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Separation Anxiety in Dogs - Recognizing the Signs Why It Occurs

2016/5/4 10:24:11

Most of the reason why dogs were returned by their owners is because of separation anxiety in dogs. This term is a condition where your dog started to show destructive behaviour when the owner leaves the house. This happens when your dog feel lonely and misses you when you are out of the house. It would be just harmless if your dog would only whimper and barks when you are out of the house. However, if your furniture and things inside your house gets destroyed because your dog chewed on it while you are away, this problem had escalated to a degree that you cannot control.

In fact, there are extreme cases that dogs hurt yourself to get your attention so you won't leave the house. It might range to a simple case of separation anxiety to an extreme one, both of them still needs to be resolved. It is important that you can spot the symptoms of separation anxiety in your dog so as to prevent it from escalating into something dangerous to your dog's health. Thus, the owner should simply know when to take some actions to prevent your dog from suffering this condition.

However, it is important to know your dog's background before you adopt them. Researching on their background would give you a heads on how to treat your dog. It is also important to research on the specific attitude of your dog's breed to fully understand your dog. In fact, there are certain breeds of dogs that are submissive. With submissive dogs, you have to be aware that when he viewed you as the pack leader and you leave, he would be sad and upset. But with dominant kind of dog breeds, they only get upset when he viewed you as part of his pack and not the alpha leader and then you leave without his permission. From this knowledge alone, you can get a lot of information on how to treat your dog to avoid separation anxiety in dogs.

Additionally, checking the background of your dog is also necessary in determining if they can suffer from separation anxiety. It is commonly found out that most dogs that came from pet shops have the higher tendency to suffer from this condition. They mostly think that when you leave, you will also abandon him just like his previous owner. Those dogs that are early separated from their mother have also the tendency. Moreover, sudden change of environment, or there is a long absence of a family member, as well as a traumatic experience could also trigger these symptoms.

Observing your dog closely is one of the first things that you could do to know if your dog suffers from dog separation anxiety. Most of the early symptoms shows your dog's highly active behaviour whenever your dog could sense that you are about to leave. Thus, whenever you wear your jacket or pick your car keys, especially when you go outside the house, your dog would start to be overly excited and would bark and whine. When you try to leave the house, your dog would attempt to go with you. The most important symptom is that when you lock him inside your house when you leave, you can still hear his barking, whining and doing some scratches on the door.

With these symptoms, you can rest assured; there would be things that your dog has chewed in your house. And when you came back, your dog will make a big deal out of it, barking and getting overly excited for longer period of time. If this is the case, you could safely conclude that your dog suffered separation anxiety in dogs.

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