Separation Anxiety

Love or Stress?

Question: I have a 1 year old Beagle, Max, and he is usually very relaxed, but I notice that he gets really excited when I come home after work. The neighbors told my landlord that he is barking in the morning after I leave. I'm afraid I might get evicted from my apartment and I'm worried that something is wrong with him. Why is this happening and what can I do about it?

Excitability when an owner leaves or returns home is a common problem. The problem is triggered by the excitement of seeing you for the first time in the day or when you have been absent for an extended period of time. However, this is not just a “I'm so happy to see you again!” type of excitement. There is also anxiety and nervousness involved because the dog has either spent an extended period without you or knows that you'll be away for hours. He may feel bored or worried when you leave. He may be misinterpreting your departure as a form of punishment. This nervous excitability may cause undesirably behaviors such as barking, jumping up on you, scratching or biting furniture when you're away.

In the dog training world they call this problem “separation anxiety” - but it is just as often caused by your return as it is your departure.

The first thing to address is the reason why your dog is feeling nervous or over-excited when you leave or return. The most common culprit is lack of exercise. If your dog has a reserve of pent-up energy he will “blow of steam” by barking, chewing, digging and through other behaviors that your landlord and neighbors may find extremely undesirably. An easy fix is to start an exercise regiment with your pet. Go for extended walks or a quick jog at least once a day. If you have the space, throw a ball or Frisbee and burn off some of that energy reserve.

Your dog may feel bored and not know what to do with himself while you're away. Giving your dog a task or a job to do to keep him preoccupied will help take his mind off your absence. There are many toys on the market made specifically for this purpose such as a Kong or other problem-solving toys that will keep your dog preoccupied for hours at a time. O if you want to go old-school, even a nice bone will do the trick!

The next thing to address is the triggers that is making him start to get nervous. Dogs are keen observers and they easily pick up the cues of your departure and return. They have a 24-hour biological “clock” that is pretty accurate and know when its dinner time, play time and time to sleep. Probably your dog knows the routine. Sometime after he's heard the shower running and smelled the coffee brewing, he knows you're going to leave. This will start his nervousness. When you make a big fuss over your goodbyes he gets even more worked up. And then you leave.

Instead, before you leave the house, do not make a fuss over him. Say your goodbyes 10 minutes before you intend to leave. After you've said your goodbyes, ignore him. Read the paper or watch 10 minutes of TV before simply walking out the door without another word said. This takes the edge off his excitement and makes your departure a non-event.

This technique works equally well when you return home. Ignore your dog when you enter the house - don't look at him or say anything until he settles down. Once he has relaxed and is calm, greet and play with him. You're rewarding the desirable calm behavior and ignoring the excitability. Over time, the excitable period will reduce in length and intensity, and eventually you'll have a pet who knows what to do when you return home: be immediately calm and relaxed.

If your problem still doesn't fix, I highly recommend getting a crate and having the dog sleep in that. Why? Because dogs enjoy the sense of security of a crate. In fact they sleep better and are much better adjusted if they are crate trained. It's not punishment or cruelty unless you make it so. Don't force your dog into a crate when he's being a "bad dog". Just use it for sleeping time or a couple of hours a day in the afternoon. To get the dog into thinking positively about a crate you should start off feeding him there and making sure he thinks of the crate as something good. Go slow and easy with the training: let him go willingly into the crate to retrieve a toy or to eat. Make sure you start with short durations and work up to longer periods. Make sure he has water available to him at all times, and only allow him out of the crate when he's relaxed and calm.