How Long Did It Take To Overcome Sa?

[Guest badderh]

I think I've posted on this forum before, but here is a whole bunch of things that I've been working with to help with my dog's SA.

 

We got Rocky about 4 months ago, it wasn't until about a month after having him that we realized he had SA. We are still working really hard on him overcoming his separation anxiety and through a combination of learning new commands and combining those new commands with alone training, and a consistent schedule for him. He was also hyper focused on his kong and would freak out as soon as he was done eating the kong and realized we were gone. He mainly barks howls whines and makes LOTS of noise (which isn't what you want when you live above your landlord :S lol - So happy they are dog lovers and understand though)

 

I ended up teaching him the command "stay", and after I taught him "stay" I started adding in things that were triggers for him ( me picking up my keys opening the door putting on my shoes ect.) and everytime he "stayed" on his bed when he heard one of those noises and didn't come running like he normally does he got his kong for a minute. I've gotten him to the point where I leave my apartment and will stand out in our hall way listening to see if I can hear him moving around and he will lay on his bed for up to ten minutes now and not make a single sound because he knows when I come back that he gets his kong.( Side note he seems to be willing to bend over backwards for a kong stuffed with wet dogfood and cheese, its like a holy grail for him)10 minutes doesn't seem like a lot of time to be able to really do anything (maybe enough to do a load of laundry or to run out to my car) and it really isn't, but for him its a pretty big deal! And we managed to achieve that in a few days once we figured out something that worked for him.

 

We also started implementing the rule of "nothing is free" he has to do a command to go out on walk, to get his food in the morning, to get on the couch, for petting, for anything (this was the advice of our trainer) She said that by doing this, the dog relinquishes the control in his life over to you and it lifts the stress of having to make certain decisions for himself. Making him do a command to get petted seemed a bit harsh to me at first but we had taught him to touch our hand our hand on command so we just get him to do that real quick and he still gets LOTS AND LOTS of loving from us. She also recommended along with the "nothing is free" to only give them access to their food bowl for a half hour in the morning and a half hour at night for their 2 times a day feeding, so that they understand that you are in control of their food as well and so that they look to you for more guidance and leadership. Once he got used to having a half hour in the morning and a half hour to eat at night he had no problem at all with it and eats all of his food with plenty of time to spare.- it all seems a bit weird to think about reading what I just wrote but it seem to be working and he responds to commands and training much better now.

 

We are giving it another month (advice from our veterinarian) before we look into putting him on SA meds. I know how you feel though we LOVE our Rocky and we really didn't want to return him because in every other aspect he was happy and perfect except for the SA, so we ended up deciding that we would just do our best to work through it, mainly because, if we end up having to, the meds for SA don't seem to be too expensive from what I've seen on petmeds.com, but we will see what our vet says about the price.

 

Our vetrinarian said that one thing that she did with her greyhound ( who had SA and pee'd on EVERYTHING) is she taught her to pee on command (kinda wierd to think about) but she said it helped with the elimination in the house. She told me that every morning she took her on a long walk to tucker her out made her pee on command about 10x :S, and then gave her 3 bones/kongs to eat when she left and also did lots of command training with her dog. She also said that it took her greyhound almost a year before it got any better and for 3 months that they did have to medicate her and do lots of training. But she has now had her dog for 6 years and although the SA does still comes to the surface from time to time that it is much more manageable now.

 

We have also started taking Rocky for a 2-3 mile walk every morning and then about a 30 minute walk in the afternoon and I do feel that making him tiered by exercising him like that does help him really not care from time to time. Oh and we started paying more attention to what time we did things at because EVERYDAY at 9 am he starts play bowing because its time for his walk, and EVERYDAY at 5 he does the same thing for his afternoon walk and does the same for his food times. We didn't realize it till randomly one day we decided to try out keeping him on a rigid schedule and we wrote down the times we did these things at. 2 days later we noticed that ROCKY had set US on a schedule for his food a walk times and that we had already been doing things at these times for about 2 months now. lol. So I do believe that a consistent routine that your dog does everyday is important as well cause now that he knows that we are for sure going out at these time, we have seen a bit of improvement because of that as well.

 

WOW^ now that I've babble on and on, I hope that helps a little!

Edited June 7, 2012 by badderh

[Guest LindsaySF]

Anyway, to answer your original question, I don't think you need to return her since you seem to be committed to working with her. If they don't think another dog will help, wouldn't the next adopter just need to do the same work anyway? Get a copy of Patricia McConnel's I'll Be Home Soon and start working through the alone training. Make sure you're providing a lot of exercise and mental stimulation (chewing is also great for this) and see how things go. If she's still having issues, you may want to consider a medication like Chlomicalm.

X 2

 

The alone training and the exercise will help with the SA. Also make sure you have a consistent schedule. Exercise and frequent potty breaks should help with the peeing too. You don't have to crate her (I would not recommend it if she's trying to break out) but limiting her space might help the peeing too. Good luck!