Is your dog suffering from separation anxiety? Ten simple ways to train your puppy (and your dog) to overcome his fear of being home alone.

Did you know that up to 1 in 5 dogs now suffer from separation anxiety?

Does your dog jump all over you when you return home or mess up the house when you are out? Does he chew your furniture or your shoes? Do you hate leaving home because your dog looks so sad when you leave? Have your neighbors told you that your dog barks when you are not home? Do you feel guilty that you are a bad parent to your dog every day, every time you leave the house?

All of the above have applied to me, and it happened twice with the same dog - just in a different way. Once when he was younger and then again after lockdown in 2021.

At first, I didn’t even know. It was a neighbor who had to tell me about the howling. I hated leaving the house and leaving my dogs behind. I worried all the time if they were okay, I worried about what they were doing when I was out, what noise they might be making, and I was always keen to get home and excited to get back to them - but worried about what I might face.

After trying many different ways and finding out as much as possible, I realized that there were lots of things that might cause the anxiety.

Some of the things you are going to learn about in this book include:

• What causes separation anxiety
• How to identify separation anxiety
• Preparing the room for separation
• Leaving and returning
• Exercise, off leash, and recall
• Games you can play

One of the biggest reasons that dogs today are put up for adoption is due to separation anxiety where the owners can no longer cope. For this reason, I decided to write everything down that I have learned and that I have used in my own life and with others. But I also realized that it was much more common than I had thought with many dogs suffering from a fear of being alone. For those of us with slightly older dogs, separation anxiety may come as an unwelcome surprise. But it is possible to find a way to deal with it.

You will be surprised at the number of small things that might be making your dog feel this way and just how easy some of the solutions might be.

Of course, some for of separation anxiety will be more severe, and your dog might need more help, but if you have not tried these methods before, they are well worth trying.