Separation Anxiety

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Annette4

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So it would appear one of the dogs is making a lot of noise while we are out and instead of letting us know, the neighbours have complained to the landlord :(

Dax is going to have to go back to the charity and it's him I'm hoping is the culprit but Fizz can whine when the mood takes her so it may well be her.

She is tired when she's left alone, left with a chew/kong and the tv is left on and is in the crate next to Jack.

I'm looking at adaptil diffusers as I type but is there anything else I can do?
 
When you are home do you always have the dogs with you, if so I would look at perhaps putting them in the kitchen with a stairgate so they can still see you but not be with you, the drill is go out,wait a few minutes and then come in not taking any notice of them and just unloading your shopping whatever. Of course this sounds very easy and quick but its not, it takes a lot of time to get them not to react at you going in and out. I would also not make a big thing of going out, like Im going out now, wont be long etc, you would be surprised the amount of people who do this including me but then my dogs dont suffer SA

Its quite common with rescue dogs and I suppose the biggest problem, what happens is people take time off work for perhaps a week and give the dog lots of love and attention then they go off to work and thats where the problem arises. Im not saying Annette you are doing that just an example of what happens.

If it was me I would not be sending Dax back, you dont even know if that dog is the problem, whichever dog it is it needs to be addressed thats what fosterers do otherwise no one would foster. Some rescue dogs have problems, you just have to work through them, dont the rescue give you any help or advice?

I hope you can sort it, at least give it a bit of time, have a word with the neighbours, explain the situation and say it was something you were unaware of and now addressing and you would be grateful if they could inform you of how it pans out once you leave the house. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar so be nice to the neighbours even if it is hard to do, you want them on side so give it a go.
 
Could you beg or borrow a go pro camera from someone and set it up at home, and switch on before you leave the house so you can see which one it is? They record for about 4 hours or so on a full charge and you can hook up to a laptop and review it later.

Have you tried a stuffed Kong? I stuff ours with peanut butter and freeze them, that keeps them going for a while. I also like to exhaust them a bit with a really good walk in the morning. As DG said above, don't talk to them when you leave, just chuck the kong and quietly out of the door!

Re the neighbours, could you pop a card through apologising and say you're working on the problem, and hope that it will be resolved very soon or something? Always worth keeping neighbours on side!
 
The dogs are regularly left in their crate or behind a stair gate while we mill about. Jack and Fizz are no problem but Dax does cause a mild fuss. I've been working on it but it is slow progress. I am in a tied position. I cannot afford to upset my landlord or neighbour and risk being asked to leave. if we had known we would have done something to help this sooner.

They are either left with a stuffed kong or an antler and with no fuss just out the door with their 'treat'.

I will see if anyone has a camera I could borrow but I'm not sure they will, I would be willing to try anything as Jack has never been a problem and if Fizz does have issues I want to stop them now.
 
When we moved house, we discovered that Shelley (GSD) had been barking for half an hour every day after we left for work in the morning. The neighbours had talked to each other and decided that, as all the burglaries had stopped when she arrived, they would not say anything to us, as she was quiet the rest of the time. They just thought they ought to mention it, as we would now have different neighbours. So she had been deterring burglars for 5 years.
 
Having left my phone at home filming them while we were out this morning it's definitely Dax. We left him out of his crate while we popped to the shop later on and he still made some noise but was quieter so for now the plan is to leave him out but now the landlord has asked us to remove the offending dog we can't do much else but do our best until we can find a new foster home :(
 
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