Separation Anxiety success story
Just wanted to share a success story with you guys. My dog went from barking and whining as soon as I walked out the front door, to hardly noticing I left in just a couple weeks.
\- The biggest wins imo are anti anxiety meds (cheap. Just go see a vet for a prescription)
\- regularly opening and closing the front door so that it becomes boring to them.
\- setting up a camera at my front door ($30 Aqara camera from Amazon) so that I can watch her at my door when I leave. Step out, let her walk to the door, and then come back in before she starts whining. Do this a ton until your dog doesn’t bother getting up anymore.
\- stay outside your door for increasingly longer periods of time. In my case, once I could hit 1 minute, I was home free and could leave for grocery trips, the gym, whatever.
**I think the most important part of this whole process is not re-traumatizing them by actually leaving before they’re properly desensitized**. When you do this, it re-traumatizes the dog and makes it all the harder to get over the anxiety.
Get the reps in! Walk out the door and come back in; open the door but don’t walk out; jiggle the door handle as you walk by it; take out the trash. Mix it up: don’t push for records each time you walk out the door. If you work from home, this process is easier since you can get the reps in more frequently.
Use anxiety meds to help in the beginning! Yes, it’s a crutch, but it gives you a bouncing-off point from
which your dog will learn that your leaving is nbd. You can scale back the anxiety meds slowly until they don’t need them at all anymore.
Good luck!