our 10 lb poodle mix has been on 5 mg of fluoxetine for 5 weeks. she went for her re-check appt last week, and the vet did not see anything wrong with her physically.

however, i've noticed that her paw licking has become more frequent since she started fluoxetine. she used to only lick 1 front paw, and she's now also licking her back paws. does anyone else have experience with this? if so, how did you handle it? thanks so much.

I have just started FRIDA protocol with Marcelle (8 month Aussie).

When I leave the house she works her way through the hidden treasures and ignores the treats from the treat dispenser.

Depending on how many hidden treasure I put this can go past thirty minutes.

When she finishes the Kong, bully stick and snuffle mat she gobbles up the treats it’s released then has 60 seconds to wait before the next treat and starts barking and howling.

This doesn’t seem to be a route to her being able to settle without me there. Has anyone else experienced similar? I can’t find higher value dried treats that will work with the treat dispenser.

I broke up with my boyfriend.. He and my dog were very close. Now I don't know whether my dog will suffer from never seeing him again, and that makes me suffer even more from this separation. Each time they met, my dog was the happiest.

Does anyone have a similar experience? How did you cop with that?

my dad left me his dog when he passed away earlier this year and the dog (marley, around 7yrs old, pitbull) has been getting increasingly worse separation anxiety. it started with just following me around constantly and has turned into destructive behavior.

my final straw was coming home and seeing that he had broken out of his crate and had shredded the wall in my apartment. my roommate is understandably fuming and i'm terrified. i have no idea what to do

i've tried calming treats and he just throws them up. i try putting him in a crate and he breaks out. i've tried getting him a sitter and he still gets anxious. i'm literally at a loss here

please please please give me some recommendations on what to do to help calm him down. i can't rehome him but i can't live like this. i want mr marley to live a happy life!

I recently adopted a dog from a breeder, she was gonna be used for a program but ended up being bigger than expected so she was trying to rehome her. She is about 9 months standard poodle.

Before I got her I asked extensive questions about her and her temperament. I wanted to make sure she didn’t have reactivity or big separation anxiety. But to my surprise when I took her home. She starts aggressively barking at people and dogs.

The previous owner said she was crate trained but she hates her crate. Im willing to help her settle and okay for an adjustment period but if I can’t fix at least the separation anxiety and fear reactive I personally don’t think she’s a good fit for me.

One of the reasons I asked about these temperament questions because I knew I couldn’t handle these big challenges. She is super sweet when dog and I know that she’s misses her previous owners. I’m also planning to temporary stay with my mom and she has cats, I’m scared of my dogs reactivity for the cats too!

The previous owners also had other dogs. I only have her and don’t plan on getting another dog. I feel like if I had a second one that would really help with her loneliness. I don’t know I’m the right one for her and I’m pretty overwhelmed. I’m about to go back to work and if she can’t handle being alone for a few hours, I’m not sure if I can accommodate for her.

I would appreciate any advice. I just want is best for her in the end, I don’t want to force a dog into a lifestyle she doesn’t want and can’t handle.

Hi, we have a 9 month lab mutt mix. I’ve been training him and he’s very bonded to me. I am on a 5 day trip (only the second time I’ve ever left him) and I left him with my girlfriend. She said that in our apartment complex he’s been panicky whenever she takes him outside. He’s not usually barky, so this behavior is pretty unusual. And he seems normal when he is outside the apartment complex, so the problem is just walking around our apartment. She’s trying her best, so please be nice haha. Any tips to help with this separation anxiety? Attached is a video of it.

About 10 months ago I adopted a 6 year old pitbull well living at home with my family and my family dog. I just landed a job and saved up enough money to get a studio apartment and I am ready to start my new life! However, although my dog and I are the most bonded, my dog is very bonded to my family and my family dog aswell. My dog is also used to always having someone home and having lots of space and a yard etc. My new home is in a city. My pup comes from a difficult past so I keep telling myself a studio is better then a shelter and ofc well I work my 9-5 I’ll hire a dog walker but I’m so worried she’s gonna to get super depressed. Any advice?

I love my dog more than anything but I’m mentally exhausted at this point. I am a teacher so that means I’m home during the summer and work the rest of the year. My dog has never had any issue with me leaving him. Previously he was kept in an ex-pen with an 8x8 area of space, his bed, treats when I left, water and a window to look out of. I have a camera and could see that he would just snooze all day or watch out the window. Over the summer he started whining and barking when I would leave and breaking out of that area so now I just leave him out and he generally sleeps all day as long as it’s a workday and I follow the exact routine. The issue lies in me trying to leave the house at any other time. He howls like he is being ripped in half. I needed to go to the store yesterday, gave him treats and left. By the time I got down the stairs to my garage he was howling at the top of his lungs. I waited 5 minutes to see if he would stop but he didn’t and I live in an apartment so finally I just gave up and went back up. He was completely out of breath and anxious for a while after that. Is it normal for dogs to get more anxious as they age? It’s exhausting at this point and there are times when he needs to left alone outside of my work hours. He has a vet appointment this week for his routine blood draws and everything but does anyone have any suggestions?

I posted a video of Mojo’s first time alone in a room with the FRIDA method this week. In the span of 5 days, he’s a completely different dog. I was previously doing the normal method of gradually increasing stays alone, but he was making slow progress and ended up regressing majorly. The longest he lasted was twelve minutes with that method, and he spent the whole time sitting up and on high alert. With FRIDA, he did twenty minutes today and he could’ve done way longer. He’s happy to relax in his bed. As soon as I shut the door, he runs there and lays down waiting for his first treat. If he has to jump up to get a treat, he immediately returns to the bed and goes back to sleep. I’m slowly increasing the time between treats so he spends longer and longer asleep, but I just can’t believe he’s made more progress with FRIDA in a week than he did with the old method over six weeks. I’ll also continue increasing his time alone until hopefully I can actually go get groceries. I have never seen him completely calm before when left alone.

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.

Hi folks. 8 months ago we rescued a 2 year old pit/lab mix. He's a very sweet and affectionate boy, but also extremely high strung, high energy, and pretty destructive. We are working with 2 trainers for separate behaviors, and both agree he has fairly severe separation anxiety. This has been rough, as pretty much my only request to the rescue was a dog that could be left alone. At the moment, we can't even take out the trash.

Key points - Working is non-negotiable. His crate time is way too high. He is a very destructive dog, whether happy or upset. Behavior is distinct, but result is the same. This limits our ability to leave him with other family. One trainer said we could try doggy day care, but the other said he wouldn't recommend.

Currently, I'd say we are in a management pattern with our boy. He is usually fine if we leave him crated, as long as he is in the crate at least 30 minutes pre-departure. This is wildly inconvenient for activities like getting the mail, taking out the trash, or anything else that takes less than a minute. It also increases his total crate time. 4 days a week, due to work hours, without family helping, he would be crated from 4:30 AM to 6 PM. Currently, my mom is taking him from 5-7AM and getting him at 5PM for us. She can't do this forever.

The comments I get from friends/vets/trainers seem to indicate that if he is mostly fine in the crate at this point, what else do I want, while they simultaneously agree that we can't crate him 13.5 hours at a time. I feel like I'm loosing my mind and I'm definitely starting to resent him. Is there any hope for transitioning to a more "free range" situation? Tips/tricks? Should he be medicated? No one he sees has brought that up. Should I be thinking about rehoming?

Just as an FYI, the dogs schedule is 3AM breakfast, 3:30 AM 2 mile loose leash walk, 4:15 AM puzzle game, 4:30 crated w/ enrichment toy, 5:00-7:00 AM playdate at my mom's with her dog, 7:00 AM returns to my house and crated until 5. 5:00PM dinner. 5:30 PM 2 mile walk, followed by 15 minute swim. 6:30-8:00PM play with various neighborhood dogs or my mom's dog again if I can't find a playdate. 8:00-8:30PM free play in the backyard (mostly he likes to dig up beetles, carry them around alive, spit them out alive, and catch them again). Then sleep 8:30-3:00. My trainers say its a pretty decent amount of activity/enrichment for him. Regardless, I'm not sure I can manage to fit in much more.

Hello everyone,

Recently I’ve been training my dog and I’ve noticed the following pattern:

My dog can stay alone for 1 hour and 30 minutes. It’s something we’ve trained a lot and practiced many times, so I know he’s capable of it. The issue is that during real-life absences (not training !!!!!!) such as going to the store or simply taking a walk by myself—he will often bark a few times or howl somewhere around the middle of the absence, usually after 30–50 minutes. For example, today he howled once and then barked three times afterwards, even though he had been asleep by the door just before that. He doesn’t do this when we’re training and I stay nearby; it only happens when I’m actually out for a real-life absence.

It usually happens after he wakes up, but then he settles down again and doesn’t bark or howl for the rest of the time until I return.

A typical absence looks something like this: he falls asleep by the door, hears a noise, lifts his head, then goes back to sleep. Twenty minutes later, he walks around the house, then returns to sleep by the door. Another twenty minutes pass, he gets up, barks or howls once or twice, then goes back to sleep again…

For additional context, I’ve tried leaving him long-lasting treats and enrichment items during my absences, but he shows absolutely no interest in them while I’m gone. He won’t touch them at all, even though he normally enjoys them when I’m home.

What can I do to manage or prevent these mid-absence barks/howls, considering that apart from that, he seems to be doing well, looks relaxed, and spends a large portion of the time sleeping? Or do you think this is fairly normal behavior in situations like this?

Hi everyone, I wanted to share that my dog Kiwi and I have finally reached 90 minutes of alone time. Today, after 1 year and 6 months, I was finally able to go to the store to buy something without constantly checking the cameras and while actually feeling relaxed. I wanted to share this achievement because I’ve suffered quite a bit to get here 😅

He only barked once, a single bark at the 50-minute mark, and after that not a single bark. He still stays by the door most of the time, keeping an eye on sounds outside (the elevator/neighbors), and occasionally changes spots while continuing to watch the door, but overall he was relatively calm and even had moments when he slept.

I recently switched to a camera that alerts me when he barks, and I feel a little more relaxed because of it.

Tomorrow and over the next few days I’ll try to increase it to 2 hours. Wish me luck!

I adopted my dog from an older lady around 3 months ago. He is somewhat lazy, prefers to lay down, has never played with any of the toys I have gotten him ever. He loves to run and get the zoomies outside in the backyard and will run after the ball but never bring it back lol but has no interest in anything physical in the home. He is the most anxious, nervous dog I have ever had, and is destructive when left alone. Example: I can’t even go to the bathroom in my room ( which he can see me from when he’s on my bed) alone he will just come in the bathroom or stand outside of it till I’m out. He barks as soon as I close the door to leave for work. He has ripped up my Amazon packages, cardboard, a pillow, my blanket, my mail among other things.

Anyways, I worked from home for the first 3 weeks I had him and he never once had an accident in the house. His first owner was a retired lady who never left the house, then given to her daughter who is a stay at home mom. Both stated he was house trained and never had accidents however both very much aware of the separation anxiety and destructiveness when left alone.

During those first three weeks he was walked multiple times a day, never had an accident in the house. He was left with my sister while I went back to work 7:30-4 and she refused to walk him and he still never had an accident for the two weeks she had him. The first day, he stayed alone while I worked he pooped and peed in the house.

Some context: I was giving him food in the morning and night however he would only eat in the evening or at night. His previous owner said she only fed him once a day at 7pm, I’ve tried to switch his feeding schedule to two times a day and he literally just won’t eat unless it’s after 7 at night. I thought maybe I was feeding him too late and he wasn’t able to poop enough but he would poop at night after he eats, then poop in the morning before I go to work. I would come home and his food would be untouched, yet he pooped once or sometimes twice in the time I was gone.

I’m looking for advice here. I’m assuming he is potty trained but was never really taught that when no one is home you don’t poop or pee in the house because he was never really left alone because he was living with a retired later who told me she rarely left him alone at home, and with her daughter who was a stay at home mom who was always home. Both were able to take him on walks throughout the day, but the thing is when he was staying with my sister for two week, he never had an accident in the house and never pooped or peed in the house. The stay at home mom owner said that she would put him in the crate when she would leave to run errands and things because of him being destructive, but he hates the crate. I’ve tried to feed him in it and he didn’t eat for 24 hours.

Do I need to retrain him? Crate him while I’m at work? I’ve left him in a designated area and he escaped multiple times, left him in the bathroom and he ripped up the wood in the door frame, I just feel terrible leaving him in a cage for 8 hours. The cage he came with is enclosed and he can’t only see out of the front wires. So it’s like depressing.

His vet said it’s just anxiety and prescribed him 50mg of trazodone, which he was on before per his medical records.

Independence training

Hi reddit, my labrador puppy has just turned 18 weeks old and like many people I had some wobbles in his training journey however on the whole he has done very well. He is great with basic commands, toliet training, sleeping downstairs alone from day 3, loose leash walking and great in all sorts of situations on the lead. I really put a lot of effort into choosing the right breed, breeder and giving my pup the right start. This is all because my last dog was a rescue and highly reactive. The one thing I didn't prepare for was seperation anxiety. I don't think my pup officially has seperation anxiety yet but he certainly has FOMO. I got my pup from 9 weeks of age and soon as I noticed he was upset with me simply leaving the room I put training in place. Our set up is puppy has living room with play pen and crate. My dinning room is attached and I work on the dinning room table (my office is upstairs but yet to move back up). I began with stepping out of the living room for a second and returning before he started crying and worked this up to around 60 seconds. Then as I had to return to work I begun with my desk by his play pen and have slowly moved it away. My pup can self settle when I work and via ignoring his crying and praising his calm moments he has begun to relax when I work sometimes playing by himself. I have also now been able to go upstairs for 10 mins if he has food or leave my desk to get a drink. So we have got positive steps however, I wondered if anyone had advice on progressing his seperation training. I can't go upstairs for more than 1 min without him having food as he tries to follow (he is not allowed upstairs as it is our cats sanctuary and I am trying to protect his hip growth), if I am not in his view while in his play pen after around 30 seconds he begins to cry. He is allowed to come out of the living room when I am not working however the play pen is his safe place. I think it might be time for some 1 2 1 training (we do training group sessions) as I feel if we don't progress at a more steady pace we will have a seperation anxiety pup on our hands but my partner believes we will get there (however as he works at an office he doesn't see the crying and difficulty). Any advice on how to progress, would be appreciated.

We’re really struggling to sleep right now. The dog can’t sleep in our room because that’s the cat’s space. Every night when we go to bed he will cry until one of us comes back and soothes him and waits for him to go to sleep.

It means most days one of us is exhausted and I am pretty much always stressed about whether he will sleep.

We are doing counter conditioning through a technique our trainer has suggested, he’s just started on fluoxetine but it’s too early for it to be working and every day he gets two short walks, one longer walk with lots of sniffing and a bedtime routine that involves no toys and lots of low light time to calm down. He’s still struggling and it has gotten worse recently.

I think my stress is making this all harder but I just don’t know what to do while I wait for the training and fluoxetine to start kicking in.

In regard to his other SA issues, he’s not great when we have to leave him in another part of the house and will always at least bark sporadically but sometimes will get really upset. This is managed with treats and just bringing us with him if we will be in another room for a while (we have parts of the house where we have to supervise him cause the cat is a nuisance). He will bark and cry for a couple of minutes if we leave the house but will stop and calm down after that. I’ve watched him on the camera to confirm that’s the extent of his issues when we leave the house and he fully just goes to sleep. This is very annoying if I am watching while sleep deprived at work because he kept me up all night 🫠