Preventing Separation Anxiety from Reoccurring

                                                                                                Monday, 16 July, 2007
                                                       
First, thank you to my wonderful neighbors, and hopefully soon to be friends, who in a time of dire need jumped in and said they would tend to our five dogs for 18 days while my husband and I helped my aging parents.  Five dogs is no small feat, especially when one is over 100 pounds with a little bit of an attitude, another is under 10 pounds with a lot of holding needs (and a little bit of an attitude), and then one rambunctious fellow, Bernard, who is around 55 pounds and who is in his adolescent prime.... or just growing out of it, at a year and four months old (with no attitude, he's just Bernard).

My biggest fear was that Bernard would turn into Destructo Boy.  As a wee pup he already exhibited signs of separation anxiety.  He has been in our home since he was 4 days old, first with mom and the rest of his litter we fostered for Animal Care and Control.  He showed signs of distress even then, when separated from the rest of his litter, or from me.  When I came to the baby gate to see the puppies, Bernard was the first to turn up, with such a sense of purpose and self importance.  He was the one who cried the loudest and suffered the most when I took the other puppies outside, one or two at a time. That's probably one reason why we chose to keep him, he was so attached, and consequently, so were we. 

Much of Bernard's early time with us was a study in getting him adapted to being without everyone.  He did develop the unfortunate need to chew and rip my clothes I neglected to put away, and I did go through (gulp) three pair of slippers, or was it four?  He also ripped up the couch cushion where I often sit.  It was not malice on his part, nor was it boredom; it was an exercise in joining with me when I was gone.  He became distressed to the point of panicking, and his nose took him to where my scent was the strongest, and he interacted with that.  (For those of you wondering:  no, you cannot discipline a dog who is destructive as a result of separation anxiety.... it would be cruel and inhumane.)

Along with the separation distress, which, by the way, seemed pretty much cleared up by the time he was a year old (as long as he is with at least one other dog), he is rambunctious.  He is a young dog, and that's what a lot of healthy male dogs are:  full of energy!  I walk our dogs near daily out on the old logging roads near where we live, so they get to run and play and tire themselves out.  Eighteen days cooped up inside the house?  With no "mommy", and all this energy?

I had visions of walls ripped out, holes dug under the no-climb pet safe fencing, doors ripped out of their frames.  A combination of separation anxiety kicking back in and all the youthful energy... well, I imagined we might not have a house, nor furniture, nor clothes left on our return.

All my worries were for naught because the house was exactly as we had left it, albeit a lot dustier.

Why?  Of course I'm not exactly sure.  Hopefully the separation anxiety never did come back, not even for a moment.  And hopefully Bernard was suddenly mature enough to be able to handle the lack of exercise and mental stimulation without developing a destructive hobby.  But I think a large factor in our success was the small precaution we took, and which our neighbors were nice enough to comply with....

I had dug out our army of seven Kongs of varying sizes before we left on our trip.  I bought 6 packages of Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  And I gave our very nice neighbors the instructions that every morning they were to collect the Kongs and put one swipe of cream cheese into each one, and give them to the dogs.  Pinket, the long haired Chihuahua, is the only dog who has object/food guarding "issues", and in having 7 Kongs, some of them being practically bigger than he is, I figured everything would be fine. He couldn't be guarding more than one Kong at a time since he couldn't carry them, so there would be plenty around the house for Bernard.

Most of my dogs take great care in cleaning out the Kongs of all food, but then there is the fact of food molecules (not scientific!... it's a figure of speech!).  A Kong can be cleaned out by three different dogs, but there still is the potential for one more molecule to be in there... and so the Kongs were distributed every morning with the hope that when Bernard felt some sort of void, he would seek out a Kong rather than destroy something... and it worked.   Instead of the sudden void growing into panic, or boredom, Bernard had something to bring his mind to: one of the many Kongs lying around the house.

I actually think that Bernard grew from the experience.  He seems more mature now, and more grounded within himself.  That could just be my imagination... but isn't that one great, and scary, attribute of our relationship with dogs:  we can say anything about them and they can't tell us otherwise?

Thank you Nora and John Alderson (and Clara Church too) for a job well done!