Anxiety, specifically separation anxiety, is one of the most common behavioral challenges among dogs, especially rescue dogs. Depending on your dog, the behavior may manifest itself in a number of different ways: barking when you leave the house, crying when you close the bathroom door, destroying your favorite shoes when you go for a run around the neighborhood, etc. Understanding your dog’s anxiety will help you put practices in place to manage the situation and ultimately help your dog feel better.
How can you help your dog’s anxiety?
The first step is identifying what is causing your dog’s stress. Is it your absence? Men wearing hats? Pigeons? Once you have identified the stressor, you are in a better position to help. Although eliminating all stressors from your dog’s life is impossible, these methods can help:
- Predictability. Predictability can help reduce and resolve the cause of their anxiety. For instance, instead of walking and feeding your dog at random times during the day, determine a set schedule and do your best to stick to it. This will help your dog feel better in their home environment and slowly bring their baseline anxiety down.
- Counter-conditioning. Counter conditioning is the act of re-teaching your dog to have a neutral or good association with something that they dislike or fear. When thinking about separation anxiety, we want your dog to feel better about you leaving. Instead of associating your departure with stress, we want your dog to associate your departure with delicious treats and general fun. To do this, we recommend providing your dog with a special toy, treat or a meal when you leave. Work to eat toys and bowls are great options, as they take time and require your dog to expend mental energy.
- Introduce DAP products to fight anxiety. A DAP heat-activated pheromone collar combined with at least one natural supplement like Solliquin, Zylkene or Quiet Moments can help ease your dog’s anxiety. Other natural stress reducers include the DAP wall diffuser plugin, which you can plug in to a wall outlet close to where your dog spends the most amount of time.
- Invest in a Thundershirt. Thundershirts use gentle hugging to calm your dog. The gentle, constant pressure has a dramatic calming effect for most dogs if they are anxious, fearful or overexcited.