One of the most common problems that dog owners have to tackle is separation anxiety. Separation Anxiety is one of the major causes of a dog’s unpleasant behavior. A very common display of separation anxiety is excessive barking when you leave the house. Neglecting to address this behavior will make your dog even worse to the point that even your neighbors will be disturbed.

The Sources of Dog Separation Anxiety

Dogs follow a social order known as a pack. They are attached in some way to their master or the other members of the household. But the anxiety that dogs feel is not directly due to its attachment to its owner; rather, it is attributable to specific actions you take prior to your departure. Dogs don’t like their masters to leave them, but your departure, but your departure has no direct connection to its agitation.

Actually, the reason behind your dog’s display of anxiety is the attention you give it before you leave or as soon as you get back home. If the sequence of activities you make each time you leave is repetitive, your dog can easily tag it overtime. You should remember that one of the things that dogs love to do is to watch you. It is only natural for it to be able to memorize your pattern of ritualistic pre-departure activities. Your own sequence of activities gives your dog the signal that you are leaving. This will make it anxious and agitated because it already knows your next move.

Reducing Dog Separation Anxiety

Dealing with separation anxiety comes in many ways. Here are a few tips to consider:

Change Your Routine. By changing your routines especially before you leave the house, your dog will not be able to tag a pattern of the things you do that it can connect to your departure, including any familiar sounds such as the sound of an alarm clock. You may change the times that you make yourself ready to leave like dressing up or getting your car keys. Little variances in your pre-departure activities will help reduce separation anxiety.

Don’t Reinforce it. Petting your dog before you leave only reinforces its anxious behavior. Separation anxiety can be removed or avoided if the dog cannot establish a connection between your arrival or departure and the lavish attention it receives. One way to do it is to ignore your dog for at least 10 upon your arrival or prior to your departure. Another way to eliminate separation anxiety is to put your dog through crate training or by isolating your dog in a separate room to make it lose its attachment to the attention and petting you accorded it.

Building Up to Longer Times. A dog’s separation anxiety can be removed by altering its expectations, like the length of time that you will be away. As you see the dog getting anxious as you head for the door you can always choose to take time to extend your departure or leave the house for shorter intervals, then come back. Your dog will not be as anxious as they often see you coming back in a short period. From here, you can already start to extend the length of time that you will be away without your dog taking notice of it anymore.

You’re Not Being Mean

Putting a stop to dog separation anxiety is not a cruel act. It is in fact a way to help your dog to behave properly and giving it an assurance that you are coming back. The mere act of changing your movement patterns and to ignore the dog’s attention seeking efforts is a show of control and the dog should abide by it. Reducing a dog’s separation anxiety is reinforcing its physical and mental health.

Persistent anxiety problems need to be resolved as early as possible before they can aggravate into a more complex behavior problem. You can eliminate or reduce separation anxiety by not petting them before leaving and upon your arrival. Your dog should not be made to remember this connection to make it free from dog separation anxiety.

Stan Beck has helped many pet owners with his Dog Training Methods. Visit his website to give you valuable insights about dog behavior training and how to reduce your dog’s Separation Anxiety.

A hard to deal with behavior problem but also most common is dog separation anxiety. Leaving you dog alone creates high level of anxiety because they are social animals, needing a lot of interaction either with other dogs, other animals or humans.

In order to solve dog separation anxiety you will need to first understand this anxiety disorder that brings on a state of extreme panic in your dog. The main cause of the distress is the separation or isolation from their owner.

Different levels of anxiety are possible. Some dogs can deal with being left alone while others might start worrying the minute you have left home, or even as soon as noticing you are preparing yourself to leave.

There are dog breeds that are more prone to separation anxiety so it is important you do your research before buying a dog. If you know you are not going to be home very often and your dog will have to spend time on his own, you better not buy Airedales, Weimaraners or Springer Spaniels for example.

Plus a higher number of dogs that come from a shelter seem to develop dog separation anxiety easily. These dogs might have gone through some severe trauma before ending up in the shelter and once they are placed in a home with an owner they can trust, they will start relying on that owner a lot faster than dogs that havent experienced any trauma in their life already.

Another class of dogs with a higher risk of developing dog separation anxiety are the pups being taken away from their mother too early on in life. This is particularly common in the puppies you can buy in pet stores. They are separated well before the minimum age of 8 weeks and then left in cages waiting for their new owner to come along, which causes feeling of insecurity and anxiety.

Lets look at what causes this behavior problem now that we know which dogs are more likely to suffer.

Seeing that a dog needs a lot of attention, love and companion, neglecting to fill these needs is the major cause for your dog to develop anxiety. If you want your dog to be content and happy, you must take care to properly prepare your dog for those times you cant be with him.

A dog alone at home will start looking for distraction or try to find you. Realizing he is completely alone with nothing to do, anxiety symptoms will start popping up.

Some signs are dogs becoming nervous the moment you are leaving the house (or even as soon as they notice you are preparing to go) and in the extreme cases your dog will completely trash your house while you are away.

Finding the solution and helping your dog deal with separation anxiety can be a tedious time consuming process but when you are taking the right steps and doing the right things in order to build confidence in your dog, great improvement can be achieved.

I am happy to let you know that there are very effective ways to deal with your dogs anxiety problems, even if you already have “tried it all”.

As a dog owner myself and having dealt with dog separation anxiety on several occasions already, I know how hard it can be, coming home each time and find that your dog has been chewing on furniture, peeing everywhere and basically trashing the house, not to mention the number of angry calls from the neighbors.