Dog Quote: They are better than human beings, because they know but do
not tell.
....Emily Dickenson
Separation Anxiety
Many people are unaware that separation anxiety even exists with their
dog.
There are many different traits that can be seen in a dog due to
separation anxiety.
When we leave home for work each day, most people are unaware of what
their dog is experiencing, and for many of them it is separation anxiety.
We assume that because the dog appears to be happy when we arrive home
at the end of the day, than it has been happy all day long.
In many instances, the dog could have had quite a traumatic day.
Many dogs are concerned that when their owner leaves, they might not be
coming back.
They have no way of knowing that we will be back in eight or nine hours.
The stress that this causes for a dog can lead to destructive behavior
where they will chew everything in sight.
Other dogs might express their stress by soiling the house.
Either way, if you come home from work and find that your well-trained
dog has done something out of the ordinary you need to consider whether it has
had a stressful day or not, and certainly not reprimand it until you know what
the circumstances have been.
If you sense your dog has been stressed during the day, you might like
to consider giving it more toys to stop it from becoming bored, or better
still, have somebody call in and visit at some stage throughout the day so it
knows that it is not alone.
Exercising your dog in the morning before you leave is a good idea
because it is more likely to sleep during the day.
Another method to reassure your dog that you will be coming back when
you leave, is to do several smaller trips in the course of a few days or weeks,
where the dog becomes more and more accustomed to you leaving and returning at
different intervals.
By slowly extending these hours of separation, your dog will become
accustomed to it, thereby eliminating separation anxiety.
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