How Fast Can You Cure Dog Separation Anxiety
Dog owners often ask how long it takes to cure separation anxiety in dogs and while it’s an an understandable question question, unfortunately it doesn’t have a straightforward answer. In today’s high speed society, we’re all looking for an instant fix, but when it comes to your dog’s behaviour problems, time and patience is the best cure.
You see, how quickly or slowly a dog gets rid of separation anxiety depends upon how severe the symptoms are, the individual personality of the dog and the opportunities it gets for learning new behaviour. All these different variables means that there’s no sure time frame you can put to this problem, which is basically a positive thing.
Now I realise that everyone wants the problems of separation anxiety in dogs to vanish as quickly as possible, but having short time frames often results in people putting themselves under unwarranted pressure. This can have an adverse effect on the situation, making dog owners more anxious and less patient with their dogs. If they add further pressure to that by torturing themselves with questions like “why hasn’t this worked yet”, they are more likely to end up feeling a failure, or deciding that that the training does not work and quitting before they get the results they are looking for.
Time Pressure Could Increase Your Stress and Your Dog’s Anxiousness
Another downside of putting yourself under time pressure is that your pooch will sense your stress as they’re very sensitive to our moods and feelings. They’ll sometimes take their lead from what we are feeling as well, which means that if they sense you are anxious it’ll increase their own anxiousness and the result will be that it takes far longer to resolve the issue.
In short, the best approach once you have found a good dog separation anxiety training programme to follow is to relax and accept that there is no pressure, and instead trust that it’ll happen. Ironically, it could help decrease the training time necessary.
Learning Doesn’t Occur in a Straight Line
Another fact about learning new behaviour or skills worth mentioning is that while your training should be regular and consistent, improvement rarely happens in a continuously growing upwards curve (ask any sportsman or sportswoman), instead you tend to get big jumps forward followed by a plateau where you often feel you are getting nowhere. Your dog’s training could progress in the same way, so don’t give up when you hit a plateau stage, as you could be on the point of getting one of those huge steps forward.
A good tip is to keep a list of all the anxiety issues you want to handle and note down your progress each week, however tiny, because when you are feeling de-motivated it can be a great reminder of how far you’ve come. Stick with your training plan and you will see results as long as you are consistent and persistent in your training, and give your dog the right messages. I’ve come across many, many stories of dog owners who’ve used training to get rid of their dog’s anxiety problems and in the process gained a much more cheerful and relaxed life for themselves and their dogs.
Author Venice Marriott is a writer and dog owner and runs a website, which provides help and information for dog owners dealing with dog anxiety. Get more information about how to cure dog separation anxiety, when you visit the site.
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Tags: dog behaviour problems, dog separation anxiety cures, dog separation anxiety training, separation anxiety in dogs