Chester has mild separation anxiety. He used to howl the entire time we were gone (we videotaped him); I’m not sure if he does or not anymore — he is quiet when I leave and when I get home. He will not touch food, no matter how great a treat, when I am gone — and he looooooves his food.

I have been working hard with him over the last few weeks. In researching some of my own blog posts, I kept running across Fidelio Dog Works Blog. I liked what this trainer had to say, and one post about separation anxiety inspired me to start doing a lot more training with Chester while he is in his crate.

So now I have him do sits, stays, sit-stays, and down-stays while he’s in his crate. I have him go to his crate, then go to his bed, and so on. I also will open & close our garage door (our neighbors must be wondering what’s going on) while he’s eating a treat in his crate, to desensitize him to the sound of the garage door opening and closing.

We must be making some progress. Tonight we went out to dinner. I left him in the bathroom with his crate and a toy. He isn’t actually crated, he has the run of the bathroom and the crate is in there.

He wouldn’t touch his treat while I was there, but when we got back, it was gone. All of it. That’s a first. Usually the minute I walk out that door he stops eating, but this time he actually ate it after he was shut in the bathroom. He might have eaten it while I was just changing in the bedroom and setting the alarm, but it’s still progress to my mind.

I have actually hired Fidelio Dog Works to come this Friday and evaluate Chester for this problem. Even though I can and do leave him, I still feel somewhat like a prisoner in my own home. I cannot go and come when I want to (and I don’t even spend that much time away from home), and all my time has to be carefully planned around Chester.

Technorati Tags: separation anxiety, howl, crate, desensitize

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