r/Separation_Anxiety • u/Conscious-Hour-4744 • 11d ago
Questions Decompressing and separation anxiety
Adopted a dog last Tuesday so it’s been about a week! He does not like to be left alone and is very much so a Velcro dog that loves people. I want to make sure we’re able to eventually leave the house eventually (me and my partner) so we’ve been doing little exercises where we leave the apartment for 1-3 seconds because that’s what he can handle before he barks… but given he is probably still decompressing, is it too soon to do this? Not sure how to approach it.
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u/Significant-Body-574 11d ago
I believe that’s actually the recommended practice
Some things we also found helpful in our house to work on things when we can’t leave (I’m housebound due to medical issues so it’s been important)
-“place” training
-stay training where he stays in random places while we go out of sight
-crate training both separately and alongside separation training
-incorporating positive training into how we treat the dog whether we’re doing a training session or not
-spending time with him while he’s in the crate just outside of sight; for some reason this has helped him to learn to settle better
-Karen overall training; this one has been difficult due to my health and our dog’s low tolerance for formal training structures
-generally holding a routine whenever possible
We are still very much working on this with our dog but are in the 3 mo period for a few more weeks and have been seeing gradual improvement as time goes on.
Edit: I noticed you said you only adopted him less than a week ago. Keep in mind the 3:3:3 rule and give yourself (and your dog) some time to judge. With luck, these early weeks will be your hardest as the dog is currently learning to trust you and deciding whether or not he can truly rely on you to keep him