everything you've told me about your situation. I'm sticking to the Whats, not the Whys, so you can get down to the business of fixing this problem rather than spending time on the reasons. These recommendations are based on your particular circumstances as well as my experience with these issues, your dog's breed, age, known history, your living situation, where you live geographically, etc.; it just takes too long to get into all that when you've got to fix this now.
You may be doing some of this already. The following steps are all extremely important but they are listed in order of importance:
1) Vigorous Daily Exercise
Your dog needs a minimum of the following exercise:
Weekdays:
- (2) 30+ minutes brisk on-leash walks around neighborhood - one before you go to work and one when you get back, plus
- 2-3x/week cage-free dog daycare (I recommend Dog Days of Buffalo, my old place, but there are several in your area now if that's not convenient). Pick a schedule (ex. T & Th) and stick with it as much as possible. There are so many reasons to bring your dog to daycare at least 2x/week I can't get into them here but let me just reiterate that this exercise (physical and mental) will do more to calm her down and control this situation than anything else in this email. And it costs a lot less than a new couch or door.
Weekends:
- Same am & pm walks, plus 1 hour midday walk or off-leash at dog park on both Sat & Sunday
If you can do 90 minutes for your am & pm walks and/or 5x/week daycare and/or 4 hours weekend jaunts, it will not be too much. It will be better. Pits have more energy than other dogs and they will find an outlet for that energy with or without your guidance/approval. Help her find appropriate ways to expend it.
If you haven't already closely read my site's chew training section, please do so now. Put it all into action now (including training appropriate chew habits, removing access to inappropriate chewables, adequately puppy-proofing your house.)
Feed your dog all of her meals out of Kongs with a smear of honey or peanut butter inside to make it more work for her.
Your dog needs a Kong Time dispenser to feed her/keep her occupied while you're absent. It will cost you about $70 (see google search results to shop for best price or you can probably get at your local pet store.
The word "adequately" in puppy-proofing context must be based on what you know about your dog. For example, if your dog knows to move a chair away from the garbage cabinet, then you must now lock the garbage cabinet, or better yet, keep your garbage in another room or the garage. Additional example, if Bitter Apple spray doesn't seem to bother her when sprayed on baseboards and furniture, use another brand of taste deterrant, or Tabasco sauce. Use white, red, or black pepper on rugs (or remove them altogether) and upholstery. Look at the room while you think "How can I set my dog up for success?" or "How can I manage this so that she cannot fail?" and do what's needed.
3) Separation Anxiety Protocol
During your time off from work (and your husband and son should also be recruited to do this), desensitize your dog to the cues to your departures by pretending you are about to leave and then not leaving. Get your coat, keys, purse, shoes, and go to the door, open it and then close it and take all those things off and sit down as if nothing weird just happened. Do this several times per day. You can break it up into just keys, just coat, just door, etc. to solidify the desensitization.
After you've done this and she has started to ignore your bizarre antics, do the same but also leave for 1 minute and then return as you normally would after a day at work. 20 minutes later leave for 4 minutes and return. 15 minutes later leave for 2 minutes. 30 minutes later leave for 7 minutes. An hour later leave for 2 minutes. Basically you are desensitizing her to your departures and absences at a variable schedule. Your departure times are not predictable nor is the duration of each departure. Gradually you will increase the duration but you must mix it up so that each departure isn't longer than the last. Get a tape recorder or video recorder to see if/when she starts to show stress. Keep your departure times low enough and increase them gradually enough that she does not start to show stress. If she starts to bark or paw at door, you are gone too long and/or ramped up too fast. Each dog is different, see samples below:
Dog 1: 1 minute, 5, 10, 3, 20, 8, 2, 30, 15, 5, 60
Dog 2: 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 12 seconds, 40 seconds (dog barked), 5 seconds, 15 seconds, 50 seconds, 30 seconds, 80 seconds
Dog 3: 5 minutes, 15, 4, 20 (dog whined & pawed), 8, 10, 6, 15, 7, 18, 13, 4, 25, 12, 30, 40.
If you make it to 30 minutes one day, start lower the next day; in other words, don't expect the dog to start at the exact level you left off at; start a little easier and see if you can ramp up further.
The preferable behavior modification scenario would allow you to be off work for 2 weeks and over that time gradually acclimate her to 6 hour separations. If you can take a day or two or more off, do so. However if you can't take time off just do what you can in the time that you can, do everything else (exercise, Kong dispenser, puppy-proof) and pray.
Never make a fuss when you leave or when you return! The best way to approach your arrivals and departures is to remind yourself not to even look at the dog for 5 minutes before you leave or 5 minutes after you get back, other than to potty her very matter-of-factly when you get home.
4) Pharmaceutical supplements
Talk to your vet about Clomicalm or another prozac-type pharaceutical to use as a supplement to the behavior modification strategies you are instituting listed above. They can help.
5) Additional mental stimulation and "horizon-broadening" such as obedience, agility, flyball, tracking or other classes can also help.
Write back to me after you've worked on this for a couple of weeks and let me know your progress please.
Thanks for writing and all my best wishes for a long and rewarding relationship with your rescue dog!
Suzanne Harris Bsc, CPDT
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