Betsy, a feist we think. I am a great disappointment to her because I don't shoot treed squirrels. Named after an old girlfriend who was also disappointed in me, perhaps for the same reason.
We had a dog with terrible separation anxiety. He was a mess and would howl when left, even with our other dog there. Some one gave us this advice:
Take a weekend day and start early in the morning. Get ready and leave as you normally would. Try not to have any anxiety or drama to queue the pup to worry or start up. Leave the house, for ~ 30 seconds, then come back in, put your stuff down and spend 5 minutes being 'normal'. Don't greet them enthusiastically, actually ignore them as much as possible. After 5 minutes or so, pack up and leave again - same thing, little drama, just secure them in their normal space, grab your stuff and go. Stay out for a minute or so, then return. Same thing - mostly ignore them, settle back in for 5-10 minutes. Repeat this process, gradually working up to 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then more incrementally. We took two days doing this and the fits gradually lessened, in both length and severity. They got worse when we started day two initially, but quickly subsided. By lunch on day two, we went to lunch. The idea is to show them that you always come back. Show them this repetitively in a short timeframe, and gradually add to your away time so they don't notice the change so much (dogs are bad at time).
This worked really well for us. Another key was making our comings and goings very low key. No rewards, no big dramatic welcome home. They did get excited when we came in, but we made them sit calmly before interacting. You want your exit/return to be just another event in the day, not a trigger for anything.
Good Luck!
All good advice and I've been trying some of it. I have a friend in town who he visits once or twice a week to play with her terrier. I've left him with them for short periods a few times. It has never gone very well, but he calms right down when he hears me coming and is not overly excited just relieved and happy when I come in the door. I have nothing approaching a regular schedule or normal way to leave. I've only left him in the house by himself three or four times when I needed to to play with a chain saw or something else I didn't want him getting too close to. He pretty much didn't stop complaining each time. When I first got him he got a little carsick a couple of times and once when I needed to go to the grocery he refused to hop in the car so I just left him at home. He has never been reluctant to get in since and runs right to the door if I show any indication of leaving even though being left in the car are by far the most frequent and likely the most intense episodes he has. I briefly entertained the notion that he may have been left in a car and nearly roasted alive in his past life. He was as I said though initially prone to carsickness and taking your dog with you didn't seem to be the guy I met's style so unless he had multiple abusers it's not that likely. The trigger in the car can be just coming into a neighborhood that he recognizes like pulling into a parking lot. If not that though rolling up the windows most of the the way is sure to set him off. If I leave him so much as a millimeter of clearance he will slither out a window to get to me. The vast majority of our separations are fifteen minutes or less, but so far things haven't gotten a lot better. I recently ran into restaurant just long enough to grab a take out menu with my cousin standing right by the window to try to comfort him. She said it was the saddest thing she's ever had to listen to, but as soon as he saw me come out it stopped and the tail started wagging. I'm still trying to zero in on exactly what his concerns are. Knowing where I am at all times is obviously very important to him, but being on his home turf eases it a lot. He will sometimes come to me to tell me it's urgent he get outside, but unless his girlfriend is also out he waits right by the door until I can get some shoes and whatever else I need to come out with him. Once I do come out though he's now gotten comfortable hunting/exploring several hundred yards away from me and even letting me out of his sight. If I sneak back inside on him though he'll be at the door within a minute or two. Having people he interacts with daily rather than weekly is obviously big too. Leaving him next door didn't just help the problem, it eliminated it. It wasn't a short trip either. I was gone the entire day hanging out with S&JFW at Wrigley. When I did get back it was like I never left. He was not at all tired of playing with his sweetheart nor that anxious to get home. They had even been able to take him out to a lake he'd never been to before without him getting at all anxious. Bringing his sweetie with us to the store to wait in the car with him though didn't help much at all as I had hoped it might. I still plan to get an emergency backup dog for him to hang with when I have to desert him though. I never want to go through a dogless period like after I lost Price again.
I apologize for getting off topic with my last post and failing to include any dog pix. Here are two to make up for it.
I guess technically though with my avatar I've got a dog pic in all my posts.
We had a dog with terrible separation anxiety. He was a mess and would howl when left, even with our other dog there. Some one gave us this advice:
Take a weekend day and start early in the morning. Get ready and leave as you normally would. Try not to have any anxiety or drama to queue the pup to worry or start up. Leave the house, for ~ 30 seconds, then come back in, put your stuff down and spend 5 minutes being 'normal'. Don't greet them enthusiastically, actually ignore them as much as possible. After 5 minutes or so, pack up and leave again - same thing, little drama, just secure them in their normal space, grab your stuff and go. Stay out for a minute or so, then return. Same thing - mostly ignore them, settle back in for 5-10 minutes. Repeat this process, gradually working up to 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then more incrementally. We took two days doing this and the fits gradually lessened, in both length and severity. They got worse when we started day two initially, but quickly subsided. By lunch on day two, we went to lunch. The idea is to show them that you always come back. Show them this repetitively in a short timeframe, and gradually add to your away time so they don't notice the change so much (dogs are bad at time).
This worked really well for us. Another key was making our comings and goings very low key. No rewards, no big dramatic welcome home. They did get excited when we came in, but we made them sit calmly before interacting. You want your exit/return to be just another event in the day, not a trigger for anything.
Good Luck!
Same advice we got from a behavior specialist. Lots of work to do with the newer lad who gets waaay too excited when we return, to the tune of painful vocalizations and a bit of biting on his "sister" as we come through the door. We redirect the mouthy behavior (get your toy!) but we need to step it up with the low key approach, so as not to inadvertantly reward that behavior.
Damn rescue dogs, whose horror stories we will never know...
I've always considered the notion that you can't teach an old dog new tricks to be patently false. What is next to impossible sometimes though is unteaching a dog an old trick. Getting rid of an undesirable behavior is orders of magnitude harder than establishing better ones in the first place. I think Rocky is the first dog older than six months I've been willing to take on since I was a little kid. I don't really know anything about his formative year for certain, but I think it involved a lot of time in a small yard confined by one of those awful shock collar fences with very little human or canine contact and nothing to do but get really good at digging up burrowing critters. He may have had multiple owners. Whatever it was though he has some serious abandonment issues. Leaving him alone in the house or car or with friends in town bring on what I can only describe as the worst panic attack I've ever seen. It is painful to listen to. When I'm in stores and restaurants I see people coming up to the car to try to console the poor guy. The only time I've ever been able to leave him without him going ape is when I left him in his own territory at the neighbors with his girlfriend and people he sees every day(pack members). I hope and still believe that this will go away with time, but I've never really dealt with anything like it before. I'm trying to decide if I should be coddling him and leaving him next door when I need to desert him as much as possible until he learns to trust me a little more or just keep hammering away at it to show him I always come back. I thought I would solicit some advice on what to try from any dog lovers out there who might have had more experience than I with this and were able to get through this interminably long post.
We had a dog with terrible separation anxiety. He was a mess and would howl when left, even with our other dog there. Some one gave us this advice:
Take a weekend day and start early in the morning. Get ready and leave as you normally would. Try not to have any anxiety or drama to queue the pup to worry or start up. Leave the house, for ~ 30 seconds, then come back in, put your stuff down and spend 5 minutes being 'normal'. Don't greet them enthusiastically, actually ignore them as much as possible. After 5 minutes or so, pack up and leave again - same thing, little drama, just secure them in their normal space, grab your stuff and go. Stay out for a minute or so, then return. Same thing - mostly ignore them, settle back in for 5-10 minutes. Repeat this process, gradually working up to 5 minutes, then 10 minutes, then more incrementally. We took two days doing this and the fits gradually lessened, in both length and severity. They got worse when we started day two initially, but quickly subsided. By lunch on day two, we went to lunch. The idea is to show them that you always come back. Show them this repetitively in a short timeframe, and gradually add to your away time so they don't notice the change so much (dogs are bad at time).
This worked really well for us. Another key was making our comings and goings very low key. No rewards, no big dramatic welcome home. They did get excited when we came in, but we made them sit calmly before interacting. You want your exit/return to be just another event in the day, not a trigger for anything.
I've always considered the notion that you can't teach an old dog new tricks to be patently false. What is next to impossible sometimes though is unteaching a dog an old trick. Getting rid of an undesirable behavior is orders of magnitude harder than establishing better ones in the first place. I think Rocky is the first dog older than six months I've been willing to take on since I was a little kid. I don't really know anything about his formative year for certain, but I think it involved a lot of time in a small yard confined by one of those awful shock collar fences with very little human or canine contact and nothing to do but get really good at digging up burrowing critters. He may have had multiple owners. Whatever it was though he has some serious abandonment issues. Leaving him alone in the house or car or with friends in town bring on what I can only describe as the worst panic attack I've ever seen. It is painful to listen to. When I'm in stores and restaurants I see people coming up to the car to try to console the poor guy. The only time I've ever been able to leave him without him going ape is when I left him in his own territory at the neighbors with his girlfriend and people he sees every day(pack members). I hope and still believe that this will go away with time, but I've never really dealt with anything like it before. I'm trying to decide if I should be coddling him and leaving him next door when I need to desert him as much as possible until he learns to trust me a little more or just keep hammering away at it to show him I always come back. I thought I would solicit some advice on what to try from any dog lovers out there who might have had more experience than I with this and were able to get through this interminably long post.
Well he did get his surgery in time and its a good thing too. He's recently discovered that their basement door doesn't latch unless you pull it closed really hard and so most of the time it isn't. He's figured out how to break in to free his little lady love. This could turn out to be a hard habit to break him of.
LOL. Best thing I've heard all day. Man I miss my dog...
One of the many things his former owner neglected to do for the dog I rescued last December was have him neutered. When I got him the vet was already backlogged from covid before needing surgery of her own and to make a long story short it's going to be June before I can get it done. The girl next door, a five month old poodle lab mix, has fallen madly in love with Rocky and literally just can not keep her paws off of him. Things could get interesting around here in a couple of months.
Well he did get his surgery in time and its a good thing too. He's recently discovered that their basement door doesn't latch unless you pull it closed really hard and so most of the time it isn't. He's figured out how to break in to free his little lady love. This could turn out to be a hard habit to break him of.
Weezie doesn't know how to play with toys ... I had given up, but then BHD recommended this "Tearible" toy. Still no clue. But cute.
Kind of an odd coincidence. Back when you had Mindy I always thought she was probably only the second happiest dog in the world. Now I have Rocky. He doesn't know how to play with toys either.
He certainly isn't above taking the odd rodent or two, but he has started to specialize in eulipotyphla. He's starting to get a fairly decent success rate at it too. There was a time I used to discourage the behavior in areas where grass was growing, but they've gotten so thick around here that I've switched to "I'll replant Get him." I have been trying to teach him that if he doesn't get one fairly quickly going all the way to China probably isn't going to help. He just got one right as I was telling him that. I think I'm just going to keep my mouth shut from now on. If I could only train him to replace his divots.
BTW Does it seem odd to anyone else that a hound would be teaching a retriever how to fetch?
When I take on a rescue of unknown parentage I always wonder a little about what breed they might be. At first I thought he looked like he was just about all foxhound, but now I'm starting to think he may have a little ostrich as well.
When I take on a rescue of unknown parentage I always wonder a little about what breed they might be. At first I thought he looked like he was just about all foxhound, but now I'm starting to think he may have a little ostrich as well.
When I take on a rescue of unknown parentage I always wonder a little about what breed they might be. At first I thought he looked like he was just about all foxhound, but now I'm starting to think he may have a little ostrich as well.
Tuck grabs his whenever he starts getting excited about anything. He "kills" it a few times and carries it everywhere. He actually has two of them. He has silenced the squeaker in one of them...
Weezie doesn't know how to play with toys ... I had given up, but then BHD recommended this "Tearible" toy. Still no clue. But cute.
Tuck grabs his whenever he starts getting excited about anything. He "kills" it a few times and carries it everywhere. He actually has two of them. He has silenced the squeaker in one of them...
One of the many things his former owner neglected to do for the dog I rescued last December was have him neutered. When I got him the vet was already backlogged from covid before needing surgery of her own and to make a long story short it's going to be June before I can get it done. The girl next door, a five month old poodle lab mix, has fallen madly in love with Rocky and literally just can not keep her paws off of him. Things could get interesting around here in a couple of months.
I went out late last night so Rocky could keep tabs on what all the little woodland critters have been up to lately. It was kind of foggy and I was immediately taken aback by a brilliant red and blue light show coming out of the hole they dug to put the interstate in. Being kind of curious we went over to the bridge to see what all the fuss was about. It was just one cop and one civilian off on the shoulder so I figured it was either a speeder or an abandoned vehicle. As we were watching though the cop got out of his car to give the perp his paperwork and Rocky started barking his fool head off at the good officer and would not stop till they both drove off. I'm starting to wonder if he has had previous run ins with the law. Maybe I should go to one of those online background check sites to see if he has a record. Here's a mug shot just to keep this post on topic.
I went out late last night so Rocky could keep tabs on what all the little woodland critters have been up to lately. It was kind of foggy and I was immediately taken aback by a brilliant red and blue light show coming out of the hole they dug to put the interstate in. Being kind of curious we went over to the bridge to see what all the fuss was about. It was just one cop and one civilian off on the shoulder so I figured it was either a speeder or an abandoned vehicle. As we were watching though the cop got out of his car to give the perp his paperwork and Rocky started barking his fool head off at the good officer and would not stop till they both drove off. I'm starting to wonder if he has had previous run ins with the law. Maybe I should go to one of those online background check sites to see if he has a record. Here's a mug shot just to keep this post on topic.
I asked my veterinarian friend that day, what is the hardest thing about being a veterinarian?
He said that the most difficult part is when euthanizing the pet, because 90% of the owners can't bear to watch it, to be in the ward for injection.
But at their last moment in the world, pets are actually looking for their owners, anxiously.
And this part often made him feel broken.
My point is, never leave your puppy (or any pet) even if euthanizing is needed for it. Stay with your pet at its last moment.
Never abandon your pets!!!
You never know what miserable things that could happen to them, once you abandoned them.
That last experience hurt me bad. Still trying to grow into a new landscape without him. 18 years is a long time to get used to a teddy bear being there.
I hope to get a hold of a new old friend that has been abandoned or surrendered...
