Dealing with separation anxiety

Of all the dogs I've owned, none have ever displayed an ounce of separation anxiety.

But I'm now fostering a dog and had a bit of an eye-opener today.

She's been with me for eight days, and has been left once in that time for 20 minutes without dramas.

But today I had to go out for just over an hour and, on parking the car, thought: "whose dog is that barking the house down?"

Of course, it was mine.

I came in to find she'd let herself out of the kitchen, had opened the bedroom door, and the door to the hallway (this dog can open doors like it's no problem), and was barking like mad.

Of course, while trying to calm her down, there's a knock at the door - one of my neighbours works nights and was none too pleased at the noise, and let me know.

Now, I know the general approach is to get the dog settled (she is), then progressively extend the time away, but do you think here I'm really going to have to go back to 20 minutes and build from there?

This will be a problem as I have several hour-long appointments over the next few days.

I left her with a Kong, on her comfy bed, and she seemed quite settled when I initially left.

Over to you folks as this is the first time I've experienced this.

You could make sure she has a really good walk before you leave her and has chance to have a play when you get back from the walk. If she could also be fed before you have to leave this may help to calm her down while she is alone. Then leave some toys for her to play with when you are gone too.

Maybe also leave a radio on quietly for her while you are out too with some quiet music playing. Rocky likes to have his classical collection on while we are out.

I really can't see a quick fix for this. It's a shame you don't know exactly how long it was before she started barking.

You could try some lavender essential oil as a calmer - just rub a couple of tiny drops on her forehead & chest, and maybe another couple of tiny drop on the edge of her bedding.

Other than that, the only sugestions I have are as above - some quiet music left on when you go out.

Thanks Kathy and Caryll.
From what the neighbour says, she likely started barking around 30 minutes after I'd gone out - and didn't stop.

I'll try some music tomorrow, and probably leave the video camera running.

I'm not sure that the steroids aren't causing some side effects either, but she's destined to be on them for another three weeks at least.

kathytake2 wrote:You could make sure she has a really good walk before you leave her and has chance to have a play when you get back from the walk. If she could also be fed before you have to leave this may help to calm her down while she is alone. Then leave some toys for her to play with when you are gone too.

Maybe also leave a radio on quietly for her while you are out too with some quiet music playing. Rocky likes to have his classical collection on while we are out.

This is the method we still use. You can also leave multiple times each day so she will get used to it faster and build up the time away each time. If barking is a concern you don't have to go too far away. We would just go out of eyesight and read a book when we were getting Suki used to being alone. That way we could hear her if she barked.

According to the nice neighbour two doors down, foster dog started barking about 10 minutes after I went out today, and barely paused to catch her breath.

This time she climbed into the lounge window area and started with the barks.

I was only gone 35 minutes.

Radio, extra walks, extra food, toys, etc didn't help. :-<

I suspect I may need to return her to the rescue earlier rather than later as I can't cancel these appointments I've made and the neighbour on night shift will be going mad.

She's passed pretty much all the foster tests with flying colours, apart from the barking, and an occassional over-interest in chasing birds.