Can a dog get over seperation anxiety?

[Louby]

I posted a while back about my 9 mth old howling and yapping when left alone. We bought a DAP diffuser and left him daily for short periods of time and even taped him just to see how bad he was. There was a massive improvement and we were so relieved anyway today he was left for 1 1/2 hrs whilst I went shopping and hes been awful. Proper howls, yaps for about an hour of it. Will he ever get better, do they grow out of it, what can we do. We live on a small cul de sac and someone in the far corner has even commented on how loud he is.
We feel so fed up

 

[Jennypenny]

Oh I am gutted to hear that, Borris has been doing so well. He is still a baby so hopefully he will grow out of it. I hope today was just a bad day for him. We all have bad days. I hope he is better again next time you leave him. I do feel for you! Whats he like with the radio on etc? I quess have tried everything anyway. Just stick with it and carry on doing what your doing, just might take a little more time.

 

[CAYLA]

Some dogs do suffer a worse case of seperartion than others, but I have never experienced a dog that has shown any signs passed the initial crate training/introducing period, are u placing him in the crate, with the door closed, when u are in the house with him?

 

[grooveshysta]

We got our staffie bull terrier cross about 4 months ago. We had complaints from the folks next door about him yapping and barking whilst we were out. We have done 2 things with him and touch wood, no more complaints. Our neighbours actually asked if we had got rid of him.

We changed his food. we have him on James Wellbeloved. Its all natural and non-alergenic. Should keep him calmer.

We have also been really hard on him in terms of physical contact. We both like to snuggle our dogs but have forced our selves not to. When we are watching TV, he is on his bed in the same place. We make sure he sleeps on the floor and so on. We also got him to spend time on his own when we are in. We put him in a room on his own with a bone to chew. We then veried the time to go back in to see him. When he was quite, we told him he was a good boy but not too much fuss as he would then get excited about us coming in the room. We are quite lucky that we have 2 dogs, and we have been able to also get him to spend loads of time with her and he is quite attached to her now so she keeps him company when we are out.

Good luck. You just need to be consistant with him but its well hard.

 

[Louby]

Thanks for your replies,
He has access to his crate with the door open into the conservatory as I feel he is getting too big to leave locked in the crate and am hoping when the weather turns milder and he is a bit older to get rid of the crate and let him have the run of the conservatory. We have put another bed in there as well which he does like to lie in.
We have been too soft with him

, he hasnt done anything wrong to be anything but. But we have definately babied him and I now realise we have done it all wrong.
Its wierd as we went out last night to the pub, taped him and he never cried at all. He seems to know we are going out and has been fine if we leave him alone at night and its only once a week, whereas we keep leaving him during the day as often as possible but he keeps crying.