Whining

[NicoleDelangen]

Hello!

A little about us to paint the. picture - I have a 8 month old Dalmatian pup, Ziggy. He is inside with us when we are home, and outside with a generous area when we are not home. He mostly only has access to the kitchen and dining room at all times, the other areas have baby gates or are behind a solid door.

I don't know how to get him to stop whining when we go behind a closed door or behind a baby gate to another area of the house...I was hoping it was something he grew out of as he got older! Any tips? I have tried to close a door, wait 5 secs, treat if he doesn't whine, wait 7 seconds etc. I can get up to a minute sometimes but I think he has caught onto the training by then and knows to be quiet....but then it doesn't revert to reality when I am not training. Mind you, I've only done this a few of times, so happy to continue if this is correct? 

He is pretty okay when we leave for the day. We have recorded a few times and settles down after about 20 minutes. He whines a little, has let out a howl a couple of times?, but mostly sleeps for the day. He does get very worked up when we get home! Hopefully this info has helped 🙂

Thank you very much 🙂

Nicole

 

 

 

[Adrienne]

Hi there, 

Welcome to the forums!

Good to hear he is doing OK when you leave for the day and he's spending time in the yard. Recording his behavior is the right thing to do so that we can have an idea on how the dog is doing when left alone. A little whining and howling followed by sleep for the rest of the time is good. It shows that he is trying to re-unite with you initially, but copes well once he realizes you aren't coming back home any time soon. 

I have a few quick questions: when you are leaving him behind a closed door or baby gate is that for just a few minutes at a time to run some quick errands or are you gone for good for even half hour to hours at a time? I am asking this because some mechanics change if we aiming to cover for just some brief absences or longer ones. in other words, what is the final goal you would like to prep your dog for?

Also, how long is he left alone during the day? And if you do work for most of the day, is it when you return home from work and you must go in the other areas he doesn't have access to that he starts to whine? I am asking this because many dogs struggle a lot when they are overly enthusiastic about their owners returning after being home alone and they must be left alone again (even if just going to another room to shower or change clothing).

Thanks for the extra details!

Best,

Adrienne

 

[NicoleDelangen]

Hi Adrienne, 

 

Thanks for your quick reply!

When we are behind a closed door/baby gate, sometimes it's 5 seconds to grab something quick (and he will still start to whine) and sometimes it can be 20 minutes to get dressed and ready for the day. Probably no longer than that! So yes, the final goal of 20 minutes would be good. 

On a bad day we can be gone from 7.30am to 5.30pm, but usually 8am to 3.30pm. I think he is just very very excited that we are home and crazy barks/whines as soon as he sees us pull in the drive then run around like a mad man! YES he definitely whines ALOT more if we were to go behind a door or gate within the first like 30 minutes of being home, so I do try and avoid this as much as possible? But even when we are with him all day long, he will still whine when we go into the separated rooms for 10 seconds.

Thank you, speak soon :)

Nicole

 

 

[Adrienne]

Thanks for the additional details, they are very helpful!

I am glad you planning to work on this issue considering that behaviors dogs often display such as following you around,  being overly attentive to every move you make and crying when you leave a room where he can't follow you, can all be early signs of the beginning of separation anxiety. So we want to tackle this sooner than later, before it has a chance for progressing and establishing.

 

It's excellent that your dog is young, since, when dogs are young, they are more malleable and open to learning new things. Secondly, if your dog hasn't rehearsed the crying behavior for too long, you have the advantage that the behavior hasn't become too ingrained. So these are all advantages on your side. 

In an ideal situation, we want to establish a relationship with our dogs, where they develop a strong attachment with us owners, but should feel comfortable (or at least tolerant) being left alone too. So when we get up to leave a room and our dogs are sleeping soundly nearby, ideally, we should expect them to either care less and keep on snoring, or open their eyes and watch us (perhaps in hopes of us grabbing the leash or some goody), but soon go back to sleeping again if nothing particularly exciting is going on.

So how do we gain a balanced relationship as such? I like to treat cases as such, taking a multi-faceted approach, tacking it from different angles, considering that dogs who are clingy and cry when left alone, greatly benefit from brain games and exercises to increase confidence. So here are some suggestions: (please note; any text in blue that is underlined is clickable)

-Engage your dog in fun brain games! Make it a habit that while you are around, you provide your dog  with some games to entertain himself. These games encourage activities that foster some independence and fun a bit away from you. Make a treasure hunt  by hiding his kibble around the home and letting him find it, let him play the Muffin game, challenge him with the Bottle game. 

Teach him also how to get goodies outside a Kong and how to get a portion of his meals out of a Kong Wobbler. These games and puzzles not only keep your dog's mind busy and stimulated, but they will also come handy for those times you must leave the room.

-Desensitize To Your Movements.  Is your dog hyper-vigilant to every movement you make that's suggestive of you getting up? Like for instance, does he wake up and look at you the moment you lay the remote on the couch or you place your hand on the armrest as you get ready to get up? Does he lay by your feet so that he always knows what you're about to do? If so, you have a dog who is sensitized to your movements because he has associated them with you leaving the room. So how do you solve this? Simple, you aim to de-sensitize!

Desensitization is a behavior modification method where the goal is making the dog less concerned less concerned about a trigger or situation. We do so systematically, in such a way of not letting our dog go over threshold. So in this case, we want to help him get used to us leaving the room in baby steps. Therefore, in the case where we are sitting down on the couch and then getting up to do something in another room (where our dog is not allowed) it may go like this:

• We place our hand on the arm rest but don't get up. We do this several times, until the dog seems to care less.
• We then place our hand on the arm rest and this time we get up, but then sit back down. We do this several times until the dog seems to care less.
• We then place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and then sit down. We do this several times until the dog seems to care less. If the dog tried to follow us initially, we will do this until he stops following.
• We then place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and touch the door knob of the door, then we return to sitting on the couch. We do this several times until the dog seems to care less. If the dog tried to follow us initially, we will do this until he stops following.
• We then place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and touch the door knob of the door, open the door (without stepping into the room), close the door, then we return to sitting on the couch. Do this until your dog seems to start getting bored.

-Create Positive Associations. Because the exercises above start getting more challenging for the dog as we get closer to leaving, at this point on top of desensitization, we may want to boost things up by adding counterconditioning. Counterconditioning is a behavior modification process that aims to create positive associations with triggers or situations the dog feels anxious about. A good goal is to create what's known as a positive conditioned emotional response to our departures rather than the dog dreading it.

So back to our exercises, resuming from where we stopped, we now start leaving the room for very brief absences, taking baby steps and preventing our dogs from going over threshold. If our dog starts crying, this is sign we are progressing too fast and need to take a few steps back.

So we place our hand on the arm rest, get up, walk a few steps and touch the door knob of the door, open the door, toss a couple of treats towards our dog (this is the counterconditioning part, where we create positive associations-leaving=TREATS), take a few steps in the room, close the door, stay in the room for a few seconds (as our dog eats the treats), then we return to sitting on the couch.

The goal here is to make great things happen when we leave the room. So tasty treats are contingent upon us leaving the room. Once we are back to the room, the dog should have finished eating the treats- so by doing this, we make it clear that all good things stop once we are back inside. This method is based on the open/bar closed/ bar method created by Jean Donaldson.

At this point, we should gradually increase the time we spend in the other room, however, if we do this, smart dogs will come to realize that the exercises are getting harder and harder, and this may cause anxiety. So it helps to mix in short absences with the gradually longer ones so our dogs won't predict a pattern.

Therefore, we may leave for 2 seconds, then 5 seconds, then one second, then 6 seconds, then 2 seconds, then 7 seconds, then three seconds, then 4 seconds, then 1 second, etc. Let's though keep things brief for now.

While we do this, we need to consider that we should toss more treats (or toss them farther away) when we leave for longer, and less treats when we leave for shorter times. We must therefore carefully coordinate things, so that during our brief absences, as we are out of sight, our dog eats the treats, and then, when we are back, the dog is done eating.

- Build Anticipation. Of course, at some point you may wonder, how can I progress to longer absences, such as when I must leave the room for like  5, 10,15 or maybe even 20 minutes? In such a case, we would feed the dog some longer lasting treats such as a stuffed Kong. When you are ready to do this though, make sure to build some anticipation. So when you have the chance, prepare your dog something really good and make sure he sees you.

For example, if you are preparing a stuffed Kong, make sure he sees you open a jar or peanut butter (let him even sniff the jar if you want to), smear a layer in the bottom on the Kong, then crush one of his cookies, and let them stick to the peanut butter, than add some canned pumpkin, make a layer of that, mix in some of your dog's kibble if he likes that, and then close everything with a dog cookie lodged well at the top. 

At this point, your dog should be dying to have that Kong, but you're going to leave it out of reach for a bit and hope that your dog is trying to access it and getting impatient to have it.

At this point,  give him the Kong and leave. Estimate how long it may take for him to finish it, and then only, then return. If you want to kick things up a notch, also train him to lie down on a mat when he eats his Kong. 

-Use Remote Monitoring

If you can monitor your Dalmatian through some remote monitoring gadget while you are in the other room, this offers you the advantage of knowing when you can return. Nowadays, technology has gone a long way. There are even great cameras that allow you to talk to your dog and even deliver him goodies while you are away. One such camera is the Furbo camera, which has rave reviews from many dog owners.

- Foster Independence. On top of the above exercises, it helps to encourage your dog to become more independent through obedience training and even some fun games. For example, train your dog to hold some sit/stays and down/stays and reward him for complying. Then progress to sit/stays and down/stays with you out of sight. You can even make this a fun game of hide-and-seek. Where you ask your dog to stay, you leave the room and hide, and then release your dog to find you.

- Increase Your Dog's Confidence. Dogs who follow you around, struggle to cope with your absences and suffer from separation anxiety are often insecure dogs who benefit from a confidence boost. This may turn out helpful: exercises to boost confidence in dogs.  Also, it has lately been suggested that dogs who tend towards separation-anxiety issues may lack good impulse control and frustration tolerance. Here are ways to increase your dog's level of impulse control.

So these are just a few suggestions. 

I hope this helps,

Let me know if you need any further assistance,

Best,

Adrienne

 

[NicoleDelangen]

Thank you heaps! This information is amazing! I'll be starting this weekend in teaching the little guy to be independent. Watch this space 🙂

[Adrienne]

Sounds like a plan! Keep me posted on how things go.