chihuahua

Question
my family and I have recently moved to a new house and we have a small Chihuahua. yesterday we went out for the day and left him in the house for a few hours. we left him his usual bed and some food and water but when we got home we saw that he had been scratching down the doors until he made himself bleed! he scraped some of the pads of his feet off a little and today he is limping on his hind leg.

my questions are do i need to do something about his paws? and what can i do to keep him more calm when we leave the house? thank you very much.

Answer
Dear Amber,

If you haven't already, clean his paw pads and keep an eye on them to make sure they don't get infected.  You can put a little Neosporin on them after you clean them.  If they don't seem to heal up in the next day or two, have your vet take a look and treat them.

Keeping your dog more calm when you leave the house should involve any and possibly all of the following:

- Exercise him more so that his energy is burned when you leave him.  This is important.

- Keep the TV or radio on when you leave (whatever is usually on when you are home)

- Give him several stuffed Kong toys to chew before you leave.  Smear the inside of each with a thin layer of peanut butter or honey, then cram his usual ration of food into them so that he eats his meals out of Kongs.

- Do not make any emotional display when you leave the house or when you return.  Best bet is to ignore him completely for the first 5 minutes after your arrival, other than bringing him outside to potty.

- Desensitize him to the cues to your departures by picking up your keys every once in a while, walking around with them for a minute, then putting them back down.  Do the same with your purse, coat, briefcase, etc. Eventually you should "leave" as you normally do for errands or work, but come back after 1 minute.  Each day vary the amount of time you are gone, starting with short departures and gradually working up to longer departures.  Don't continually increase the time however; an example of sample departure times might be something like this:  1 minute, 3 min., 2 min., 3 min., 1 min., 5 min., 3 min., 7 min., 10 min., 5 min., 8 min., 6 min., 15 min., etc.  You can do more than one practice departure per day, but I'd space them out at least an hour apart.  

There are pharmaceuticals your veterinarian can prescribe for separation anxiety but try these strategies first to see if you can solve the problem yourself.

Good luck and thanks for writing.
Suzanne Harris, BSc, CPDT
http://www.dogdaysUSA.com