Separation Anxiety Prevention

Separation anxiety can develop in dogs who:

  • have not spent much time alone

  • have been abandoned during crucial points in their behavioral development

  • were removed from their mother and litter mates too early or too late

  • have endured a traumatic or frightening experience

  • had significant change to their household environment

  • may have a genetic predisposition

Your behavior as a new dog owner or foster can have significant influence over your dog’s behavior as they settle into their new home. Proactively setting your dog up for success is key to separation anxiety prevention.

Simply put, true separation anxiety is a display of panic behaviors and symptoms in response to being left alone. Common distress symptoms include scratching and digging around entry and exit ways such as doors and windows in an attempt to escape and find their owner, chewing inappropriate objects in attempts to relive anxiety, distress vocalizations such as barking, whining, and howling in attempt to summon their owner, excessive salivation, excessive self-grooming, and sometimes even urination and defecation. Additionally, dogs may also show high arousal when their owner arrives home after being left even for a short period, show distress when owner is preparing to depart the house, and is excessively clingy to their owner while they are home and follows them from room to room.

With all that being said, I do have some good news. First, true clinical separation anxiety is rare and misdiagnosis is common. Second, you can do something to help prevent it! 

  • Get to know your new dog! Take advantage of the weekend and adopt or pick up a new foster during this time. In an ideal situation, 5 days would be a good amount of time to devote to building a relationship and foundation with your dog. This time should be spent encouraging independence, building confidence, creating a safe place, and practicing random departures.
  • Your dog should become accustomed to being separated from you when you are home for varying lengths of time and different times of the day. You can encourage this independence by minimizing the extent in which the dog follows you from room to room. Start with baby gates to keep your dog confined to certain areas of the house while you watch TV, read, or fold laundry in another room. Make it more challenging by switching to closed doors and longer durations of separated time. Other options include using a tether or teaching a sit-stay, down-stay, or bed-stay.
  • Create a safe space for your dog. Often having full run of the house is overwhelming and can lead to anxiety. Use baby gates, a designated area, or crate to signify to the dog that this is their area. Build a positive association with this area by feeding all meals here, conducting training sessions, and spending time in this area. Additionally, you can teach a 'go to place' behavior which can be used to send your dog somewhere specific like to their crate, an area rug, or dog bed.
  • Build your dog's confidence in your leadership by teaching basic obedience. Establish consistent communication to teach household rules. That way the dog will know what is expected of him and will feel confident.
  • Establish an exercise routine that provides both physical exercise and mental stimulation. There is truth in the saying “a tired good is a good dog.” Exercise helps to dissipate anxiety and is a constructive interaction between you and your dog. Teaching your dog to play fetch is a great way to burn a ton of energy in a relatively short amount of time. Use puzzle games to engage your dog’s mind and provide stuffed kongs and marrow bones that will make your dog work to get the treat. This chewing behavior is also self soothing and will help reduce stress (think squeeze ball on your desk).
  • Ignore all attention-seeking behaviors such as barking, whining, or pawing at you. These are done in attempts to get your attention. Attention is in the eyes of the beholder, sometimes our attempts to punish this annoying behavior are rewarding to the dog and will increase in frequency. Giving attention in this manner, also fosters the dog’s dependence on you and will increase his anxiety in your absence.
  • Practice random departures. Start off with very short durations of time gradually increasing the length of time you are absent. Repeat you departures 50-100 times per day for several days to weeks so that the dog becomes desensitized to your leaving. Once you are able to build up to several minutes, you can provide a special stuffed kong to keep you dog occupied while you leave. Only use this special kong for your departures and soon your dog will learn to love it when you’re gone (but don’t let that hurt your feelings).

As many of our fosters know, dealing with separation anxiety can be a huge headache, so do your best to set your dog up for success from the beginning by following these tips!