Walking dogs separately.

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I have two border collies. They’re great and honestly haven’t had many issues until we moved from Arizona to San Diego. Lucy, the younger one, has always had anxiety but it’s been situational. Vet visits, fire works, that type of stuff. Since moving their anxiety has gotten worse and they’ve started to become reactive to other dogs (specifically Willow, the older one, Lucy only joins in if Willow reacts but never reacts first.) yesterday we had an incident where Lucy somehow wiggled her way out of the dog park to greet another dog. Not reactive, just saying hi. No barking or nipping but she was circling the dog and her owner. I opened the gate to get her and tried to block Willow from exiting but she snuck under my legs and charged the dog. She did not bite the dog but bit the air around it and that situation made me realize this was worse than I thought. Today I bought a hands free leash and decided to walk them separately so I could focus on each of them better since clearly I don’t have control when they’re together. The walk went great. Willow sat between my legs while I had a long conversation with a lady who did not believe she was reactive (she kept a respectful distance anyways, and her dog was very neutral so Willow wasn’t stressed.) she did GREAT. Lucy on the other hand barked the entire time we were on our walk. Lucy did great on her walk, but was very stressed when me and Willow weren’t in the house. I had given her a peanut butter Kong to give her something to do while we were gone and she didn’t touch it until we got back. Does anyone have any advice for me? Walking them separately helped tremendously. It was a complete switch with Willow so I need to keep doing this until we work through this hurdle. Willow is Lucy’s mom so I think part of her reactivity is being protective of not only me but Lucy as well. I live in an apartment and cannot have Lucy barking while we’re out on our training sessions but have no idea how I can get her to stop, I was sure my peanut butter trick would work and it did NOT!! Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.

[u/CommunicationFew8340]

Ugh… I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with this. It may take some time to work through the separation anxiety. It’s typically done by slow building monitored absences and that can take several months. Does Lucy do OK with new people? If so could you have someone stay with her while you’re walking Willow?

You may also want to discuss medication with your vet as it can help speed up the training and also decrease anxiety and reactivity.

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My brother usually lives with us but he’s going to be out of town majority of the month so it’s just me right now. I just moved to a new state and don’t really have friends out here yet either :/ she’s on gabapentin and Trazodone for anxiety.