subject: Methods And Tips For Dealing With Puppy Separation Anxiety [print this page] One of the daily difficulties that the average dog owner has to encounter is puppy separation anxiety. At a minimum, anxiety can be moderately annoying, which will cause your puppy to bark whenever you vacate your residence. However, if it continues and you do zilch about it, your puppy may begin to damage your home, make messes, or bark uncontrollably for hours on end when you leave your home.
The Reasons of Puppy Separation Anxiety
Puppies wander in packs. They are animals that have an instantaneous relationship to their owners and when you leave your house, they are very easily irritated. But, a majority of the anxiety that they have is due to certain things that you do before you leave. Even though a puppy hates it when you leave, there is actually no reason for their irritation in the matter.
This happens because you pay attention to them either before or once you depart or you have the same way of doing things each and every day. Your puppy's conduct is reinforced every day and is due to the fact that he is not able to control his feelings of anxiety when you leave your home.
Decreasing Puppy Separation Anxiety
There are plenty of methods you can use to lessen your puppy's anxious feelings that occur as a result of your leaving the home. These are some of the simplest ways.
Adjust Your Schedule- Begin by adjusting the way that you do things in the morning. In the event you puppy begins to do something peculiar the second that your alarm clock rings, he has already associated that ringing sound to the routine that will end with your vacating the premises. Get up at a different time, dress earlier, find your keys before you depart and just sit for a minute. Small modifications such as these will greatly decrease puppy separation anxiety.
Do Nothing to Enforce It- Whenever you stroke or pet your puppy before you leave or greet him when you get home at nighttime, you are simply reinforcing the behavior. The simplest method for decreasing puppy separation anxiety is to get rid of the correlation between your leaving and arriving and their attention. Don't pay any attention to your puppy for about 5 or 10 minutes when you get home. Do not pay any attention to him when you leave the home in the morning. Do not fold when he begins making slight sad sounds. Practice doing this with crate training or by placing your puppy in a different area of your home. Afterward just depart the house and come back in intervals.
Build Up to Longer Durations- If your puppy continues to be anxious the minute you leave your home, commences to work on exiting the home for smaller durations of time. Depart for a couple of minutes and then come back. Puppy separation anxiety can be cured by adjusting what your puppy expects as the time you will be gone and when you will come back. If he sees that you will return each time, you can then broaden the period of time that you will be gone each time.
You Are Not A Terrible Puppy Owner
A lot of people are convinced the answer to anxiety consists of being mean to the puppy. However, you are helping your puppy to calm down and comprehend that not only are you returning home, but you are still the master of the domain. This is not a reason for anxiety. Decreased puppy separation anxiety is great for both his physical and mental health.
If your dog has extended, serious anxiety issues, it is important that you discover a solution as soon as probable. Even though your puppy just gets aggravated and does not damage your things when you leave, you can tremendously diminish his feeling of desertion if you find a way to lose the disconnect between your arrivals and departures. This will influence pack order and his survival as well.
