Sudden Onset Seperation Anxiety?

[kellyxley]

Hi All

Just wondering if anyone had any advice for me? We have a 4 year old Airedale Terrrier who has started whining/howling when we go out and it has only happened in the last 3 weeks.

To give you some background....... We used to have two Airedales, Milly came first as a puppy and then 6 months later we adopted Ellie, 4 years old. We unfortunately lost Ellie in January this year but this did not seem to bother Milly. Milly is a happy go lucky little girl, cheeky as you like and not clingy at all, sometimes the opposite in fact. We are trying to sell our house at the moment and have been doing quite a bit of work to get it ready for market. We have painted and re-carpeted 2 rooms, painted a wall and fence in the garden, planted heaps of new plants and cleaned the whole place from top to bottom. At the time that we were getting ready for the first home open, I commented to my husband that the dog seemed a little anxious - nothing that I could put my finger on, just a hunch. We have now had our home on the market for 3 weeks and had 3 home opens and she has started whining whenever we leave her. Before a home open we will remove all her beds and toys from the house, have a tidy round and light some aromatherapy candles. We also acknowledge strange people will be coming through our house and they may leave their scent behind. Milly always goes out with us whenever we have a home open.

We both work full time and she is left in our large garden while we are away, but this has been the case all the time that we have had her. We spend all our weekday evenings with her and most of the weekend. We had noticed that she had started to whine when we got home from work, before we got out to the garden to let her in and then on Wednesday morning, she was whining when I was leaving for work. Yesterday, we had a note in our mail box from our next door neighbour saying that she thought that we would like to know that she is whining a lot while we are out. She said that it started on the night of our first home open. We went to our local pub for a few beers that night and she was apprently whining for most of that time. I have since spoken to her about it and apparently she is doing it on and off everyday - she will do it for an hour or so and then quieten down while she has a sleep and then start up again. Her whines are held for a while and then turn into howls.

I need to stop this behaviour before she teaches herself that this is what she does when we go out and all our neighbours start to complain. Anybody have any tips? She has never done this before. I have thought about getting another dog to keep her company as I would like another one anyway, but she has a bit of a jealous streak with other dogs and I'm not sure if that would make her worse.

Any hints, tips or advice gratefully received.

Thanks

Kelly and Milly

[InspectorRex]

This is separation anxiety and probably started when your other dog passed away but the trigger has been all the "changes"( ie tidying the house, open for inspections etc).We had a dog at one stage when we shifted house was so distraught she went around and wee'd on all the beds.It is a huge thing for a dog to cope with as they do not understand why this is happening.

Firstly I would try this-

go out for a few minutes( just outside your gate)- return home and praise Milly if there has been no howling. She needs to be reassured that you are coming back because at the moment her world is all upside down.

After about a week of doing this gradually increase the time you are "away" from Milly and remember to keep praising her for not howling.

You can also do things such as leaving an old item of clothing with your scent on it for her to cuddle up to and seek comfort from.

You could also consider doing"inspection by appointment only" instead of opens that way you can be home with Milly( even if you sit in the car with her) and she will not suffer. We did this when we last sold a house and far better for all concerned- the Agent would give at least 20 minutes notice so we could all go and sit in the car, dogs included)

[kellyxley]

Hi InspectorRex

Thank you for your reply, much appreciated. I have put a t shirt in her kennel for comfort and will work on the small seperations. I have also made a conscious effort to return all of her belongings to the house - for our first home open we went around the house and removed all beds, bowls, toys etc etc and were a bit slack at putting them back. We returned the essential items and her favourite 2 toys but not everything so I have returned everything to it's old spot.

Finger crossed we will have some success and make her feel a little better.

Thanks again

Kelly

[4 Paws]

perhaps a flower essence formula may help http://www.floweressences.com.au/dog.htm

I've just purchased the courage formula for my girl

[InspectorRex]

No worries Kelly

when we had our house up for sale we never removed the dog water bowls etc and we justed placed all their toys in a toy box- just like you would do for human kids.

Let us now how you go