7 month old springer spaniel separation anxiety

Question
Our 7 month old Springer Spaniel puppy, Remy, was kenneled in the house with his mother and litter mates @ night & when breeder wasn't home since birth.  He was fine with the kennel when we first brought him home at 3 mos.  After about a month or 2 he began whining, panting and drooling excessively at night and we would come home after work to find him panting with a "lake of drool" on the floor of his kennel & the sheepskin pad soaked and pushed in a corner. (His kennel is in our bedroom) It became a struggle to get him in the kennel and we nearly have to shut the door in his face.  We've tried herbal oral remedy and relaxing music CDs from our vet but these have not made any difference in his behavior.  We finally tried leaving him in our bathroom when we leave which is large with big window and toilet is in separate room. We thought we were seeing an improvement in that there was less drool and sometimes it looked like he had been sleeping.  He since has destroyed his dog bed and  chewed on door frames.  We controlled this with the inside "invisible fence disk" placed just outside the door & placing the "invisible fence" flags (he thinks if a flag is present he needs to stay away from it to avoid a shock) in front of other door frame and at tub water faucet handles.  Now he chewed up the corner of the vanity & my husband feels we have no choice but to put him in the kennel when we leave.  (I only work 2 days/week but even when we were gone 1-1/4 hours for church he damaged the bottom corner of the wooden vanity.  Our trainer suggested putting him in the kennel at increasing amts of time ie: 5 minutes, 10 minutes etc and then letting him out calmly with praise.  I only got to the 10 minute mark and he had the whole floor of his kennel full of drool-he was panting, anxious but tail wagging when I let him out.  I don't approach him with a "poor baby" voice.  We have found he sleeps through the night in a dog bed next to our bed so all that remains is his separation anxiety when we have to leave.  Any suggestions you might have for us would be much appreciated.  Even our vet was alarmed at his reaction when he was 6 mos old in a cage waiting to be neutered in the holding area.  She has been saying something must have happened when he was in his kennel because at first he was accepting of kennel.  We just realized he reacts to the vacuum cleaner in the same way.  (Our cleaning lady usually does the vacuuming)  Any ideas?  Thank you in advance.  Remy is such a joy in all other aspects and gets a daily walk for at least 45 minutes. My husband has been working with a dummy to train him to go with him bird hunting and Remy loves it!!! and he loves to be outside in the woods up at the cottage.


Answer
It sounds like you have the right idea with your dog. Keep everything very low-key and totally ignore him for several minutes before you leave and after coming back home. It might also help to have a radio going when you are gone; I always have a radio on here for the dogs, primary, in our case, to drown out any possible outside noise that they might bark at. You might also give him a Kong toy with treats in it to keep him busy when you are gone.

Do make sure that everyone in the house practices "Nothing in Life is Free" with him to make sure that he understands the pack order in the house (he should be at the bottom). http://k9deb.com/nilif.htm  I would always feed him in his crate, too, and give him a treat every time you put him in there; he needs to learn to love his crate and that it always brings good things.

Here are two great articles on separation anxiety. Maybe they will give you some more ideas:

http://www.marvistavet.com/html/body_separation_anxiety.html

http://www.2ndchance.info/sepanxiety.htm

And if all else fails, talk to your vet about putting your dog on drugs to calm him down. I would only use that as a last resort, though.