It's hard. We know it. Rusty knows it.
You're leaving and it seems like FOREVER. But really it's not. It could be 5 minutes. It could be 5 hours.
But still - Rusty thinks, "Momma? Why are you leaving me? Don't leave me!!!"
But work calls and it pays the bills. What do we do to calm separation anxiety?
Work at it every day. Little by little.
1. Practice by just leaving room. Every day. At random intervals (Ok, commercial breaks during Grey's Anatomy or The Young & The Restless). For 10 - 30 seconds.
2. Dogs don't have emotional feelings like we have emotional feelings. They don't know the words, "It's OK." They think that loves & kisses = that's an ok behavior to exhibit because I'm being rewarded for acting this way.
3. Ignored Rusty completely 5 - 10 minutes BEFORE LEAVING and 5 - 10 minutes AFTER RETURNING. That's the most important.
4. Give treats when you leave. Make it fun. Fill up Kongs with peanut butter, yogurt, treats and then freeze. They last pretty long too - so you give the treat before you leave and voila! Instant entertainment and distraction!
5. If you crate during the day (we do at night and also randomly during the day), make the crate fun and exciting with a "new" toy every time and calming by making it relaxed. Rotate out the toys you have, whether it be different tasting chew toys, rope toy or a busy toy. Then make the crate nice and comfy to encourage sleep (The distraction is for when they wake up or right when you put them in). Put a lavender satchet on top of the crate or use a scented room spray. It helps.
These are our Top 5 tips for Rusty.
He's come a long way. He still barks at the door if I go to the car, but that's much better than where we used to be!
2 comments:
I love your training tips! You left a comment on one of my Nest posts so I thought I'd check the blog out. I have another question though..when you have a new training exercise to work on, do you just focus on that one, or do you still work on the others as well? I don't want to confuse our dog if we should only be focusing on one thing a week, etc. Thanks!
Each week we introduce something new - but it can be a continuation of what we work on. So now we're still working on "stay," but focusing on stay from a distance - starting at two feet, then stepping back.
When Rusty gets bored (or if I get bored!), we go back to what he already knows and randomly do obedience. So if he gets bored with "Stay" then we work on Sit, Down, Come, Wait (I gotta post that one!) for the rest of the time. Usually we work on obedience for 10 - 30 minutes.
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