Advice Needed on Trust Building and Separation Anxiety

[PinkDice]

We're experiencing a few setbacks. The pup of the family is incredibly bonded with my OH and not so much with me. If you'd like a bit of back story there's another post about us here.

I am now her primary caregiver. While she has always suffered from separation anxiety, she has become intensely stressed out when the OH leaves for work. Despite the both of us acting as if nothing is wrong, and trying to minimize cues that it's time for him to leave, she gets so upset she refuses to interact with me all day. For the most part I try and give her space, but she has taken to hiding in the bathroom all day and 'moping'. (Not sure if that's an accurate word for what's going on with her, but it's the best one I can think to describe it.) It's almost like she's associated my presence with him being gone and if she ignores me for long enough, he'll come back for sure.

In addition to moping in the bathroom, she refuses all food from me, even high value treats, no longer wants to go out to potty at her usual times, does not seem interested in toys she normally adores, and refuses any invitation onto the couch to lay in my lap, which is usually her favorite treat ever. Our interactions during the day are limited to her 'asking' me to go potty when she absolutely has to (usually just once in 8 hours or so and sometimes not at all), and peeking around a corner at me if it sounds like I'm doing something scary or interesting. I tend to leave high value treats around in my general area and every once in a while she'll come out of her hiding spot and grab one and run back to the bathroom with it.

When the OH comes home from work she's so excited she cannot contain herself. She sometimes pees herself (probably because she hasn't been out to potty enough), and wants to jump all over him. His routine is to talk to her calmly until she settles down and then ask for a sit and give her tons of attention until she's fully calm. After this occurs, it's as if nothing ever happened. Suddenly I exist again. Both the OH and I can take her out to potty. Toys are fun again, clicker training sessions are interesting, and eating dinner is something to look forward to. She's also perfectly content until an hour or so before he leaves for work and really enjoys an early morning romp around the neighborhood with me while OH is still sleeping. She starts to make progress towards Friday, but Monday is back to being terrible again.

Things we've tried that haven't worked so well:

-OH practicing being the most boring person in the world when he's home and she's calm and content. Despite every day practice for three weeks of moving from room to room with just enough time for her to settle down in between she still follows him everywhere. We do about two ten minute sessions a day and he carries a book so he's not tempted to even look at her. If he happens to move to another room at any time without inviting her, he doesn't acknowledge her either, but she still insists on following him. Even when she has something yummy and difficult to carry she'll either attempt to drag it along or abandon it completely. If he leaves the room and invites her to come he provides loads of attention. I don't know if we're doing it wrong but have read emmabeths instructions on how to carry this out repeatedly and are pretty sure we're following them.

-OH giving her one of her kong like toys full of yummy stuff before he leaves for the day (he alternates between two). As a result she has learned that food dispensing toys are evil and cause him to go away. Kongs are to be avoided at all costs and if she accidentally touches one she gets very upset.

Something we're thinking about trying:
-OH pretending to leave at his normal time even on the weekend - for the sake of continuity. This seems a bit drastic, but we're both pretty dedicated to helping her work through this. Will this be effective at all? Also, would the time he's away matter? I'd rather he not be gone all day on the days he has off.

-Me taking her somewhere just before it's time for him to leave. I suspect she might be just as upset when we return home and he's not there, but I think it's probably worth a try. We haven't tried it yet, because we're worried it may cause her to avoid me even more than she already is.

-Hiring a dog trainer to help. We really want to do this especially, but she doesn't do too well in the proximity of strangers and we don't want to add any further stresses to her already stressed out life. We've been communicating with one, but haven't received a lot of advice different than what we've read on this board. I suppose it's good because you guys really know what you're talking about, so our trainer must too. Is there a way to benefit from in person training sessions without our dog present?

What can I do to help her be comfortable in my presence and secure when I'm the only one home?

What can we do to help minimize the impact of OH's departure on her stress levels?

Please let me know if any additional information is required. I'm really looking forward to finding some answers, and I really appreciate you guys taking the time to help newbies like us work through our issues.

[emmabeth]

I've been pondering this for a few hours...

Woo.. she REALLY is giving it the full on collie weirdness isn't she!

Trying to pick out the good points here - she learns quick and makes connections rapidly, you can use that to your advantage (when you figure out how!). She IS showing some signs that are good, such as dashing out to pick up high value rewards, and the improvement towards the end of the week.

Have you thought about drugs - its a route most people are wary at best about, and flat out won't do at worst - it ISNT something to do lightly and I am not in a position to do more than advise you to discuss with a qualified behaviourist or vet, the use of Clomicalm (does tend to be good for obsessive, hysterical, 'ive gone down this behaviour route and cant get back out of it' type behaviours) or Zylkene (a food supplement which can relax dogs a little and take the 'edge' off nervous/anxious dogs).

Neither of these are quick fixes or short term options - they would both need to be done in conjunction with behavioural modification but they may give you the 'edge' you need.. worth considering but as I say, talk to a vet about them, particularly Clomicalm as that is a prescription only medicine.

I don't think a dog trainer is going to be of much use - seeing a Veterinary Behaviourist might though, so thats something else to consider.

I think both the ideas you have are worth testing out, if she IS improving over the course of a week, and then takes a step back at teh weekend because OH is there all day, it would be interesting if nothing else to find out how much improvement you could get over a two or three week period.

Obviously the downside of that is you will lose your OH for the majority of both weekend days (and whats he going to do whilst hes out of the house??).

It would be interesting to see what happens if you take her out before he leaves, though as you say there is a good chance she will then associate you taking her out with him vanishing on her so treat that one with care.

I am wary of suggesting trying things to see what happens, on the other hand the answers could be extremely useful and quite clearly, something does have to be done..

What happens if you take her out (can you?) when he is gone... and then when you return he is already home?

What happens if you take her out together and then one or other of you goes off on your own, or she and one of you leave the other person somewhere and then come back to find them. What I am getting at I think with this one is, does she relax if she knows where someone IS even if she then has to leave them?

One thing (bear in mind I am thinking out loud here!) I do think happens with some dogs is, instead of all the stuff we do to stop them creating visual cues or linking visual cues to certain events actually stopping them forming a 'chain of events' and thus stops them freaking out before something happens... is that then they arent sure what is happening, and when.

I wonder then if giving her a clear cut cue that 'dad is unavailable now' might actually help? Something really bizarre though not a normal thing, a big object out of place, say a traffic cone on the coffee table type of thing (something that obvious, dont actually go and pinch one!)...

What I am wondering is, if he puts the traffic cone out... and then YOU put it away a few minutes before he is due back (you may want to have him text or phone you to let you know), it could make it clearer to her when hes going, and almost as if YOU make him come back?

Obviously you know her far better than me so these are just suggestions, if you think they will give her the wrong ideas or make her worse I would say you should trust your judgement! Equally if you think you can come up wtih better ways to do stuff, go for it.

I have to say, a friend of mines dog relaxed a LOT and got over his seperation anxiety a huge amount after being taken to their place of work a few times and spending a day lying under the desk bored out of his mind... I do suspect SOME dogs think that 'someone going out' actually equals 'they have gone for a walk without me' - because for MOST dogs the only time they go out of our front doors IS to go for a walk or somewhere exciting. They cannot possibly realise we go places each day that are deathly boring for a dog! (Of course for some dogs, going anywhere with their people is mega exciting!)

[PinkDice]

Thank you a hundred times over for your advice and suggestions. Also, full on collie weirdness is an apt description and helped me find a little humor in our situation.

We have discussed the idea of talking to the vet about some sort of 'doggie prozac' after experimentation with rescue remedy and a few of Nettle's homeopathic relaxation aids didn't work for us very well. (On a side note Nettle's suggestion of cooking a meat bone in her water to get her to drink more has worked wonderfully. We live in the desert and she ends up needing a lot more water than she thinks she does. So thanks for that!)

Anyway, back to 'doggie prozac' we felt bad for even considering it, but really think it might be the right route for us. We're going to try a few more things and avoid it if at all possible, but something really does need to be done!

Answers to your questions:

What happens if you take her out (can you?) when he is gone... and then when you return he is already home?

After he has left for the day it has to be an absolute potty emergency for her to be anywhere near interested in leaving the house. Even then, any deviation from our front door to the potty area and back is seriously unwelcome.

What happens if you take her out together and then one or other of you goes off on your own, or she and one of you leave the other person somewhere and then come back to find them. What I am getting at I think with this one is, does she relax if she knows where someone IS even if she then has to leave them?

She's totally cool with leaving one or the other as long as she knows the OH is not GONE. She does prefer us to be in the same room as each other and if we're not she kind of splits the difference as much as possible by laying in the middle of the apartment with an eye on each of us. She knows the time of day OH is leaving and will not leave his side for about an hour before. This has inspired a great idea though of the OH leaving us at a place she finds really fun.

I have to say, a friend of mines dog relaxed a LOT and got over his seperation anxiety a huge amount after being taken to their place of work a few times and spending a day lying under the desk bored out of his mind...

We read this somewhere on the board, probably a suggestion from you. Unfortunately the OH works in a dog unfriendly environment. We did think about coming up with mock boring situations for her to join him in on the weekend, but really don't know where they would go or what they would do.

The traffic cone thing is brilliant, and now that I think about it her anxiety may have gotten just a touch worse since we've started mixing up the signals. We're going to try that first thing in the morning! Finding something among our possessions that might be noticeable enough is the hard part.

If that doesn't help after a few weeks we're going to try all going over to my dad's house first thing in the morning and the OH departing from there. She's super happy to visit her pal Daisy (my dad's dog) and I think his departure from there might help to sever the link between me and our apartment and him leaving.

And if that doesn't help I think we're going to talk to the vet. While we're still a bit hesitant to try the drugs, they may be just what she needs to break the cycle, as you said. Her current cycle is a pretty bad one because she is too stressed to get out all her energy and so she has more energy to devote to being stressed out.

I'll definitely keep you updated! Thanks again for taking the time to give us some pointers. I know I haven't talked to a lot of you directly, but reading through lots of old threads has helped us so much!

[WufWuf]

Have you ever left the house with your partner when he leaves for work? I'm just wondering how she'd react when you returned a few minutes later, would she still be wiggy with you?

You don't need to answer this question on here but how do you feel when he leaves?

Animals can be so sensitive to our feelings. One of my cats is a daddy's boy and always has been (he's a"tamed" feral cat). At the start my feelings were a bit hurt that he didn't want to be with me so I kept trying to get him to like me and then feeling bad when he didn't. This wigged him out so much that he started to leave the room when I came in,(even though he was perfectly happy to zoom around like a lunatic as I sat there bleary eyed wigglying a cat tickler at stupid o'clock because he had kitten crazies at dawn ). So I had to back off and I even stopped looking at him for a few days/weeks, I was still chief toy wiggler but I couldn't look at him . As soon as I took the pressure off he started to come around I think the poor guy thought I was hunting him Six years on and he's still a daddys boy but he's also very much my buddy.

Something else you could think about is does what you do around her during the day match what your OH did when he was with her full time. Such as, if he sat at the pc first thing in the morning and then did chores after lunch verses you do chores in the morning and sit at pc in the afternoon.
I usually sit at my pc and have a cup of tea when I get home from my morning walk with Honey and she just gets into bed and has a sleep. Now if I break my routine by doing something else when we get in she just can't settle so I have to sit down even if it's just for 5 mins, she get's into bed and then I can get up and do whatever it was I was trying to do and she'll just keep on sleeping.

Good Luck and well done for putting the work in

[Flyby]

Can I ask a question? I'm not a trainer here, but I haven't seen what I recognise as the normal advice about de-sensitising your pup to separation anxiety.

I recognise it's not the normal separation anxiety scenario since you're still there in the house, but have you considered approaching it as you might approach normal separation anxiety, building up the confidence that your OT is going to return? I know you say you've tried your other half to be boring and avoid exciting the pup, but have you also tried having him leave the house as if for work, but then return after a few minutes? Once the pup begins to understand the departure isn't always a marathon separation, and not such a bad thing, you start building up the time the pup get's left?

Also, as I understand the 'being boring' bit, this is just intended to take the edge of any departure or return, to make your leaving or return a low key event rather than a special occassion or cause for celebration or despair. The object of the exercise is to make your, or in this this case your other half's , coming and going to be a mundane event, it's not setting out to make you boring.

If your hubby is moving around the house deliberately ignoring your pup, it might be your pup just thinks it has to try harder for his attention. That might even be contributing to the fixation. Whenever I leave my dogs, which doesn't happen often, I enter the house, I say hello and verbally greet them as normal, but there's no bending down or petting them until I've come right into the house, filled the kettle and turned it on. Then I can sit down and say hello to my dogs, hugs and cuddles and all. It's just a little restraint not to respond to their excitement, but it's just enough to take the edge off that initial contact. I don't actually ignore them, but the kettle is No 1 priority, and saying hello to them isn't anything urgent at all. It's very nice to see them, but being apart is a mundane and normal event that isn't something to get excited about.

[ladybug1802]

Anyway, back to 'doggie prozac' we felt bad for even considering it, but really think it might be the right route for us. We're going to try a few more things and avoid it if at all possible, but something really does need to be done!

Honestly dont feel bad for considering it. If you read back on some of my past posts you will see we had quite bad fear aggression issues with strangers. I got a tonne of help on here which helped hugely, but we got to a certain stage and he was still pretty unreliable,m albeit much better. He cant go to the vets as he is so freaked out he wont let them anywhere near him....so my vet referred me to a veterinary behaviourist. Long story short, he put Dylan on Prozac as well as working with us on a course of behavioural modification - a lot of counter conditioning.

Dylan is SO much better now...I wouldnt let just anyone go up to him and stroke him as I know he isnt keen on it, and although I now dont thinkj he would do the same severe reaction as before, its not worth risking it. He now is getting better at the vets with the work we are doing there....the vet can now sit a couple of chairs away from him, which may sound no help at all, but when you considr 6 ,months ago the vet couldnt even come out to the waiting room without Dylan fixating on her and looking genuinely not a happy dog!

I honestly truly think Prozac has been the best thing....it hasnt changed him personality wise at all, apart from maybe him being a little calmer than before, but I realy believe it has helped his state of mind so that he is receptive to all the counter conditioning and work. It works by increasding the production of seratonin in the brain, and it has been proved that impulsive and reacvtive dogs lack seratonin produced. So although that isnt the issues you are having, I think it is definitely worth considering. I found when he was first on it some people would look on it with a critical eye, as if it was seen by me as a 'quick fix'...when in actual fact that was the last thing it was. I also had people almost laughing when I tol;d them what he was on....but they take it all back now seeing how well he has done since then! I did months and months and months of training without the drugs, and he has been on them about 4 months now and I have been really vigilent in my training since then as I want to do it right. The drugs alone wouldnt have made a difference....its not a case of putting him on the drugs and all of a sudden he will be fine with people....it was just to enable him to be more receptive to the training and to change the way he views people.

So defo worth asking your vet about it, and asking what they think about referring you to a veterinary behaviourist. Normal behaviourists wont be able to prescribe any drugs, and vets wonr presribe them because they arent trained in the behaviour side of things!