Separation Anxiety

Riley is very good at relaxing and has no separation anxiety.

Some ex-racing greyhounds are prone to Separation Anxiety (SA) because they have never spent any time alone as they have always had the company of other greyhounds at all times. Symptoms may include soiling, chewing, shredding beds, crying, panting, shaking, and vocalizing. Some dogs will become anxious as the human begins to get ready to leave (i.e. put on shoes, grab keys).  SA can be very difficult to eliminate once established so I strongly suggest prevention.  Here are several things you can do to prevent SA when you adopt a greyhound (or any other dog).

Number 1 - No bonding initially. Spend time ignoring your dog completely, refrain from giving lots of affection, and especially ignore any demands for petting. Think of your love and attention as a drug. If too much, too soon is given to your new dog, he may become addicted and suffer terribly (separation anxiety) when you are gone.

This is especially true if you adopt a traumatized dog (just being in a shelter can be very stressful). We naturally feel bad and want to soothe and love such a creature, but it reinforces an unstable mind. It encourages the dependence and neediness that leads to SA.

Your focus needs to be all about teaching routines and house rules. Make sure your new dog has good manners, is housetrained, quiet, and comfortable home alone before you start gradually becoming more affectionate. Provide your new dog with lots of exercise to relieve stress, but petting and cuddling needs to be kept to a minimum. If you plan to allow your dog on your furniture, wait at least a couple of months.

Number 2 - Generally, I recommend crating initially. Place your crate in an open area that gives the dog the largest view of the home. If you opt to confine the dog to a safe room, do NOT close the door. Closing the door, especially to a small room, can panic a dog. Use a baby gate instead.

Number 2 - Practice separation daily. This is extremely important for someone that is home for most of the day or who takes vacation days to settle in the new dog. The dog's expectation that you are not always together needs to be established on the first day. Practice putting your dog where you plan to keep him when you are away from the house. Give him a stuffed Kong while you spend time out of sight. Run a quick errand or spend time in another room. 30 minutes later return and if your dog is calm and quiet allow him to come out of the crate or safe area for a period of time. Then repeat the process. The more repetitions you can do the first few days the better. Separation anxiety is usually worse in the first 30 minutes, so the more you can practice leaving for short periods of time, the faster your dog learns that alone time is special because of the stuffed Kong and you always come back.

Number 3 - Vocalizing can be normal in the beginning. Do not return to the dog until he is quiet. If he begins to vocalize as you return, turn your back on the dog and wait for him to settle down. You can also use a water squirt bottle if the dog is extremely noisy, but often just ignoring it (even if it takes a long time) and letting him learn that it does not work is best.

Number 4 - Greetings and goodbyes should be calm and free of drama. It is best to ignore your dog 10 minutes before you leave and 10 minutes after you arrive home. Often people misinterpret excitement as love, but an excited dog is on the verge of stress and anxiety. Allowing the dog to cry, dance around, and jump on you while you give affection validates that separation was a terrible thing. A dog that greets you calmly loves you just as much, but is happy and well adjusted.

Number 5 - Kongs are an excellent tool for entertaining your dog while he is home alone.  Stuff Kongs with portions of his meals. You can mix a cup of dry dog food with yogurt or cottage cheese and spoon the mixture into several Kongs. You can also fill a Kong with dry dog food and then use a butter knife to mix in a dollop of peanut butter, crème cheese, or canned dog food. Use the knife to create a sticky mixture inside of the Kong. After some practice, your dog may learn to clean out the Kong very quickly. If that happens, you can opt to freeze your Kongs ahead of time so they are more difficult for the dog and last longer. It is helpful if you have 3 or 4 Kongs.

Prevention really is the easiest way to avoid this problem.  Even if you have other dogs, your new dog (even ex-racing greyhounds) could still develop SA for you.  So practice these techniques regardless of the number of dogs you have.

Good Things Come to Those that Wait

The one thing I wish to improve about Seven is her patience. She needs to learn to relax, be quiet, and wait her turn. Once we start training, mine all go through a phase of being impatient and not wanting to relax in the van while I train another dog. They would rather be participants and not spectators. Seven seems to think she is being left out and voices her opinion on the matter. Here is a brief example of what she does. You cannot hear her because I am filming from the house.

My strategy has been the following. I place Seven in her crate with a stuffed Kong that she can finish within 5 minutes. This makes her happy to load and distracts her for a few minutes. In the meanwhile, I go into the house or I train Riley if we are at a training location. When Seven finishes her Kong, she stands up and begins her circling and crying. Sometimes for 20 minutes. As soon as she quiets and lies down, I take her out of the van and play or work with her for a period of time. Then I put her back in the van with another Kong and the cycle repeats itself over and over again. My goal is for Seven to learn that chilling out brings me back to the van. She is improving, but it has been slow going despite all of the repetitions.
To help accelerate the process, I have adopted the same strategy around the house. Seven has to be lying down before meals, to be invited out of her crate or ex pen, and to be leashed.

The video below is a good example of being consistent and persistent. Sometimes I make a suggestion to someone having a dog problem and later will be told it did not work. Come to find out, they gave up too soon. Sometimes you have to be relentless until you finally win. It took Seven 30 minutes to figure out that I would not invite her out of the ex pen until she was lying down. This is a long boring video, but it gives you an idea of how stubborn you sometimes need to be.

Separation Anxiety

Greyhound adoption has been exhausting lately. My volunteer job consists of following up with adopters soon after taking their new greyhound home. I have access to the adoption application so I can ask specifically about how the greyhound is doing and I try to solve problems before they escalate.

Southeastern Greyhound Adoption tries very hard to match the right dog with the right home. We provide our adopters with lots of advice and focus on preventing problems and getting off to a great start. We have a wonderful greyhound adoption manual. We temperament test each greyhound and try to answer four questions.

1. Does the greyhound need a fenced yard? Greyhounds that are shy, cautious, and easily frightened need the safety that a fenced yard provides.

2. Can the greyhound live in an apartment? Greyhounds that are quiet and love leash walking are perfect for apartment living.

3. Can the greyhound live with small children? This is generally a greyhound that is easy to handle, is not afraid of loud noises, very affectionate, and tends to get into your space.

4. Is the greyhound a high separation anxiety risk?

I have been pleased that adopters have been following the separation anxiety prevention guidelines and the results speak for themselves. However, for whatever reason, we suddenly are having a rash of separation anxiety problems. I do not know if adopters are to blame or if our latest greyhounds have been extra prone to the problem. Regardless, it is frustrating to deal with.

Folks need to remember that racing greyhounds have lived a life of routine. Every second of their day is determined by a person.... a person that divides his or her time amongst many other greyhounds. Life on the farm and at the track is mostly predictable, balanced, and stable.

When a greyhound is adopted and arrives home, its best to recreate routine and stability. I believe Cesar Milan has it right when he recommends exercise, discipline, and then affection... in that order. To prevent separation anxiety from starting, I suggest the following:

1. Spend time ignoring the dog. This is especially important for the greyhound that seeks attention frequently. Ignore demands for attention and save your affection for when the greyhound is calm and not asking for it.

2. If you take time off from work or you adopt your greyhound over the weekend, spend your time together ironically by practicing separation. If you plan to crate your greyhound, the worse thing you can do is allow your greyhound to have free range of your house all weekend long and then crate him or her for 8 hours on Monday. If during the week you will be gone to work for 8 hours, then practice crating over the weekend.

3. Generally, separation anxiety is worse in the first 30 minutes, so rather than practicing an 8 hour stretch over the weekend, practice numerous 30 - 60 minute sessions throughout the day.

4. Stuffed Kongs, bully sticks, and rawhide chips are excellent ways for you to make crating and separation rewarding and fun for the greyhound. I suggest having 2 or 3 Kongs for each dog (I have 12) so you can stuff several at a time. For a newbie to Kongs, keep it easy to extract the food, but as your greyhound gains experience start packing the food tighter and freeze it. I suggest stuffing Kongs with kibble and mix it with some creme cheese, peanut butter, canned pumpkin, yogurt, cottage cheese, and/or canned dog food so it sticks.

5. Lastly, have the right attitude. Even if you are unsure, never let your greyhound see you sweat. Handle your greyhound with confidence and pretend you know what you are doing. Act as if you own the place (because you probably do). Have expectations and enforce rules. Initially, its best if your new greyhound not sleep in your bed or cuddle on the couch. Don't allow him or her to follow you every where you go...... go to the bathroom alone.

Once the new greyhound demonstrates comfort with the new routine and easily follows the rules, you can start to love him or her like the pet you wanted.

Storm Training

We had a huge thunderstorm roll in last week. Complete with marble-sized hail, fierce winds, and non-stop thunder and lightening.

Stacker is our current storm phobic. He is not as bad as Teresa was, but this storm had him panting, drooling, and shaking. His is related to the sound. He only becomes nervous at the first clap of thunder and for small storms we can usually mask it with the sleep sound machine and TV.

As I have said before, Reagan is hypersensitive to certain loud base noises. While not a storm phobic (and I pray that she stays that way), she has been frightened of extremely loud cracks of thunder. The kind of thunder that is so loud it rocks the house. So I took the opportunity to do some counter conditioning during the storm.

Ideally, I tossed Reagan a treat for each clap of thunder. However, the thunder was non-stop at times. I have to admit that the storm was so strong that I was nervous, but Reagan happily enjoyed the raining treats and had a good experience.

Counter conditioning is probably not going to change her petrified response to the extremely loud noises. I would need to have control over the noises and to be able to produce it at a low level and then a gradually increasing level over time.

However, if I take no positive action at all, Reagan may start to fear all storms due to the possibility of extremely loud thunder (even if it only happens occasionally). But if Reagan associates storms with treats, she will look forward to them and hopefully recover quickly from an unusually loud thunder boom. Creating a general positive association with storms may help us ride out the truly frightening ones.