Helping a Wheaton Terrier Get Over His Separation Anxiety
By: David Codr
Published Date: January 17, 2020
For this Omaha dog training session we helped 2 Soft Coated Wheaton Terrier rescue dogs; Taylor (left) and Max, sharing tips to help Taylor get over his Separation Anxiety.
Knowing that Taylor likes to get excited and jump up on guests, I called ahead to set up an easy way to stop a dog from jumping on people and learn how to calm itself down. It worked wonders, with Taylor sitting calmly and quietly winton minutes instead of jumping all over us.
We noticed that Max recused himself from our presence any time Taylor as around. Since Taylor is a velcro dog, this was most of the time. While Taylor wasn’t doing anything aggressive to Max, the past fights and his background as a rescue dog had him self isolating which is not healthy for anyone.
I recommended the guardians increase time with Max alone so he gets some quality time and can practice being more social. This would normally be a challenge with Taylor being a velcro dog (glued to a human’s side), but part of stopping separation anxiety in dogs involves the dog practicing being alone in easier versions. I explain that and share other tips to help dogs with separation anxiety in the free positive dog training video below.
The secret to a dog getting over separation anxiety is first helping it overcome associations with things the humans do before they leave. We call these tigers and they can start a dog panicking before the human actually leaves.
The secret to stopping separation anxiety in dogs is to help it practice being alone. Ive spoken to many dog behavior experts about this which is how I came up with my method to treat separation anxiety in dogs. If the humans practice a few times a day as instructed, Taylor should be able to learn to be calm when alone – crucial practice. Plus it will make it easy for Max to get some quality alone time with them.
At the end of the session, I worked with Taylor who snaps at anyone who tries to close his kennel door. This is his strategy to keep the humans from leaving but obviously not wanted by the humans. Fortunately the technique I came up with did the trick. I outline it and more in the summary of this in home Omaha dog training video below.
Categorized in: Dog Behavior