Separation anxiety- please help!!

[heartfire]

TLDR: 11 month old Lab mix w/ separation anxiety that seems to have just recently come outta nowhere- I’ve tried a lotta stuff; nothing is working; she’s hurting herself & she’s wrecking our home. Any advice is welcome!

So we have an 11 month old Lab mix- we got her as a puppy; and up until around 2 months ago she never had any issues w/ either crate anxiety or separation anxiety; but now she’s got it bad. Nothing in the day-to-day routine of her life has changed- it just seems to have come out of nowhere.

A list of things I’ve tried to help her w/ the anxiety:

• Multiple different crates- wire, padded, and plastic. She chewed thru the padded & the plastic; and w/ the wire- she rubs her face against it trying to get out hard enough that she’s left sores on her face.
• Coming home several times during the workday to walk her. As soon as I leave; it’s right back to barking and/ or destruction.
• Leaving her in the crate w/ regular toys, puzzle toys, long-lasting chews, bully sticks, Kongs filled w/ peanut butter, etc. She just ignores all of it & goes right back to barking/ destruction.
• Crating her alongside our 2nd dog- all it did was make our 2nd dog equally miserable.
• “Puppy-proofing” our bedroom & leaving her in it free-roam (albeit, w/ the door closed); again w/ toys, treats, etc; and again; alongside our 2nd dog. No amount of puppy proofing could have been good enough. She scratched the paint off our bedroom door & ripped up about a foot of wall-to-wall carpeting.
• Pointing the TV towards her crate & streaming nature documentaries, classical music concerts, etc. No noticeable difference.
• The ThunderShirt. No noticeable difference.
• A play pen set up in the living room. No match for her jumping skills.

I’m at a complete loss. I clearly can’t give her free roam of our home; or even our bedroom; bc she’ll destroy it & likely hurt herself in the process. But leaving her in the crate makes her even more miserable; and she hurts herself in there, too. Not to mention the barking is so bad when she’s in her crate that neighbors are complaining (and we’re renting; so that could be a potentially huge problem for us).

Ik a lot of times w/ dog training consistency is key; and so maybe I should/ should have just picked one tactic & stuck to it- but the stakes (her hurting herself/ her destroying our rented home/ us getting into trouble w/ our landlord over the noise complaints) are just too high.

At this point; all I can think of is muzzling her (to keep her from barking excessively; but more importantly to keep her from hurting her nose); and/ or getting her on CBD or puppy prozac. Neither of those seems like great options to me tho. Ik the muzzle would only solve the practical issues of her hurting herself & of the neighbors complaining; while exacerbating the underlying issue of her misery. And CBD/ prozac- idk. Seems like something else that would just solve the issue at a shallow level, rather than get to the root of it. Plus, I’m concerned about potential side-affects. If I’d love to hear other thoughts on this; as well as any/ all other suggestions.

Also, allow me to state the obvious, and say that two alternates would be dog training and/ or doggie daycare. I’m considering both; but I’ll be honest & say that money is tight rn; and that those also aren’t great options for us for that reason. If anyone knows of any affordable training/ daycare resources; I’d love to have that info available to me tho!

Lastly, I wanna be clear that this is not crate-anxiety; it’s def separation anxiety. She goes in her crate w/ no prompting & no problem all the time. She plays w/ her toys in there; she chews her bully sticks in there, she takes naps in there, she has her “cool down breaks” in there, when she’s misbehaving. She seems to genuinely enjoy it- provided one or both of my husband or I am in the room. We worked on crate-training her as soon as we got her; as part of her potty-training regimen; and had great luck w/ both. She used to sleep in it every night w/ no issue when she was a baby & she needed to; and to this day she’ll oftentimes choose to sleep in it at night (w/ the door open); in spite of the fact that she’s allowed in our bed.

 

[stewardmcalister]

@heartfire It’s obvious you’re doing research and really trying here, a lot of what you’ve listed is decent and common advice. But I don’t see anything about your behaviour. What does you leaving the house look like? How do you feel when you leave the house? Examine your actions, attitude, tone etc. What factors could be reinforcing her behaviour?

Start here, make sure you’re getting the basics right.

 

[heartfire]

@stewardmcalister Thanks so much for the advice- I honestly hadn’t looked at it that way! We’re always pretty good about being calm & low-key when we put her in the crate and/ or when we leave her in the bedroom (on top of always leaving her w/ positive reinforcement via praise, treats, toys, etc). but I’m sure this is all something we could be more cognizant of & improve on. Like I said; I hadn’t put much thought into that side of things before (outside of just the general knowledge I have that the crate should never be framed as a punishment to a dog; and a dog should never be crated forcefully).

 

[stewardmcalister]

@heartfire Seriously, watch that video if you haven't.

I know you said you're calm and low key, but I still wonder if you leaving the house is a big event for her. Also you said you leave her in the bedroom. When else is she alone in the bedroom without you? Does being alone in the bedroom = everyone has left?

Humans tend to say goodbye to our family and friends, and we extend that to dogs. But dogs are not humans. You can't explain to them what "see you soon" means. If you're pre-comforting her before you leave, is that just setting the stage for her to need comforting while you're away? Are you anticipating her being upset? Are you leaving the house with the worry that she will bark and go nuts?

Same for when you get home, do you fuss over her? I know it's so nice for us to be "welcomed home" by our dogs, but what is that telling her? That she had reason to be upset and anxious? If it's "all okay cos I'm home now", is that telling her that it wasn't okay when you weren't home? She's barking and going nuts, and finally you appear and give her affection and re-assurance = "if I bark and go nuts Minimum_Ad_2851 will reappear and give me affection".

This is only part of it but if it's not done right it will undermine everything else you try.

This might already have been recommended to you but the ASPCA has a good overview of the topic here, particularly the part on Graduated Departures/Absences.

 

[heartfire]

@stewardmcalister She’s not often left alone in our bedroom for long stretches of time (tho she occasionally is for brief stretches); but for that matter she’s not often left alone anywhere else in our house for long stretches either- she just hasn’t worked up to that level of trust, yet (in other words, she’s too destructive when left alone). And unfortunately; she does need to be left in our bedroom; as we also have a cat & she has a prey drive- so they can’t be left unmonitored in our home together. We’ve thought of leaving her crate downstairs; but that’s not an ideal option either; as she’s very reactive to the noise & views from the street; and so it’s likely she’d be even more anxious (and bother our neighbors even more); were she left crated downstairs.

That said; yes, I’m sure we could/ should re-evaluate how we treat her when we leave/ arrive. We def tend not to make such a big of arrivals or departures; but I’m sure there’s room for improvement. As I said; I hadn’t done any research into that side of it; or put too much thought into that side of it- so that’s def something I’ll be doing going forward. Thanks again!