05/06/2026
My dog has separation anxiety, how should I treat it? 😬
People often believe that a dog suffering from separation anxiety is being deliberately disobedient and destructive to get back at owners for leaving the home. This breeds the idea that the dog is bad, and needs some kind of punishment in order to resolve their behaviour. However, this is very much not the case. Separation anxiety has been shown, (as quoted in the graphic) ‘The term separation distress may best describe the phenomenon, which incorporates signs consistent with anxiety, fear, and phobic behaviour’ (Sherman and Mills, 2008), to be physiologically similar in many ways to a human panic disorder and is far from a conscious choice the dog is making. This means every time a separation anxiety dog is left alone they are essentially having a panic attack. When framed like this instead of seeing the dog as behaving badly on purpose, we can hold some empathy for them as many of us personally know someone or have experienced a panic attack or similar disorder ourselves and know it is truly terrifying.
So what can we do? 🤔
When looking at treatment of human panic disorders, we can see that there are multiple options, including medication, but what has been shown to be the most effective and long-lasting treatment (when implemented correctly) is gradual exposure therapy/systematic desensitisation which, as quoted in the psychiatric times, 90% of human patients have been shown to still have a significant reduction in symptoms after 4 years from treatment. Therefore, we can take that knowledge into account when training our dogs, to give them the most effective, and long-lasting option also. In fact a study done by Rogerson (1997), found an even better success rate in dogs ‘A combination of systematic desensitization and counterconditioning for the treatment of fears and phobias of dogs was found to be successful for 100%’, and an additional study specifically into separation based phobias found ‘The frequency and severity of the problem behaviours were reduced' and that 'the problem behaviour almost completely eliminated’ (Butler et al. 2011). But it is so important that it is done correctly. With human subjects it is expected that this kind of therapy, in order to not accidently make the issue worse, would be done by a qualified medical practitioner, so with our dogs we will want to find someone who has a thorough understanding of how this technique needs to be implemented for separation distress. Although Butler et al.’s study did still find some success when owners worked on the method at home, a big reason separation anxiety training ‘fails’ is due to inconsistency, and rushing the steps needed to truly desensitise the dog to absences, which can occur when owners don’t have a thorough training plan or assistance. Working through separation anxiety can be a long road, but it can be made significantly more tolerable with the support of qualified specialist in the area to help you every step of the way.
If you feel you are in need of specialist help for separation anxiety, then I can thoroughly recommend Pippin Pets with Jo Sellers- Separation Anxiety Specialist who kindly collaborated with me to make this post/graphic. 😊
And, you can find the studies and articles mentioned in this post here:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159110002923?fbclid=IwY2xjawSI8x9leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE1bzJIYkRldTRwSzdadDl0c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHnx3TGobu_pnn7w9Hp3FyeKmlbRD16qLCHb7bvLvn1YRqVPD_hroYnMI9vUl_aem_gRtVM_aVwau3kFW_-KSybA
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S016815919601129X?fbclid=IwY2xjawSI8zNleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE1bzJIYkRldTRwSzdadDl0c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHmelu8BvzvuwhSb-ivm65HQihM4O4PNQxj6vuQgXVoaahVKWgziQSZlyrRpR_aem__qsP-AKxG2e31wyJvPOJGg
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0195561608001125?fbclid=IwY2xjawSI8z5leHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE1bzJIYkRldTRwSzdadDl0c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHpqOyeAAsi7QXn35l6rNcjpvISIOqXTyJJKQqXMZ34i8ZD5aBDQRUZuetTI3_aem_Bng8vSV50eGArD8DftMAvg
https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/exposure-therapy-anxiety-disorders?fbclid=IwY2xjawSI80pleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETE1bzJIYkRldTRwSzdadDl0c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHpqOyeAAsi7QXn35l6rNcjpvISIOqXTyJJKQqXMZ34i8ZD5aBDQRUZuetTI3_aem_Bng8vSV50eGArD8DftMAvg
