5 tips to help dog separation anxiety | Cesar Millan

Today there is a scared, barking, beautiful white Pit Bull who got outside its yard. His people are out, and there is a community yard sale going on, so he has plenty to bark at. I tried talking, communicating with him in different ways.

Finally, something worked! I started playing some nice, peaceful, meditative music and opened my window so he could here it. Within minutes he stopped!

All is peaceful, again.

This was the second time separation came up this week. The question has come up, if a dog has separation anxiety, does having a pet sitter come in help or hinder the anxiety? What do you think? This question lead me to search for advice on separation anxiety in dogs.

After reading two wonderful articles on the subject from my hero, Cesar Millan, I still have not found an answer. However, I can say, that from my experience with my own dogs, as well as dogs I've observed in shelters, those suffering with separation anxiety, are fine as long as a pack leader is present.  

It could be a human or canine pack leader for dogs. They are used to being with a pack, and they are not comfortable when they are left, or feel alone.

However, sometime we humans are unwittingly reinforcing the dogs anxiety. For example, if I am concerned or worried about leaving my dog home alone, they will certainly pick that up, and thus become uncomfortable about my leaving.

Here is an excerpt of one of Cesar's articles on separation anxiety, as well as his tips for dealing with it.

In my experience there is true separation anxiety and what I term “simulated” separation anxiety, where the behavior appears to be separation anxiety but is in fact a learned behavior. This means the dog lacks leadership as well as self-control. For true separation anxiety, the dog does experience real stress at the owner leaving. In simulated separation anxiety, the dog knows that he will get attention if he acts badly. For some dogs, even being verbally reprimanded for such behavior is rewarding because he feels he was noticed. Negative attention can be a reward in many cases where the owner is unaware that certain needs of his dog are not being met. In this instance there is little real stress involved– just misbehavior. In many instances I find this fairly easy to overcome with a gradual approach, slowly increasing the amount of time spent in a crate (when you are at home as well as away), good obedience, proper amounts of exercise and strong leadership. With severe cases of true separation anxiety, modification becomes a more difficult task.

However separation anxiety manifests itself, there is no doubt that it is often unknowingly encouraged by the owners. We make a big fuss when we leave or come home and in doing so we reward the concern, and the stress increases at the time of leaving. We like our dogs to be with us and when they are puppies, we take them everywhere for socialization. Then we have to leave them alone and they have reached an age where they now not only want, but also feel the need to be with us – we are their confidence, their security and their pack.

5 tips to help dog separation anxiety | Cesar Millan


And, as in the case of my neighbor's dog, sometimes just leaving on some nice music or even the TV for the dog, will help ease their anxiety.

My beautiful boy, resting his head at my feet. I love him so much!