Separation anxiety?

frostfell

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#1
So my 9 mo old pup squeaks and hollers and carries on intermittently through the day while Im gone at work. Not constantly, but she doesnt get over it either. Shes done it since day 1 (6 weeks). I am moving out of the current place at the end of the month, and Id certainly like her to not irritate the **** out of my next roommate. I dont have a bike yet so I cant/havent tried wearing her out every morning. I leave music on as white noise and that does not work. I give her a kong in the kennel and that does not work.

Ideas?
 

Julee

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#4
Okay, gotcha. I was going to say, if she was taken from her litter at six weeks... well, y'know.

I would kennel her, take a step away, click/treat. Two steps, repeat. Three, repeat. Eventually move across the room, open the door, step outside the door (but leave it open), open/close the door while you're outside, slowly increase the time you're out. Repeat the exercises frequently until she's relaxed in the crate.
 

Dex

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#6
I found the book I'll be Home Soon: How to Prevent and Treat Separation Anxiety by Patricia B. McConnell to be very helpful in dealing with SA. It is pretty cheap on Amazon (~$7) or your library might have it as well.

When I adopted my Lab six years ago, he had severe SA. I needed the help of an awesome trainer and a vet behaviorist to help with the problem, but I started with the book and found it to be super informative. I just needed a little more help (as did my house.. entire stairs would be torn up, door frames pulled down.. it was awful). He's great now though! There is always hope.

Mental stimulation is always great too, it can be just as tiring as a good run.
 

milos_mommy

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#7
She's too young for biking anyway. How much off-leash exercise does she get?

Have you tried leaving her with interactive toys or some kind of special chewy (RMB, Bully stick, kong, whatever you feel safe giving her unsupervised) that she only gets when you leave?
 

frostfell

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#8
She's too young for biking anyway. How much off-leash exercise does she get?

Have you tried leaving her with interactive toys or some kind of special chewy (RMB, Bully stick, kong, whatever you feel safe giving her unsupervised) that she only gets when you leave?
She only gets the kong when I leave. it does nothing. she ignores it. she doesnt like bully sticks and i havent had the money to be buying a dozen things to try. oh and i tried rmb, she chews them for a minute and then stops and starts shreiking when i walk out the door

she runs around the yard with me and my other dog for an hour every morning, and then 2 or 3 hours each evening. when i am home she spends almost zero time in the kennel with the door shut, but goes in there willingly to nap or lay. she loves the kennel, runs full tilt into it at mealtimes, etc, so its not a crate anxiety issue. she doesnt try to break out, she doesnt have fear/panic/anxiety response typical of SA, she just screams like a rabid demon kookaburra monkey staffy thing. intermittently. probably when she hears someone or something triggers it. then she shuts up a while later. then starts again, etc. I havent been able to video it or record it, but every time i come home i walk around to the abck of the house first and listen for several minutes before walkign in the front door, and at that point in time she is never screaming, but my roommates report that she does shriek throughout the day, and i leave the house with her screaming.

i almost think its more a spoiled brat response, but if so, wouldnt it have gone away in 9 damned months? thats a pretty long extinction burst ><
 

milos_mommy

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#9
I'm wondering if, you weren't there, she'd do the screaming thing even if she was out of her crate? She doesn't have any reaction to the noise when you're there, only when you're not? Could it be that the noise is frightening her and she's reacting because she feels "trapped" in the crate? Or is it more of an "I hear someone! let me out!" kind of thing?

Have you tried something for background noise, like playing a TV or radio to cover up outside noises?
 

frostfell

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#10
yes i leave my playlist running on my laptop all day. perhaps its not loud enough to drown out noises of my roommates?, but then i didnt want it so loud that it bothers THEM :s

i would try turning it up louder as an experiment, but i was told today that i have 3 weeks to gtfo because blahblah and blahblah, and a bunch of drama that has nothing to do with me, so im too angry to try to be civil with someone whos too stupid to clean a litterbox, much less run a complicated experiment of dog behavior with me while im not even here ><

i have a webcam, are there websites that will save/record 8 hours of video for me? or programs to save that to my computer? anyone know anything about that stuff?
 

DJEtzel

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#11
Does she need to be crated? Maybe being loose WOULD make a difference.

You said that it's not crate anxiety because she runs in there and sleeps in there willingly, etc. but that doesn't mean that it isn't. My pit will run into his crate to eat, go in there on command, and sometimes sleeps in it open during the day, but we cannot crate him for fun, overnight, to leave, etc. or he will shake, drool, and pee within the first 5 minutes, and eventually start screaming.

When left loose in our bedroom or entire living area, he does not bark, whine, pace, urinate or defecate in the house and is totally fine. Might be something to start trying?
 

frostfell

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#12
Definitely NOT

shes very much a crazy destructive puppy, and all my worldly possessions exist in my room ><

i may try it in my new place if i can make my room bare of everything but a bed, but 9-10 months old is much too young for loose privileges
 

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