Separation Anxiety After 4 Years?

[Guest Shermanator]

Miss Echo is a happy, relatively healthy girl. (She has Valley Fever.)

When we first brought her home 4 years ago, she was a mess... severe fear aggression. She would bite in fear. We knew it was fear, since as she would bite, she'd shake and pee.

Anyway with some hard work, she's turned into a happy girl. No aggression. No biting or snapping in years. She's a really good, sweet girl.

She had a complete check up last week with the vet for her Valley Fever, and she's healthy and feeling good. She's 6.

We have another greyhound Travel, who has been with het all four years we had Echo.

Echo was a bounce, adopted out to a hone when she was 1, bounced for divorce and adopted by us at 2.

She's a great dog, no behavior issues.

We have no kids, just my husband and I, Echo and Travel. My husband works from home, I work out of the house.

Problem? She seems to have separation anxiety.

She's fine when we leave. She doesn't destroy the house while we are gone. (1600 square foot house and they have full run of it.) We have a dog door.

However when we come home she loses her mind. We can hear the howling when we pull into the garage. When we enter the house, she goes nuts. Zoomies X10. All while howling. Im afraid one of these days she will hurt herself.

Any ideas how to help her? Thanks!

[CharlieRhea]

It doesn't sound like separation anxiety to me as she doesn't seem to act up when you are gone. Over exuberance when you come home is a

different thing. Charlie jumps and gets excited when I come home but not enough to hurt himself. Sorry, wish I had an answer for you other

than some training to settle down on queue.

[a_daerr]

It doesn't sound like separation anxiety to me as she doesn't seem to act up when you are gone. Over exuberance when you come home is a different thing.

 

Agree with this.

 

I'm interested to see the responses. One of mine does the same thing. Whenever he hears the car door close, I can hear him inside freaking out, whining, jumping up on the furniture, pawing at the door. It's probably my fault because when I get inside, I usually give him lots of lovins and pets. I'm sure there's a way to counter condition by leaving and coming home a bunch of times, ignoring the craziness, and only rewarding calm behavior. I'm just not sure exactly what protocol you'd follow.

[greysmom]

Not separation anxiety. She just LOVES to have you come home. And she's done it enough now that she's found she is having fun and so continues to do it.

 

If the back door is handy, scoot her outside right away and let her burn off her energy out there. If you need to manage it inside, redirect her to a favorite toy. If she knows any commands, try and have her do them. If she's able to accept treats, make sure you carry them with you or put the right inside/outside the door.

 

Alternatively, just don't go into the house until she's calmed down. You do sort of want to do reverse "alone training." It might take 10-15 minutes, but if she learns you won't enter the house until she stops freaking out, she'll stop faster and faster. Stand outside the door until you hear her winding down. If she starts up again, go back outside and close the door. When you do finally enter the house (and routinely) don't pay a lot of attention to her, don't baby talk and say hello, don't immediately give her a treat (a habit I cannot break in my husband! ). Ignore her completely until she stops being a nutjob.

 

If you're in an apartment or have close neighbors you might want to let them know that you're working on some training so they don't get anxious about the noise.

[Guest snowpuppy]

Not separation anxiety. She just LOVES to have you come home. And she's done it enough now that she's found she is having fun and so continues to do it.

 

If the back door is handy, scoot her outside right away and let her burn off her energy out there. If you need to manage it inside, redirect her to a favorite toy. If she knows any commands, try and have her do them. If she's able to accept treats, make sure you carry them with you or put the right inside/outside the door.

 

Alternatively, just don't go into the house until she's calmed down. You do sort of want to do reverse "alone training." It might take 10-15 minutes, but if she learns you won't enter the house until she stops freaking out, she'll stop faster and faster. Stand outside the door until you hear her winding down. If she starts up again, go back outside and close the door. When you do finally enter the house (and routinely) don't pay a lot of attention to her, don't baby talk and say hello, don't immediately give her a treat (a habit I cannot break in my husband! ). Ignore her completely until she stops being a nutjob.

 

If you're in an apartment or have close neighbors you might want to let them know that you're working on some training so they don't get anxious about the noise.

 

 

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This x a billion. Took her a while to establish the behavior, it'll take a while to replace it with another but with consistency it'll happen. The only thing I can add is that when your looking at modifying a behavior...the preferred behavior needs to provide something more rewarding than what she's getting with the zoomies.

[Guest Shermanator]

Thank you everyone! She's been like this from the first day we brought her home.

Had to go to the vet yesterday with Travel, and left her behind at home with my husband. She (Echo) proceeded to howl for 20 minutes. She also tackled me when I got home.

We've tried waiting in the garage when we get home to try to desensitize her, and it only made her even crazier.

I broke down yesterday and gave her a treat when we got home last night- desperate for her to settle down. That redirected her attention pretty quickly, but I know I cant reward her everytime we come home.