Tips to Help a Little Santa Monica Dog with Separation Anxiety

For this Santa Monica dog training session, we share tips to help 2 year-old Yorkie Silkie mix Cosmo get over his separation anxiety.

As Santa Monica’s dog behavior expert, I have learned that the best way to stop separation anxiety in dogs is to desensitize them from the things associated with the human’s departure and help them practice being alone in an easier capacity. I share these secrets to preventing a dog from having separation anxiety in the free positive dog behavior training video below.

Teaching a dog to be calm when humans aren’t these isn’t hard, but it does take a lot of practice in progressively longer durations. First for duration only, then with distance. Once Cosmo can stay on his own with the human out of sight, the guardians will need to help him practice while they get a glass of water, use the bathroom and other short activities. Eventually practicing while right outside the door; again for progressing long and longer periods of time. This is a very effective treatment for dogs with separation anxiety.

Stopping separation anxiety in dogs is a request I get quite a bit and its very rewarding to help a dog get over separation anxiety as you know you are making a big improvement in their lives.

We covered a number of other things in this in home Santa Monica dog behavior training session that should help with Cosmo’s overall behavior like adding in some new rules, petting with a purpose, passive training and a focus exercise. Im hoping these will build up his respect for him human’s leadership and create a healthy leader follower dynamic.

The only issue that may carry past this session is a reactive response to seeing dogs at a public place that caused him to go bananas. Im hoping the changes we put in place will curtail that behavior but if it happens again, the guardians should call or text me. Its possible we may need to set up a follow up session to work on that dog behavior problem, but Id like to wait a month or so to see if the other tips will stop that problem before we book another session.

To help the guardians remember all the tips I shared with them, we recorded a roadmap to success video.