Separation Anxiety

[michelle848484]

Hi

 

I have just adopted a rescue 40 kilo Irish Wolfhound/Ridgeback cross. He is already 12 months old, has had no training and suffers severe separation anxiety to the point where if I leave him outside , even when he can see me through the glass doors he nearly jumps through them. He will not leave my side unless he is asleep. I cant leave him outside when I want to as he stresses out. All he wants to do is sit on me and be cuddled.

HELP!! He sits well and I now trying to teach him to drop and stay but his anxiety gets in the way. How do I deal with this? He is on medication for anxiety at the moment which seems to assist a bit but he absolutely will not leave my side at all even to go to the next room. He is extremely affectionate and lovable in nature. I have 2 other dogs who are not coping well with this as they have been with me for 10 years and are smaller. He is so large that when he follows me everywhere they are too afraid to come out from under the bed. I have only had him for 2 days and he is adorable but I don't want to make mistakes from the start and I am concerned about the response from my other normally very happy playful dogs who have both completely withdrawn , one to the point of not eating. Where do I start??

Edited October 23, 2018 by michelle848484

[Adrienne Farricelli]

Hello, and welcome to the forum!

There are chances this poor dog was surrendered due to these severe behavior problems. With such severe anxiety, you will need to work on reducing his anxiety with your departures. This is not an easy task, and it takes time (several days off from work at times). You would need to likely find a behavior consultant using humane behavior modification to help you out in person for safety and correct implementation of behavior modification because there are serious risks for your dog hurting himself with anxiety at this level. A board-certified veterinary behaviorist may work best because he/she can prescribe the right type of medications and gauge how your dog responds to them (adjusting doses accordingly), and applying behavior modification. For separation anxiety, generally meds on their own won't work, you would need behavior modifcation along with them.

 

Medications for separation anxiety are meant to lower your dog's threshold and pave the path for allowing your dog to congnitively function. Generally, most protocols for separation anxiety focus on desensitizing dogs to pre-departure cues and departures and creating positive associations. You can find some general information about separation anxiety here and some general info on what behavior modfication may entail:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/separation-anxiety/

 

If your resident dogs are overwhelmed, it may help keeping them in separated areas at this time until they become more comfortable with each other. Walking them together may help at times, if you have a helper who can walk your other dogs while you walk the new dog. If your new dog though is acting overly anxious most of the time, your dogs may feed off of it, and there are chances things can get challenging if this is going to be an ongoing issue until tackled. Here is a general guide on how to introduce a new dog to your resident dogs:

https://www.braintraining4dogs.com/members/archive/introduce-dog-new-dog/

 

At some point, you may have to evaluate whether it's feasible to work on this issue and whether this new addition is going to negatively impact the lives of your other dogs, who from what I am hearing, are quite overwhelmed. A behavior professional may help assess this new dog and determine whether things are likely to work out. Feel free to post here any updates or other questions you may have.

Edited October 24, 2018 by Adrienne Farricelli