I sympaphize with you ! I really do!!!
We made a rod for own own backs with my youngest!
We have a touring van and for two summers I went off with her on my own, she spent her entire puppyyhood in a confined space with me 24/7 and now suffers S/A (my own fault entirely).
There is light at the end of the tunnel though, is there a friend that you can leave her with (in there home) for short periods of time - increasing daily to eventually overnight!!
It has helped with mine 200% - we are not totally cured - but well on the way! but the poor person I left her with (my spep daughter) was pulling her hair out the first night!

I thought Lana was doing so well, but apparently I was wrong Came back to a note on the door today from the downstairs neighbour so went and spoke to him. He was very nice, wasn't complaining but thought I would like to know that when I'm out Lana starts barking and is doing it almost constantly. He's working from home a couple of days a week at the moment. He says she's quiet for the first 10-15 minutes and then seems to become anxious running back and forwards into the different rooms barking almost continuously.

She stops a couple of minutes before I come in the main door of the flats. All the time I was down in his flat Lana was quiet so she must have known I was down there, whether because that was as far as my footsteps took me or she could hear or sense I wasn't far away.

He said his dog used to do that when he moved in and he got the citronella collar. I don't want to use that as Lana is nervous enough when I am out and I feel that would make her worse. He's only there a couple of days a week and says if I like he will let me know how she's getting on. Maybe on those days I will just go out for 15 minutes. As she's quiet a few minutes before I open the main door she must sense me coming down the lane so I feel I can't lurk in the lane I wish she would sense that I was just a bit further along the road in the shops and then she would have no need to bark at all.

The neighbour down the bottom had said she only barked occasionally but that could be because she would only hear Lana if Lana was near the front door and wouldn't hear her when she was running and barking from room to room.

There was me thinking she was doing so well only now to find out she isn't.

Oh deary, deary me, you poor things, it goes from good, to bad to worse doesn't it, no matter how hard you are trying Hmmmm, thinking cap on then.....

Have you got another exit from you houses? I'm thinking along the lines of you are always leaving for that long period of time through ONE exit, whereas both dogs, Lana and Jimmi seem to be fine as long as they know you are around going from room to room, neither of them seem bothered, so I'm just wondering whether there's another exit, like the back door where you perhaps nip out to hang the washing and the dogs are unpreturbed by that??? I'm not for one minute suggesting you exit through the window though!!!!!!

Oh jeeezus, what will make it sink in with these two little norties I wonder! It's totally not your fault, get that one straight to start with, these poor little mites are rescues and who knows how long they might have been left for before you got them, and now that they've found you, of course, they don't want to lose you and everything else that goes with it, so in their minds, they don't seem to realise that you will always, always come back, so they bark in the hope that you will hear their plight and come running home (and don't you dare, but then think about it, you usually do don't you??)

I'm thinking on another approach here. I remember a vet telling me a couple of years ago when she went to take Georgie off for blood tests, the fact that he screamed and yelled the house down when she first attempted it, she said to me, I've got to "distance" myself from him because he's suffering with separation anxiety The fact that he was fine at home made me think otherwise, because of course he KNOWS home so well, even though he was on his own at the time, he had got so used to the fact that I would be walking back through that door...eventually. That's what you've got to get into your dogs heads, and I think you just might be spending a little too much time on the thinking and not the doing, and then you finally buck up the courage to actually GO through that door, only to rush back with the worry or from hearing those barks, yells and cries. Maybe you should actually start doing it more and more and more, say 10 times every single day, just for maybe two minutes, 5 mins, 10 mins by the end of each day??? Everytime you come home, make a big fuss (if he's been good!) and give him a treat, then maybe even go straight back OUT again!!! I think this is the way I would go with this now, either that or I'd be cancelling all future hair appointments due to having nothing for them to work with!!!

Dare I suggest you start being a tad firmer with them, let them know you are not going to let them rule YOU, this is your house, your rules and they stick by them. I can't fathom out in my head quite which way would work for either of them, you're doing the softly softly approach, but then again sometimes you are not but neither is working is it!

What about setting out on paper a kind of routine, whereby you do all of the above with the going out, also add to that routine, one part of the day, where you actually do distance yourself from them? Go in the lounge, shut the door, during the daytime, tell them to go and lie down, go in their beds, anything, and if they start, you come out and you are firmer with them, not angry or shouting and balling, but a very firm "no, now go and lie down"!!! I know this will confuse them, they'll think what has happened to my lovely mummy, she's turned into some kind of raging lunatic and is telling me off, but it COULD work!

You have to be "consistent" you see, in everything you do, so the suggestion I am making of the nipping out perhaps on the hour every hour 8 times a day if necessary, but do it EVERY day, no matter what, and if they're norty, you don't extend the time. I'm working on the theory here that repetition gets boring, and hopefully, by 6pm on the 2nd night they will totally ignore the fact that you've gone awol!!! Praise, praise and more praise if/when they're catching on of course You can't give enough praise when something is right! When you start this, always use the SAME statement, tell them you're going out, tell them to be good, tell them you'll be back or whatever, it's always worked for me, but you have to remember to do it every single time, so that they learn the routine.

What you think then???????? I'm running out of ideas here though!!!

I am so glad that you have found a solution for your dog......it's not funny is it! Unfortunately the only person that we could leave Jimmi with is our daughter, but her garden is not secure and she has a three year old son. I really would not be happy to leave Jimmi there, but on the plus side our daughter is happy to come and dog sit here during the day if necessary.

Oh bums 1cutedog......just when I thought that you were almost there with Lana. Thank goodness that you have an understanding neighbour who can keep you informed of what is happening without getting too cross about the barking. I wouldn't mind so much if Jimmi just barked (although clearly it is a symptom of distress, which is not nice) because nobody else can hear him. What did we do to deserve this I wonder??

Helena, great minds think alike......or something like that, (I don't care for the alternative saying ), because today I pondered on the fact that we always go out by the back door from the kitchen. As you have suggested, and I have wondered today - what if we went out by the front door instead (very sneakily and quietly to begin with of course). I shall try this tomorrow, and it has the advantage of the fact that he will not be able to see us walking past the window as he can if we leave by the back door.

As to the rest of your thinking - and thank you so so much for all your time and effort with this - I am sure that you have some very valid points; I will certainly also be trying your little and extremely often routine, because it makes perfect sense........once or twice a day certainly isn't working. I am willing to put as much into this as it takes.

The distancing is a strange one with Jimmi, because in a way we have always done this. For example, when I go into the kitchen first thing in the morning, we say hello then he has his breakfast and goes out for a wee. I make some coffee, and when he comes back in I leave him in the kitchen and go back to bed......so does he, quite happily. When I have a bath, he is not allowed to wander around and is shut in the kitchen again if husband is not here, etc. etc. None of this worries him in the least. If I am lying on the sofa reading or watching telly, then I rather like to have him snuggle up next to me, so don't want to stop that!!!

As for you wondering what will make the message sink in..........I don't know about Lana, but Jimmi really, seriously, does not have two brain cells to rub together.
My daughter is convinced that he does not remember anything constructive from one day to the next and she may well be right I know that with rescue dogs you should never "make allowances", but when you don't know the circumstances of their being lost ones mind tends to mull over the possibilities which may have a bearing on their behaviour. Was Jimmi abandoned when his owners moved? A scenario such as this would certainly explain his terror of being left alone in the house, and his various medical problems would definitely provide a reason for less than perfect owners wanting to get rid of a dog.

I am going to follow up your suggestions, so keep your fingers crossed Helena.........that whisky decanter is taking a battering at night, so I need to sort this

Lol at that whisky taking a battering, at least it's not Jimmi

I'm wondering the same thing too about whether he might have been "abandoned" when his previous owners moved and of course, that would have a tremendous bearing on all of this. I meet up with a girl on here who has a rescue collie, and when we finish the walk, her dog races to the car and can't wait to get in, but then she knows that he had been "dumped" in his previous life and thrown out of the car most likely or similar They never forget their previous traumas I'm certain of that.

Oh I had to laugh when I puctured the pair of you "sneaking" out of that front door like a couple of burglars who might sneak IN, you've gotta sneak out! lol!!!!! Tiptoeing, whispering, wearing balaclava's possibly, oh it did make me larf! The things we do for our dogs, but when we love them so much, you have to think dog sometimes and put yourself in their shoes and try and get inside their head a bit, even if they are lacking in the brain cell department with little Jimmi, he must have something in there to kick up such a fuss when left.

I was seriously considering a padded cell to leave him in, and I know you can get those crates that are all soft instead of metal, but then again, would he go so far as to try and eat his way out??!!!

I honestly think repetition might be your particular key, go out half a dozen times a day, it doesn't have to be for long, you've got to somehow get this lad used to you going but always, always coming home. Nobody can say you aren't putting in the efforts can they, I take my hat off to both of you I really do.

I don't want to be seeing a thread in our relationships section later on though when your hubbies have somewhat neglected, so remember they need looking after too They might be getting slightly jealous of all this attention Jimmi and Lana seem to be getting, let alone you turning to drink! Lol!

I can't wait to come back and see some good news for a change, it's been a downward slide for the past couple of days hasn't it, so it can only get better.

Helena...........now come on!!! As if a husband would allow itself to be neglected The good thing is he adores Jimmi, and thank goodness for that otherwise my task would be impossible.

Okay; endless sneaking out through the front door it is then starting tomorrow. I am getting sooooooooo good at pretending to do one thing, and then doing another. Opening and closing doors extremely quietly is another of my talents. As for the padded cell, it wouldn't work because Jimmi would rip it apart - if he can bend a metal bar with his few remaining teeth, one that husband could not even remotely bend when he tried to straighten it, then no mere padding will be an obstacle! This is one of the things that slightly concerns me about his crate actually because I know that he has the capability to wreck it, small though he might be

Back to the whisky Maybe tomorrow there will be better news

Just nipped in for a minute to say when I was looking up Bachs flower remedies, came across this.

Rescue Remedy® is usually administered by mouth, diluted in water. A little goes a long way, because you do not need to use it directly from the stock bottle you purchase. When you purchase a stock bottle, also buy an empty 30ml eyedropper bottle to be your treatment bottle. This is the most economical way to use Rescue Remedy and also dilutes the alcohol content, which may be objectionable to some animals. To prepare the treatment bottle for use with your pet, do the following:

1. Fill the treatment bottle ¼ full with cider vinegar, vegetable glycerin. brandy or vodka as a preservative. I usually use brandy or vegetable glycerin as I find that many animals do not like the taste of cider vinegar. I usually use vegetable glycerin for cats, small animals and birds to further reduce the alcohol content. You may forgo the use of any preservative as long as you keep the treatment bottle refrigerated.
2. Fill the remainder of the bottle with spring water.
3. Put 4 drops of Rescue Remedy in the treatment bottle. You will treat your pet from this bottle.

This was taken from the page at http://www.bachflowersforpets.com/Ar...ue_Remedy.html

I thought it might explain why Jimmi and some other dogs slept so much when used straight from the bottle and put on a treat as this seems to say it needs diluting first?

When I had been out yesterday and Lana was 'allegedly' barking constantly I came back to the note, came in the house, had a drink of water and then left her again. I was downstairs for about 1/2 hour and absolutely no sound from her.

She had got used to me going out, when I was getting ready, picking up bag, putting on jacket she had started going in her bed.

I am going to start taping Lana when I am out. I'll set up a tape recorder/dictaphone thingy I have and when I come back I shall listen in, will be able to hear how long she is fine for and when the barking starts or whether she runs around from room to room as soon as I go out.

I'll go out for 20-30 minutes on Monday so I can get milk and bread, and tape her. If she starts barking after 15 minutes I'll then start going out for only ten minutes a few times a day so she's still okay when I come back. I'll wait until Monday, if he's at home he'll have to put up with it

These are old stone buildings, I never hear a sound from anyone else, no noise of music or TV's or anything. The only time you might hear something is if you are passing someones door in the stairwell so I am surprised he could hear Lana running from room to room, but then again it's only bare floorboards in here. If I think I will be here longer than the year then I'll buy carpets. My son lived here previously and in the 4 1/2 years he was here he didn't hear anything from the neighbours either. He said it was great as he could have parties and not have to bother about making too much noise.

Good idea to tape her. I've known people complain about dogs when the dogs barely bark, so evidence of exactly what is occuring and when is vital. However bare floorboards can be hugely different to carpeted boards, as I've lived under both and the latter can be very open to hearing noise above, surprisingly so (ie dropped pencilsand people using the loo!!!!! )

I've not read all the thread so please excuse any repetition of previous suggestions, but have you considered a reputable behaviourist? Do be careful as there is one very bad person in Scotland near Edinburgh, but you might like to try www.apbc.org.uk and if you are anywhere near to Mat Ward, I'd suggest him

With some dogs, you can find a trigger, with other dogs it may not even be actual separation anxiety but something else, hence the need for a specialist really. Also, you can if it comes to it, in conjunction with professional and veterinary support, use medical support for a short period of time, to open a "window of learning" but this MUST be done with a behaviour modification plan by a reputable behaviourist, who will be able to workwith your vet in this way.

Hope you find solutions,

best wishes
Wys
x