Separation anxiety(barking and Neighbour)

sambuka41

Hi guys looking for a bit of advice!! My little dog is great,she is 7 months old a mix between a Pom and a Sheltie. Ive been training her and she is great on the walk,great with food (was a bit greedy to begin with:p) BUT she is still having separation anxiety.

I arrived home last night after being out for a couple of hours (rare occurrence!!home by 10.45pm) to find a note in my letter box by a neighbour saying that her constant barking is becoming a problem.

The way i work she is not alone for more than 4 hours in the afternoons, and when i am here she does not bark. She is in bed by 11pm and not let out in morning until 9am (with the exception of a bathroom break with no barking). So the only time i can think is when i go to work. when i leave i can hear her bark. She likes being outside so i leave her out there when i am at work, she has a shed to go into where i feed her in the mornings. She has a kong. Sometimes i will leave her out the back while i am in the house with the curtains closed and she is not barking all the time just for a few minutes at the start.

She is a nervous dog in general,walking her at night can be difficult because she is nervous of every shadow.

So do you think my neighbour is being unreasonable? I am going to set up a camera today to see how bad it is while i am gone. Im in rented accommodation and dont want trouble from landlord but dont want my dog feeling like she cant bark either .

Sorry for the long post,:(:( any advice welcome

cocker5

sambuka41 wrote: »

Hi guys looking for a bit of advice!! My little dog is great,she is 7 months old a mix between a Pom and a Sheltie. Ive been training her and she is great on the walk,great with food (was a bit greedy to begin with:p) BUT she is still having separation anxiety.

I arrived home last night after being out for a couple of hours (rare occurrence!!home by 10.45pm) to find a note in my letter box by a neighbour saying that her constant barking is becoming a problem.

The way i work she is not alone for more than 4 hours in the afternoons, and when i am here she does not bark. She is in bed by 11pm and not let out in morning until 9am (with the exception of a bathroom break with no barking). So the only time i can think is when i go to work. when i leave i can hear her bark. She likes being outside so i leave her out there when i am at work, she has a shed to go into where i feed her in the mornings. She has a kong. Sometimes i will leave her out the back while i am in the house with the curtains closed and she is not barking all the time just for a few minutes at the start.

She is a nervous dog in general,walking her at night can be difficult because she is nervous of every shadow.

So do you think my neighbour is being unreasonable? I am going to set up a camera today to see how bad it is while i am gone. Im in rented accommodation and dont want trouble from landlord but dont want my dog feeling like she cant bark either .

Sorry for the long post,:(:( any advice welcome

http://www.rescueremedy.com/pets/

alot of dogs suffer from seperation aniexty try her with some of this ...
it helped calm my cocker down as he cried all day and all night in the begining....

dogs bark for many reasons.... they are scared, hungry, tired, worried etc.. you should try and train her not to bark to be honest...

We did this with out guy and he's the business now... yes he still barks at the poor post man but thats it really.... as we dont want him randomly barking and annoying our neighbours etc...

boxerly

Yes rescue remedy and calm aid are great,Could you leave her in the kitchen with maybe a radio or tv on?There are dogs on my road who bark ALLLLLLLLL the time even at night and people say noting because it is the norm now,but If one of mine bark they say to me "oh i heard your dog barking"If your dog is barking alot I can understand your neighbour giving out BUT if it was a once off or only for a few minutes then maybe your neighbour is just looking for a reason to give out to you?Hope it gets sorted soon xxArent there plug ins and collars ye can get to help calm dogs aswell?never used them?

sambuka41

Thanks for the reply. I might try the rescue remedy. She is just so nervous at night, it doesnt help that someone set off a banger firework very near our house in sunday. poor little thing nearly jumped out of her skin. I didnt catch the culprit. :mad:

I think things will be ok with the neighbour,i understand it can be annoying listening to her barking its just hard to know what to do about it when your not there. I tried desensitizing the whole thing for her,by going through the routine but not going out. And leaving her for at least 4 hours everyday alone so that she doesn't get confused with different times at the weekend.

tk123

Our guy used to be nervous of the traffic so I just gave him a look command and treated him as we walked along to take his focus off the traffic and on to me. I did it over a few evenings and it made a huge difference.

sambuka41

yeah she is good at taking commands when I am there but I am afraid to keep going out to her when she is barking is reinforcing the behaviour. Cause thats what she wants!! When i am going to work thats what she wants,i dont know exactly what the motivation is when i am not there.

Bookkeeper09

I think we might have the same neighbours
I left my dog in my back garden for the first time a couple of months ago(March i think).
Was away a little longer than I thought I would be but was back home within an hour and a quarter! On my return I had a note in my door asking me to "not leave my dog out barking "all" afternoon" Was a bit baffled by it as I had only left the house at a quarter to 7(evening) and was home by 8 and prior to this the dog had never been in the garden when when we were not in the house! Anyway..we ignored it...as they hadnt put there name on it and I didnt know who it had come from!
A month or two later I got another note through the door. At this stage we were leaving the dog in the garden but was never more than a couple of hours at a time. My partner called in to the neighbour (they had actually put their address on this one). She basically asked could we leave the dog in the house or at least leave the back door open so the dog could let herself in and out when we were not there??.
At this stage we started a little detective work to see how much the dog was actually barking....stopping with the car windows down a little bit from the house , asking the other neighbours was the dog bothering them and moving camera's from our CCTV to the back of the house(they are normally on the front)
We soon discovered that the dog was periodically going crazy barking/howling and whimpering but this was only happening when the same neighbours cat was pirching on top of the fence separating the two gardens peering down at the dog and teasing her. I approached the neighbour about this and she told me that it was natural for cats to roam.....so I told her that it was natural for a dog to bark at a strange cat! I told her if she kept her cat confined to her garden she shoudlnt have any more problems with my dog barking. She still hasnt done this....but also hasnt left anymore notes for me
I think some people like to moan!!!

Discodog

If the dog is outside there are thousands of reasons why it might bark. Train it to be indoors with the radio on as has already been suggested. The radio isn't to act as "company" but to make exterior sounds less obvious. The neighbours could be part of the reason that the dog barks.

You can get a cheap dictation/tape recorder - make sure that it has voice activation. Then it will switch on automatically if it detects barking.

pokertalk

yeah the tv or radio is a good idea and too keep the dog indoors make sure he has plenty of toys also to keep him busy.set up an old tape recorder in the room he is in and then just go out for a half an hour then check it too see how bad it is . he is just craving company a 2nd dog could be a option too. does your landlord allow dogs??. i dont think dogs go under the noise pollution act anyway.so if your landlord allows pets there is not much the neighbour can do about it but it is annoying to hear a dog barking constantly.

IvySlayer

Any chance of rescuing another dog for company? It'll require weeks of hard work to get them used to each other but it could pay off.

These suggestions may or may not work, it could be one problem, she hates being alone.

sambuka41

Yeah the landlord allows animals,well its a letting agency and they gave us a letter saying that they were happy for us to stay with the dog and cat. So not sure if that would be enough for a rescue?? Im not sure if i have the finances for another dog either

Im going to try walk her for longer too, see if that makes a difference. She is very attached to me,will follow me from one side of the room to the other.

Can you get the rescue remedy for pets in health shops?

cocker5

sambuka41 wrote: »

Yeah the landlord allows animals,well its a letting agency and they gave us a letter saying that they were happy for us to stay with the dog and cat. So not sure if that would be enough for a rescue?? Im not sure if i have the finances for another dog either

Im going to try walk her for longer too, see if that makes a difference. She is very attached to me,will follow me from one side of the room to the other.

Can you get the rescue remedy for pets in health shops?

hi there you can...

http://www.hollandandbarrett.ie/pages/categories.asp?cid=29&showAll=true

I went into holland and barret and they had their own versions... plus some pharmacies have them too...
have a read of this:

http://www.dogseparationanxietyhelp.com/

sambuka41

Hi guys im back again!!!

Thanks for all the advice from before. My little one is still suffering from separation anxiety. Ive tried the rescue remedy and it doesnt seem to have made any difference. Ive also given her a Kong with Frozen food in it but that only keeps her occupied for 40 mins or so.

I left for work this afternoon and kept her in the house cause I wasnt sure about the weather,I filmed her while i was out. She didnt even notice me leave (as she had her kong) but after 40 mins she howled the house down,that kept up for as long as the tape ran (another 30 mins or so) I walked her for 40 mins before I left.

Im not sure what to do. She seems grand when she is outside but she wont use a kennel or shed. Which isnt so bad now but im worried for when the weather turns. She is small and slightly underweight (due to hyperness:p). If it snows again this winter i wont be able to leave her out in it.

Very confused about where to go from here.

Discodog

I would have a chat with your Vet. I was listening to a Vet on the radio who was talking about firework anxiety. He mentioned a treatment that could relax a dog long term. The Vet was Andrew Byrne:

http://www.brayvet.com

Might be worth giving him a call or sending an email.