Hi everyone,
I'm new to the forum and looking for some advice. Apologies in advance for the length of this (and also that it is slightly rambling).
We recently adopted a 2 year old heeler x kelpie named Rosie. She's a sweet angel - but very timid, which we knew when we adopted her. The problem is that she seems to be displaying some separation anxiety issues that she didn't have in the first few days. We have only had her for a week so I know it's very early days but we're getting desperate.
My partner is working from home at the moment and I don't live in the same house but he does have a housemate as well. The problem is that whenever we leave her she howls and whines and scratches at the door. This started about 3 days in when we left her outside. So we moved her into the kitchen and now she has started doing it in there as well.
We're trying to make sure she gets used to being alone because obviously my partner will be back at work soon and we don't want her to be in shock when that does happen but it isn't working out too well.
She has become obsessively attached to us and must follow us everywhere we go. She sprints in front of us so we can't lock her in a room and gets very anxious if she thinks we're leaving.
It's strange because she sleeps in the kitchen at night by herself and she has never howled then - but if we try and lock her in there during the day she howls. We have left her plenty of toys and treat dispensing puzzles and kongs stuffed with meat etc but it doesn't seem to be helping. We've also been taking her on about 3 walks a day to try and tire her out.
She doesn't listen if we try and tell her to stay off the couch and it's like she has to be within 30cm of us at all times.
We don't know what to do, the problem just keeps getting worse and worse every day. For example, today my partner put food in her bowl and bits of steak in a treat dispensing toy and then went into his room. She immediately sprinted down the hallway and started whining and scratching at the door and she also peed outside the door (She's usually house trained).
It's very hard because we made it clear to the shelter that we are full time workers and they assured us that she didn't have any issues with being left alone. However, that is clearly not the case.
We're getting to the point where we are talking about taking her back but we want to try everything to make it work first and we're holding onto hope that it may just be an adjustment period thing that she will stop doing once she fully settles in.
We have tried leaving her for very quick periods of time and coming back in etc to desensitise her. But we know this kind of training takes a long time and he may be back at work in about 2 weeks. We don't want her to be miserable and it's also taking quite a big toll on us as we aren't able to get work done and we feel very anxious about the situation. She's a good dog and we love her but we don't know if we're the right fit for her.
Any advice is welcome! Thank you for reading.
