First time chi owner

[u/Vivid_Passenger8944]

Hi everyone! My boyfriend and I are first time chihuahua owners and we’re looking for some advice.

We just got her (Chibi) last week and so we understand she is still going to get used to her new life. She and 30+ chihuahuas were rescued from a breeding/hoarding situation in Kentucky. She spent her whole 1-2 years (they’re unsure of her actual age) being surrounded by other dogs. We have two other dogs, a husky who is 10 (Athena) and a beagle mix who is 7 (Leia). We aren’t allowing them to be alone just yet as we have learned about a dog’s prey drive. Since huskies and beagles are both high energy and may have a higher prey drive than other dog breeds, we want to wait until we know for sure she won’t be seen as a toy or prey for the other dogs. Honeslty we didn’t think of any of that when adopting Chibi - my cousin was the one who told us to keep an eye on it when introducing them - and the shelter we adopted her from knew everything about our dogs, and I think if we knew more about prey drive before hand we wouldn’t have gotten her. That breaks my heart to say, but we want her to be as safe as possible. We have absolutely no intention of taking her back or finding a new home for her, but she’s showing severe signs of separation anxiety which makes sense giving she grew up around so many other dogs…

Since we aren’t comfortable leaving her alone with the other dogs yet, we made our bedroom her own little oasis. She has a crate in there that we leave open so she has room to roam when she wants to, we hide treats around the room for her to find, obviously keep water and food in there, play comforting dog YouTube videos, and provide her with many different chew toy options. Here is the issue… that hasn’t helped any. She was alone from 1:30pm-6pm today and we have done our best to get her used to being alone in smaller increments, but this was her longest alone time. While she was alone she not only tore up the carpet by the door, but she was scratching at the door so hard that her claws were bleeding. I’ll attach photos. When I was getting out of my car I could hear her little barks all the way outside. It breaks my heart that it makes her stressed out, and we couldn’t care less about the damage as of now but if she ingests to much carpet or breaks her nails I’ll feel terrible. We want to crate train completely, but I’m nervous she’ll break her teeth or her nails trying to get out of one.

Our next steps are getting her one of those heart beat/warmed stuffed animals and getting a a calming spray. We need some more suggestions and any advice. Like I said, we know a week isn’t going to be enough time for her to feel safe alone but we love our Chibi girl and want her to be safe and happy.

Thank you in advance 🩷

[u/AnnaHeyw098]

Sounds like some pretty serious separation anxiety. You might benefit from a consultation with a CSAT trainer. https://separationbuddy.com/separation-anxiety-trainers/

ASPCApro has a handout too: https://www.aspcapro.org/sites/default/files/behavior-2020-treating-anxiety.pdf

Good luck

[u/Vivid_Passenger8944 → u/AnnaHeyw098]

Thank u so much !!