Goes Nuts When I Take The Other Dog Out.

[corvus]

Erik is fine if I leave him with Kivi, and fine if Kivi leaves him with me, but goes mental if I take Kivi away and leave him by himself. Unsurprising, but I wonder what I should do about it. I shut him in the house every time I train with Kivi, which is usually once a day or so for a few minutes. He has improved in that he no longer gets so worked up he wees and poos while we are gone, but today I had to go into town and he wanted to eat his venison ear, so I put him in his pen with it and took Kivi into town with me. He was just about hysterical and when I got back I had a big pile of stinky diarrhea to clean up. He was at least calm and perky when I got back and no longer shrieking the house down. Is he likely to improve as long as I keep taking Kivi out for short trips without him? Should I go back to baby baby steps and take Kivi into other rooms of the house without him and build him up?

[poodlefan]

I'd be putting him somewhere you can easily clean up and leaving him alone for initially short periods, then longer ones.

It could just be in another room to start.. work from there. Make sure you leave him with a treat and ideally, at least initially, after he's been outside for a play.

[GotAnyBlacker]

Teddy does that to us. When we walk the girls and leave him at home he eats the walls of the door we have left from. He's just started eating the front door! He barks and howls so we can hear him down the street and its still going when we get back!

I'm glad its not a rental as we'd be in big trouble if it was. He also does a poo inside sometimes to show us his displeasure.

We can't put him outside either because of the barking he has to stay inside as its so loud and he can't be trusted outside alone.

He is 5 and still hasnt grown out of this behaviour and we've had him since he was 2.

Edited September 23, 2009 by GotAnyBlacker

[Nekhbet]

a big crate and start making it more a 'safe' zone. so treats and bones only in the crate, cover it with a cover so he cannot see and get him used to crate time is quiet time. Put the other dog out too and gradually get him used to this type of thing so when you go out - crate, bone and he's quiet.

[raffikki]

I had a similar problem with Rhino. He's possibly got/had(?) mild separation anxiety

As Nekhbet says, make his crate a safe zone for him.

With Rhino I put him in his crate with a kong each time I go out, I don't make any fuss and now he's usually napping when I get back

I also had problems with him screaming/talking when I got home but ignored him for at least 5 minutes/until he was quiet(at first it could be up to 20 minutes) and then didn't make any fuss when I let him out, didn't tell him how good he was, no pats, just calmly opened the crate and went on with what I had to do.

Now he's so much better, just looks at me walk past him and waits patiently/calmly