Seperation Anxiety since holiday

We've had our salxgrey male since he was 12 weeks old, he's now almost 14 months.
Personality wise he is brilliant and happily goes into his crate when we are in the house and doesn't make a peep at all even through the night (crate is in kitchen).

However since we returned from our week long holiday (without him - left him with trusted relatives) a month ago almost my neighbour tells me he non stop yowls the entire time i'm out of the house - which unfortunately with two children and places to be - has to happen fairly regularly. Now I've been completely unaware of this situation for this entire time as neighbour only approached me just now as it seems today has been particularly bad. Not once have I just left or arrived back at the house to find him making a noise, I really had no idea

So in the house I went today and discover he has managed to bend two bars on his crate almost to snapping them off! So I went straight down to the local pet shop this morning and have got a stronger wired crate and also the hormone plug in(?) they recommended?


So that is the situation at the moment, my questions are;
1. I understand that he might have been disrupted by our absence but why has it continued to bother him for so long?
2. How can I help him to overcome this? at some points during the day I have to leave the house (varying from 20mins - 2 hours at a time.)
3. Does he need more entertainment? He does not like toys and gives up on kongs as soon as he can't be bothered to put the effort in
4. The cage was a fair bit bigger than he (xtra large as opposed to large which is what his old one was) and I also bought that about 3 weeks before we went away thinking he'd enjoy the space now he's older. Is it too big? Does that have any effect on this kind of behaviour?


I would absolutely love to give him run of the house when we're out - but as he's never had such 'freedom' before I am very worried he might chew/destroy things. I cannot give him free reign in the Kitchen because he can actually open the fridge and freezer to feed himself and no amount of fridge locks have stopped him!


Sooo, huge post. Where do I go from here? I think he's always been a bit clingy as he follows us everywhere even in the house. How can I help him?

We give all our own and foster dogs from kennels or homes, free run of the house from first arriving. We make sure they have emptied out before we leave and don't leave anything really tempting lying around at first. Had very few problems with this over the years so never got around to trying a crate at all.

The purpose of a create is to mimic denning behaviour so upscaling MAY have had an effect.

I am slightly concerned that he is panicked enough to damage the crate as that of course could mean he may physically damage himself as well as being emotionally distrubed.

Have look at these links which may cover some things you have not considered?

http://www.apbc.org.uk/system/files/...home_alone.pdf

http://www.deesdogs.com/documents/separationanxiety.pdf

http://www.deesdogs.com/documents/te...yhomealone.pdf

http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002/sa.htm

http://www.vin.com/VINDBPub/SearchPB...00/PR00314.htm

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/1556

http://www.clickertraining.com/node/3291

http://www.apdt.co.uk/documents/Homealone_000.pdf


I'll Be Home Soon y by Patricial McConell
Don’t Leave Me, by Nicola Wilde

Thank you for your replies, he's taken to the new smaller, stronger crate well but i've yet to test out him being home alone in it properly. As this morning we were out for 3 hours at the park with him so he slept in there the entire time I was at ASDA.
Obviously he cannot always be absolutely exhausted going into the crate as for example we usually have school run first thing in the morning.

But i'm hoping the plug in helps a little, i've picked up a whole assortment of bone/chew things from the petshop to test on him hoping to find something he likes well enough.

I've had a look at those links thank you very much, i'll be trying out the suggestions there - a lot of it makes perfect sense and he is the exact dog described, a 'loving, affectionate' creature who wants to be with us every second of the day.

I feel perhaps once his SA are sorted then I would be happy to allow him run of the house (barring the kitchen for reasons mentioned above) but in the meantime circumstances have put us on a very low income so if he were to destroy anything like carpet, couch, tv, walls, doors etc etc. Then we are in no position to replace these items right now and this is a rented home. Thank you though

Rentals can be difficult. Here in Ireland, landlords demand that dogs be outside, preferably chained up. Of course we have never complied with that.

When we took this house, we knew it was not in totally good order and poorly furnished so that it matters less if dogs rampage, and we have a wooden barrier at the bottom of the stairs and a dog gate also.

So they can have free run of part of the house without worry. Although one of the doors will need attention before we leave here.. wee dog got shut in one day..

Wee dog made short work of escaping from the crate we bought second hand. And she puts on her Bassett face when I am going out. But we have to be able to go out..

Maybe it is the crate that is associated with you leaving.. I tend now to throw the raw chicken necks down as I am exiting! Lino so that is fine.. so they are distracted..

But I think that every dog misses his owner dreadfully .. the welcome we get on coming home.. and once I left something here I needed and came back after two minutes and you would think I had been away hours from the greetings

Disaster if you leave a dog with SA in a house---it will do a ton of damage! I have a dog here most of the time because she totally wrecked her owners house and did literally thousands of pounds worth of damage.

I am sure the articles SB pointed you towards will cover everything.

Good luck.

rune

It may be worth setting up a video recording and watching it all (don't fast forward) as it may help to see any specific trigger that you aren't aware of .

In cases such as these, you need to find out what the problem actually is - is it that the dog does not like to be left alone (so would be ok with anyone in the house) or does the dog feel very attached to one person or the immediate family? Anxious of outside or inside noises without the family security around? Neighbour upstairs making noises (in a flat situation), or fireworks, and so on.

A recording can often help to find out what is going on (not always, but worth doing). Then the situation or environment can be worked on ...

Best of luck! Do give us an update.

Wys
x

Try leaving the radio or TV on when you go out. It will make it feel more like when you're there and will mask sounds coming from outside the house.

Thank you everyone!

Wysiwyg, I did exactly that when I went to ASDA and most days since. I put my laptop on the counter with the webcam pointed at him to record what he gets up to

Well, so far (fingers crossed) it has been a success! Almost immediately his several hours of 'yowling' went down to a very quiet whine of just a few minutes before settling down and chewing his treat/sleeping. According to the webcam and next door (who can't hear him at all now).

He seems to like a certain type of bone from the pet shop so we're continuing to get those. But I'm honestly not sure if it's the plug in or the new cage or maybe both. He doesn't at all attempt to escape this one - so perhaps in a way that was the problem, he had escaped the other one before so continued to try to do it.

I have always put him in the crate a while before we go out anywhere and leave him for a time when we are back. As he doesn't really like many treats (prefers his daily food) I have started to allow him to eat in the crate with the door open too so he knows it's a happy place to be again like it once was.

I don't think his SA issues are entirely cured, not at all - I think there is a lot more work to be done there. But for the past ten days he seems to be back where he was before we went away on holiday, which is great.
As a greyhound cross I am aware they are quite prone to being clingy, so I think maybe it will be an ongoing thing.

But for now we and casper are all much happier