I suspect my dog has separation anxiety. How can I get her help?

Hello. I would start with an over the counter anxiety product like Zylkene. I would also start using a dog appeasing pheromone in the home ( room diffuser ) or it comes as a collar. The pheromone can calm an anxious dog without drugs. Adaptil is the name of this product. If this does not help over the course of a couple of weeks, you will need to talk to your vet about possible behavior modification therapy & the use of prescription medications like Trazodone. Thanks for using Petco Pet Education Center, formerly Petcoach.

Talk with your vet about an anti-anxiety medication which can help tremendously. I use trazodone most often but there are many options. Other helps include: crate training and the adaptyl collar (a pheromone collar that can decreased stress). Best of luck to you and Sadie!

Congrats on your new dog, but it does sound like Iris has severe separation anxiety. I would have her seen by a vet for this. The vet can give you a referral to a professional behavioral expert to work on training techniques to lessen her anxiety. The vet can also discuss the use of anti-anxiety medications in Iris. I would also recommend getting a DAP diffuser. This diffuses pheromones in the room which helps dogs with anxiety. A Sentry calming collar can be used as well, which releases the calming pheromones when in contact with her skin.

Unfortunately, there are no quick fixes for separation anxiety. It is a very complex problem and takes many months of working with a professional in-home dog trainer (plus or minus behavior modification medications from your vet) to correct this behavior. I strongly recommend you get a professional trainer to your home to check out her behavior and then they can help you make changes to help her get over the anxiety. It will not be easy and it won't be quick. I recommend Bark Busters and they have a trainer in your area. I believe they do a free initial consult. Trying to correct this on your own is not recommended as you could give her incorrect signals and actually make her worse. ( https://www.barkbusters.com/dog-training-winston-salem-greensboro ) Depending on the severity of the anxiety, most dogs will benefit from the short-term use of pheromones until the problem can be controlled. You can start Adaptil pheromones to see if it helps. ( https://www.adaptil.com/us/Products/ADAPTIL-Calm-Home-Diffuser )

Hi there and thank you for using Pet Coach to address your concern! Unfortunately, separation anxiety can be quite difficult to address for most dogs. I usually recommend a multi modal approach. I recommend the following non-prescription approach prior to anything prescription: 1. NaturVet Quiet Moments calm chews plus Melatonin (can be found online quite easily. 2. Adaptil pheromone collar 3. Adaptil diffuser 4. Thundershirt In combination with this, I typically recommend providing plenty of toys such as a kong toy filled with peanut butter and some other noise making toys. I have recently recommended a product called the Pet Cube. This allows you to watch him via an app on your phone remotely and you can even control a laser pointer and interact with him while you are away. If this does not work or the behavior worsens, I typically recommend adding in anti-anxiety medications such as Trazodone, Amitriptyline, Clomipramine (clomicalm), etc. in combination with the above recommendations. I hope this helps! Please let me know if you have any other questions or concerns.

This is a difficult question, as the recommendation for which medications or therapies to start for anxiety are very individualized to the patient and the specific things that are triggering their episodes. If you haven't tried some over-the-counter therapies such as a Thundershirt ( https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/thundershirt-heather-gray-dog-anxiety-solution ) or a pheromone diffuser ( https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/thunderease-calming-diffuser-kit-for-dogs ) those are often good places to start. If these aren't helping you will need to consider consulting with a vet, who can prescribe Prozac or another anxiety medication, along with behavior modification therapy.

It appears, from the information you provided, that Videlia is almost two years old. It would be helpful to know more about her in order to give you an answer. Have you had her since she was a puppy, or did you get her recently? Is this behavior new? If so, has she had any traumatic incidents recently? Has anything in her household routine changed in any way?