Behavior may be separation anxiety
Advice from Pet expert Warren Eckstein
Does this scenario sound familiar? You leave your home and return several hours later to find it destroyed by your pet. Furniture is knocked over, contents of closets are pulled out onto the floor, woodwork and linoleum are chewed, doors bear scratch marks, garbage cans are knocked over — their contents strewn throughout the house.
To add insult to injury, carpets, floors, bedding and upholstery are soiled by your usually perfectly housebroken pet. What’s worse is that upon your return your pet greets you with wagging tail and yelps of happiness celebrating your arrival — as if nothing happened in your absence.
What owners fail to understand is that their pet’s bad behavior is not intentional, he simply cannot help himself. A pet’s phobia of being left alone, of seeing his owners leave, is psychologically overwhelming. What owners perceive as spite work — getting even with them every time they leave him alone — is really a behavioral disorder, a fear so great that it takes over his body, mind and actions.
Dogs can be overcome by a fear for which they have no means of coping, other than to be filled with terror. The resulting damage is only an offshoot of their terror and not the problem itself. No matter how much correction such afflicted pets receive for the damage they cause, they will behave in the identical manner each time they are left alone because you’re not getting to the real root of the problem. Separation anxiety is the inability to cope when loved ones leave and most often occurs when the pet realizes it is alone.
Pets that have had more than one home are often afraid that when their owners leave they may never return. After all, this already happened to them before. This situation is hard enough on the average pet that is transferred from one loving home to another, but is further aggravated when the pet was uprooted from a home, brought to an animal shelter where he spent time in a cage, then adopted and brought into yet another home. Of course, this pet would suffer from insecurity, no matter where he gets settled, no matter to whom he grows attached.
Separation anxiety may also strike at the end of summer vacations when the kids go back to school or are off to college, or owners with teaching jobs, or other jobs with summers off, go back to work. Pets that have become accustomed to having the family around suddenly find themselves alone. There are still other cases in which a once well-adjusted pet suddenly suffers great difficulty when left alone. In these cases, separation anxiety may have been caused by reasons never to be determined. It could be something as irritating as the constant ringing of an unanswered phone or some negative experience that took place when the pet was alone. For instance, a pet who is already fearful of thunderstorms may suffer through a really bad storm alone. As a result, he may associate the negative experience of the storm with the idea of being alone, thereby creating a fear of being by himself.
Whether the symptoms are severe, merely create a nuisance for you or simply create nervous anxiety for the pet, it’s important to understand that the real problem stems from insecurities and lack of confidence. Once you understand that this is not spite, the best approach to dealing with separation anxiety is prevention — never letting it begin in the first place. However, in most cases this is a pre-existing phobia. Take heart, separation anxiety attacks can always be helped and the symptoms alleviated if you embark on a gradual program of desensitization.
• Step 1 — Every new pet or pet already suffering from separation stress should receive a lot of exposure to new and different environments and large amounts of time socializing with strangers. Pets that live out their lives in the same house and yard, never having the opportunity to adjust to the stress of different environments and acquire the social skills of meeting new people, tend to be the very same pets that develop a wide range of psychological problems, including separation anxiety. Pets should be taken on walks to different neighborhoods, visits to friends and relatives, to shopping areas allowing pets — where they have the opportunity to adjust to the sounds of the real world;
• Step 2 — Create a very pleasant home environment, with a special emphasis on wonderful things that occur only when your pet is left alone. Leave a radio on a talk station to help comfort the pet and to help drown out disturbing noises from the outside world. Very special items should be left for him when it’s time to leave the house. Favorite toys and treats should be placed around your home. The idea is to have your pet begin to associate pleasant things with your departure;
• Step 3 — An exercise program is extremely important in assisting your pet in dealing with stress. Exercise is a known stress reducer and, as with human beings, pets may fare remarkably better when exercise is included in their daily routine, particularly when done an hour or two before you leave your home. Remember, a tired pet is more likely to sleep and is less likely to be destructive; and
• Step 4 — When all of the above steps are in place, begin a gradual weaning program. Go from
room to room, standing outside a closed door and talking to your pet through the door. Begin the procedure for a few seconds only, and then open the door and lavish great praise on him. Continue the procedure and slowly increase the period of time he is in the other room and the distance away from the door, until he is in the opposite end of the home. As he adjusts to this step, expand the desensitization program by standing outside the front or back door, again talking to him the entire time. Again, gradually increase the time and the distance from the door as he adjusts. Then it’s time to leave your home entirely, for a minute only, returning with plenty of hugs and kisses and praise. Expand this program a few minutes at a time until he is secure in being left behind.
As with any family member, our pets are subject to developing psychological problems.
They deserve to be treated with respect and every effort should be made to help them through troubled times. We brought them into our human environment and must stand by them when their inability to cope surfaces. By carefully following the steps above with patience and understanding, you’ll ease their suffering and be able to come home to your home intact.
If you are looking for a friend for life, stop by the Central Aroostook Humane Society, 26 Cross St., Presque Isle, Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., closing for lunch noon to 12:30 p.m.
Visit us at www.centralaroostookhumanesocitey.org or check us out on Facebook. Please be responsible; spay and neuter your pets!
