1 post tagged “separation anxiety”

Huh. It definitely seems longer than three months. Our progress on everything has been great, and we have almost no problems at all... she's happy, healthy, funny, fun, affectionate, playful, sweet, loving, wonderful. The only issue that we need to deal with now - and it's not an easy one - is separation anxiety. We have possibly a Perfect Storm of circumstances that make this a difficult situation. First of all, it's a condition that is apparently not unusual for rescue dogs, and compounding this is the fact that I work from home, and we take her with us almost everywhere, so she hasn't had a chance to become accustomed to spending time without one or both of us... Totally our fault. She's my little shadow, and follows me everywhere, except for once or twice a day when she goes to take a short sunbath in the courtyard, or if she decides that I'm just staying up way too late, and decides to go off to bed by herself. So, this is a thorny problem to deal with, and will make house training seem like cake (which it was, actually).

Complicating matters is that we plan to take a transatlantic trip of a few weeks in the Fall, and we hope to have friends staying here to care for her, and want to make that as painless as possible for both Sky and friends. So. I need to start going out without her for short periods, and gradually lengthening that time, and try to assure her that everything will be okay if she isn't with us every second. Tough one.