Summer Separations: Part 1
Advice from Animal Expert Dr. Grey Stafford
 With summer vacations well underway, many of us are planning to travel without our pets. Leaving them home alone, whether we are going to the corner store or to the four corners of the globe, can create problems for some of our furry or feathered friends. In some cases the problems are minor. Pets get a little bored and begin to chew inappropriate things like furniture or shoes left on the floor. For others, the problems can be quite serious, even life threatening.
This week, we’ll tackle the case for those of you hoping to avoid shaping separation anxiety in the first place. You might have already guessed that the process begins long before you take that great American vacation. Teaching animals to be calm when you aren’t home or nearby is every bit as important as teaching them how to behave when you are home.
10 Minute Rule
In past columns, we’ve discussed some of the ways you can prevent animals from reacting to your comings and goings. To start, try to make coming home or leaving as much of a non-event as you can. I call it the 10-minute rule. As you prepare to leave for work or school, try to ignore your pet beginning about 10 minutes before you leave. In our home, I time the delivery of my little “Venti’s” breakfast a few minutes before my actual departure. Usually, I just place the food and go about my business. As I leave, he's still munching away. That way, all the usual sights and sounds associated with my leaving (e.g. garage door, keys jingling etc.) are also associated with food! Leaving the TV on as well (tuned to 3TV of course!) helps provide a little white noise to desensitize pets to strange sounds that might otherwise encourage unchecked barking or howling.
From time to time, I've quietly slipped back into the house to see my dog already asleep—his belly full.
Come Home Quietly
The same logic applies to coming home. Try not to make a fuss in the first few seconds or minutes after your arrival. Your pets will naturally be excited to see a real person, but are they showing the kinds of raucous behavior that should be rewarded? Give them a few minutes to settle down, quiet down, and put all 4 paws back on the ground before you acknowledge them at all. This will help shape calm behavior and reinforce the idea that being separated for a while is no big deal. If necessary, wait for your pet to settle down a bit before you even enter the house—remember the mere act of you entering the house probably is a huge reward for whatever it is they're doing at that instant.
Puppy Preps
Puppy owners will also want to work on leaving pups alone for increasing amounts of time. That’s one reason why it is so much better to adopt a puppy at the start of summer rather than during the school year. Summers give families more time and flexibility to teach pets how to get along on their own, a little bit at a time. And, whenever you leave your pets alone in a large crate, yard, or home, be certain to remove all temptations like the TV remotes, shoes, trash cans, and anything else you care about. In their place, be sure to provide lots of variable toys and rewards to keep them stimulated in your absence.
So if you want to maintain pets that don’t display anxious or destructive behavior while you are away, follow these tips and provide fun things for them to do while you're gone. Prevention of separation anxiety through regular desensitization training with rewards is so much easier than solving the problem once it has developed!
Click here to learn things you can do to improve the lives of those pets that have developed problem behaviors such as excessive barking, chewing or self mutilation because of separation anxiety.
Dr. Grey
Learn more about Dr. Grey Stafford
The information presented and the opinions expressed are those of the content provider. KTVK-TV and KASW-TV do not endorse the accuracy or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement, or other information by the content provider. You acknowledge that any reliance upon any such opinion, advice, statement, or information shall be at your sole risk.
|
