Separation Anxiety in Dogs

When I ask people what is the worse thing about their dog is as we start training, they often reply “separation anxiety.”

But when I test the dog, I rarely find true separation anxiety.

I have seen true separation anxiety in just one dog. And I did not see it as a trainer, but rather when I was still a patrol deputy before I retired from the Sheriff’s Office.

My trainee and I were interviewing a witness. She was standing outside her front window. Her German shepherd, inside the house and at the window, became more and more frantic.

The dog actually jumped through a large plate glass window. It was horribly cut and bleeding badly. We held the panicked dog to the ground and attempted to control the bleeding. I got the local volunteer fire department to respond with bandages. We got the bleeding under control and the owner was able to transport it to an emergency clinic.

(By the way we stopped by the fire station the next day. The dog was doing fine. The owner sent the firemen a large picture of the dog, a flowery letter, and a huge pile of cookies and cakes, proving once again that people like firemen more than cops.)

This dog was the exception. What I usually find is that the dog is manipulating the human, not suffering from separation anxiety.

When the dog realizes that the owner is not going to let the dog go along or do what it wants, the behavior begins. In some dogs it is excessive whining, in others it is loud and demanding barking. The dog believes if it makes a big enough fuss, the owner will give in and take the dog along.

It is really easy to teach a dog this behavior. Here is the perfect way to do it.

Go and pick up a new puppy from a breeder that is a couple of hours away. As you leave with the puppy, it will act out. You expect that since it is leaving its Mom, litter mates and the only home it has known.

Puppies will usually fall asleep for the first hour or two. But then it wakes up and starts whining. So what do you do, you pull over somewhere. You offer food, make sure it isn’t thirsty, give it a chance to go potty, and play with it. In about a half hour you put the tired puppy back into the crate, and as you continue homeward bound, it falls asleep again.

After another hour or two, the puppy starts whining again and you pull over. The longer the trip, the more times you have to stop.

You get home and start getting the puppy use to its new home. It gets fed and watered. It gets held and fussed over. You are the perfect indulgent owner.

Now it is bed time. You’ve read the books, talked to the breeder, and maybe
consulted a trainer. Everyone told you to put the dog in a crate and ignore it.

But the whining convinces you the dog is in distress. You feel sorry for it. You think, “I’ll never get any sleep this way.” So you get the puppy out of the crate, let it snuggle up to you, and tell yourself this is just for one night.

You have just started the dog on the road to “separation anxiety.” And as the puppy drifts off to sleep next to you, it thinks “I know how to control these humans.”

Doug

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Catahoula dog

I trained my first Catahoula dog about a year ago. A couple brought in an eight week old puppy for puppy class. They said the female was a rescue and that they had been told she was a Border collie mix.

In the Manners in Minutes system we do not train puppies. We do however show you how to condition the puppy so it is ready to fully train at 16 weeks.

When the dog came back eight weeks later, I remarked to the owners that I would have expected a Border collie mix to be larger at four months. They told me that when they took her to the vet he told them he thought she was a Catahoula. Then as they were leaving a man recognized their dog as a Catahoula, since he owned two of them.

The Catahoula is a dog bred in Louisiana. The dog is used for both herding and hunting boar as well as other game. It is descended from Native American dogs. They come in a wide range of sizes and coats. One distinct feature is their webbed feet.

The dog is very intense and very pack oriented. But they are herding dogs and are easy for me to work. This dog turned out to be a very nice student.

Since then I had only seen one pure bred Catahoula and one Great Dane/Catahoula mix.

Earlier this week a Border collie mix that is deaf came in for an assessment/demonstration. When I looked at the coloring, I asked her if the dog might be a Catahoula mix. She did not know. However when we checked his feet, we found they were webbed.

I asked her where she got the dog. She got it from a rescue group from the San Luis Valley area in central south Colorado. It was the same group the first dog came from.

Then yesterday I got a call from a woman with a blue heeler mix. It sounds like the dog has some serious pack order confusion. She is coming in later today for an evaluation. I asked her where she got the dog. It was a rescue. After talking some more about the dog I began to think that the Catahoula breed might be involved. She checked with her husband and although this dog was adopted from a shelter in Pueblo, it originally came from the San Luis Valley. Then they checked his feet. They were webbed.

Now with a dog that has unknown lineage, the only way to know for sure is DNA testing, and expensive and usually unnecessary procedure since the dogs are not going to be used for breeding.

But I am beginning to suspect there is either a lot of Catahoulas in that part of Colorado, or one very promiscuous dog running around.

Doug

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