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04-16-2013, 01:37 PM | #1 |
Senior Yorkie Talker | Anxiety & Freaking out when I leave My Yorkie baby girl Banana is 12 weeks old and just freaks out if I am not in the room with her. She barks and barks and get anxiety. This keeps my husband up during the day as I work and he works night bi am off work right now but will be going back. I can't take her everywhere with me she has to Learn to be on her own. What should I do????
__________________ 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕 🍌Tropical🍌Banana 🍌 |
Welcome Guest! | |
04-16-2013, 01:43 PM | #2 |
YT 2000 Club Member | This normal behavior for these little babies! They get lonely and need warmth and attention. Try some interactive toys, treats balls, like a Kong, soft, soothing music or leaving the TV on so she doesn't feel so alone. I am sure others have more ideas! Hugs for lil Banana!
__________________ Proud Mommy to Max, Teeka, Tatiana and forever in my heart Tameka! My sunshine doesn't come from the skies, it comes from my puppies eyes! |
04-16-2013, 01:44 PM | #3 |
♥ Love My Tibbe! ♥ Donating Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: D/FW, Texas
Posts: 22,140
| She is still quite a baby and really just now old enough to leave her mother. She is freaking out because in the natural pack animals this age aren't really ever left alone and only we expect them to endure it. If your husband is there in the house and she knows it, she is calling for him to come help her and to gather her in. She's not old enough to understand why she must be alone in a cage. You will have to make some adjustments to try to soothe her such as placing a small radio or TV next to her cage, possibly covering 3 sides of it with a sheet or light blanket so she feels she's in a little den and will learn to rest during the day and wait until you come home. A lot of people leave kong toys full of their breakfast kibble or food so she has to work to get her meal and get a little mental stimulation and activity. You can also do a little Separation Anxiety training as she is old enough to understand how to learn to accept your leaving her for short periods of time. But as a baby, she just wants her pack near her. It's only natural. I can give you some separation anxiety training tips if you would like. It is long but it works - even with younger puppies over time if you do it right and don't expect too much.
__________________ Jeanie and Tibbe One must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone. C. S. Lewis |
04-16-2013, 05:25 PM | #4 |
Senior Yorkie Talker | I have an x pen and I have half covered with a blanket and the other half is against the wall it is in the living room and I have the tv going. I will try the kong with peanut butter or kibble and see if that helps. I think I will cover the top of the pen with a dark colored blanket and make it more like a den. I sure would be interested in learning about the puppy anxiety training tips at the point anything I can do I will. I just can't stand her crying and being sad. Please help!!!!!
__________________ 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕 🍌Tropical🍌Banana 🍌 Last edited by TropicalBanana; 04-16-2013 at 05:26 PM. |
04-16-2013, 07:25 PM | #5 |
♥ Love My Tibbe! ♥ Donating Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: D/FW, Texas
Posts: 22,140
| I have used the below technique to train anxious and barking dogs how to accept being left alone without misbehaving or becoming destructive. It is long, wordy and the copy/paste from my Word program can cause some of the words to run together but you might read it over and see if it might work for your girl. It was originally posted about an adult, male dog with female owner. When enough time and repetition is used to teach this method, it has worked every time to desensitize the dog to the concept of being left alone and they learn to relax and accept this fact of their lives. But it takes a lot of dedication and repetition by the owner, working faithfully with the dog. I hope it can help your sweet dog feel less anxious when you leave her/him home alone. Separation Anxiety Most anxious dogs that aren't used to it get nervous and anxious when their owners leave the home. Firstly, take all emotion out of your leaving. Do not feel sad for him or tell him goodbye - just like pack leaders in the wild don't when they decide to go on a hunt or take a walk - they just walk away and nobody freaks. They are impersonal and matter-of-fact in how and what they must do. So no emotional goodbyes or hello's when arriving home. Act like a pack leader. Your dog is a pack animal and is genetically in tune with a firm but fair leader. As far as your actual leaving, just slowly desensitize him to your leaving and soon he will come to accept it. But you must desensitize him to it slowly and allow him to adjust to each step. Be patient with that baby - his anxiety can be overcome with time and patience and knowing what to do. Keep your training sessions short and impersonal, matter-of-fact. (You can reward him once each exercise is over with a big, loving play session and lots of loving hugs, kisses.) Give him a lovely food-stuffed kong toy, sit down and watch him playing with it, take up your keys and purse and whatever else you do as if to leave home and sit back down and just watch him. Don't go anywhere. Just sit there. Now this is key: keep repeating this for a day or two on a weekend over and over, giving him different things to chew on or play with as you get ready to go but don't. After a day or two of this, when he's playing with his kong and has accepted your getting your things together, get your keys/purse, watch him for a while then get up and without saying one word to him or looking in his direction, just like an alpha wolf who acts in its pack without question from one of his pack members, walk out of your door outside. Shut it. Stand there 10 seconds and walk back in, DO NOT NOTICE HIM AT ALL, no matter how he's dancing around your feet or whining in joy, put your things away and sit back down where you usually sit when you watch him with his kong toy. Repeat this over & over and keep increasing your times outside to let him learn slowly that though momma goes out the door, she will be back and I'm really okay. Slowly but surely as you stay out longer and longer but do come back in, he'll have grown to accept this action as inconsequential in his life and soon grow to accept your leaving without thinking a thing of it -he'll know he gets a good thing to play with and some good food, momma will be back and he'll accept it. B4 long, he will just accept your leaving without any toys or kongs or anything. After a while, include getting in the car in this training exercise, even starting it up and getting right back out and coming in the house without noticing him. Repeat repeat repeat - sitting in the car awhile with it running. Eventually, drive around the block and then back home, inside, not noticing your dog and putting your things away, coming to sit in the same place on the couch where you always sit during this training. Once you have sat there a while after each training session, now it is time to play and reward that anxious baby who is learning to be a goooood dog so now have a blast with him. Lots of love, hugs, kisses, tugowar, etc. Happy, happy rewards for his efforts are definitely in order! If you are patient enough to do this, it works EVERY SINGLE time and turns an anxious, crying dog into one that accepts leaving as just a part of his day.They soon learn to adjust their day to sleep while we are away and be ready to go when we get home. I would also start him on a good positive-rewards training program such as inTamar Geller's The Loved Dog book. This will teach him to bond well with you as you develop a strong relationship that he will not question, no matter what as he knows momma is always gonna keep it fun, loving and always rewarding for him.
__________________ Jeanie and Tibbe One must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone. C. S. Lewis |
04-16-2013, 07:55 PM | #8 |
♥ Love My Tibbe! ♥ Donating Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: D/FW, Texas
Posts: 22,140
| You are welcome. Sorry it is long but want to give people a good idea of what it can take with some very, very anxious dogs. Your little one is not there yet - just young and lonely. And her little memory won't be that good so what she learns today she might forget parts of pretty easily and you will need to keep patiently going over it with her. You know when you are trying to remember a poem or a sentence in another language that you don't even know what it means and yet you have to learn it in order to repeat it for a lesson or a speech and commit it to memory? You have to go over and over and over it. You read it, say it out loud and keep on practicing and you have it down really good. You can say it with no problem in one evening usually. And the next day - you can only remember the first few words and part of the rest. You have to study it again and do it over and over, sometimes for several days or weeks. That is how your dog learns to do anything - repetition. They don't conceptualize or figure things we are teaching them out or build or learn upon prior learning and thereby spur them to learn by reasoning at the next level - they just learn like we learn verse or poetry or a part in a play - we just have to keep reading it over and over and over until it is committed into our long-term memory. So if your very young dog forgets - just keep going and repeating the steps of desensitizing her to your going and coming back and increasing the stay-aways gradually so you get her used to it. In time, if she is a normal dog, she will learn to accept your going and being away as her time to mostly settle in for a nice long nap and rest herself until you come home. Then it is party time in her mind!
__________________ Jeanie and Tibbe One must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone. C. S. Lewis |
06-27-2013, 06:08 PM | #9 |
Yorkie Talker Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Ontario
Posts: 13
| Separation Anxiety Our little 3 pound yorkie Kricket used to go a touch nutty if left alone. She would chew the baseboards in the room I put her with her blanket! She thought Mama was not coming back... Dog psychology is easier than people! I started putting her in the room with her blanket as if I were leaving for five minutes at the start. After a while of doing this and increasing the time spans she learnt to trust Mama coming back. She was twelve weeks old at that time. She is 7 years old and still dad can come and go... If I go out and he comes home before me she tears through the house looking for mama! Silly wanker dad is not quite good enough! But he goes to work everyday and a whole day in her mind is a long time. When we take her in the car she knows she must use her CAR MANNERS! When we first got her she was a whole pound and could get into anywhere as no place was too small! She got down around the gas and break pedals... My hubby thought it funny.. Dangerous but funny! So big mean mom taught her car manners and sitting on Kricket's spot! She loves to go anywhere if I am going but not if it is only dad she will stand by my feet till I encourage her to GO OUT WITH DADDY... Funny little dog she is! |
06-27-2013, 06:13 PM | #10 |
Yorkie Talker Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Ontario
Posts: 13
| I was told if we treated her like a baby in that I mean every time she whines the world stops and she is picked up and given loving.... Oooh poor baby girl.. Mama is so sorry.. They will milk it for every thing they can get! We need to remember these tiny dogs are too smart for us mortal humans! Try keeping a step ahead and see who is really ahead! |
06-30-2013, 08:51 AM | #11 |
Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Northumberland, UK
Posts: 238
| Just ordered Tamar Geller's book I'll give it a good read from cover to cover to refresh my brain as the last time I had a puppy was in 1990 when we got our Jack Russells Buster & Heidi |
06-30-2013, 11:52 AM | #12 | |
♥ Love My Tibbe! ♥ Donating Member Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: D/FW, Texas
Posts: 22,140
| Quote:
Tibbe was a wild hare when I first got him at age 9 mos., totally kennel crazy, very, very fearful of most things and very unsocialized but positive reinforcement obedience training and being lovingly persistent with boundaries changed him totally. Now he is training me and if he does something for which he used to get a little treat, such as shushing when he's barking and I tell him "Quiet", he'll stand in front of me and insist on his rights until he gets his payoff for doing right if I don't get it right away!!! Oh, if I'm down with my hip and on the ice pack, maybe really nauseated from medicine or something right then, and I say "Wait just a bit and Mommie will get your treat, okay?", he'll eye me suspiciously but back off, clearly not happy but he does stop insisting. But when I do get up, I head right for the treat dish and he gets his payment and I always connect it to the command, even 30 minutes later, as I hand him his treat, I'll say "Good Quiet" and make that effort to connect the treat to the good thing he did - go quiet when told to when barking. If I should forget when I get up and do something else instead(happens occasionally), such as answer the door or go to the bathroom, he remembers! He's right back planted in the middle of the den floor starring at me like a laser beam and standing up for his rights to get that postponed treat. He never forgets unless he falls asleep. He'll even growl if I don't acknowledge him. And he stomps his foot if he has to wait long. Soon as I do see or acknowledge him standing there with that hard determined look in his eyes, I remember and for sure get back up and get him his payoff. Then he's happy and feels he's gotten his due and he goes on about his business. But he's trained me to follow through no matter what.
__________________ Jeanie and Tibbe One must do the best one can. You may get some marks for a very imperfect answer: you will certainly get none for leaving the question alone. C. S. Lewis | |
11-09-2013, 12:36 AM | #13 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Sep 2013 Location: Shenandoah Valley, VA., USA
Posts: 173
| Very good advice here from many owners! There are some very good desensitization techniques given in the above notes to help any age dog get used to being left alone. You do have to do the coming and going in short practice stages, and the human must "stay calm" like this is NO BIG DEAL IF PUP IS LEFT IN ITS SAFE PLACE. Don't even make eye contact as you finally walk out of the room. Don't go off and leave your pup in his new home unless you have done some simple practice trips out the door into different rooms in the house where he cannot go...but, you always return "glad" to see him. It does you no good to get every thing all set up...the puppy pen, or a crate, and NOT "Practice going in and out of the room" before the big day comes when the pup must stay alone for a longer period. It also really makes the puppy a wreck if the owner falls all over him with hugs and kisses, gets all weepy, and acts nervous to leave...that makes the puppy feel really nervous! STAY CALM! I used to leave the radio or t.v. on low if Taffy was left in the den..he has his crate & bed in a corner and could trot into the kitchen for his food or water. We used to put out his newspapers in a 'boot tray' for him, but he totally ignores them now..he prefers going outside and hurrying back in for his snack treat. Taffy is 3 years old now, and he basically an outdoor trained dog. If accidents rarely happen it was because Owner didn't get home soon enough, he leaves it on kitchen door mat by the back door. Doggie hint: Where were you!! When he was young, he just stayed in the Kitchen with his bed, doggie dishes & 2 newspaper trays, OR else in the large round puppy pen (during our work days) in the Basement with another sleeping crate attached into the sides with all his extra dishes and newspaper trays. However, even though he tolerates the basement set-up, he does not really like it, because we all don't really "live" down there. Dogs Don't like to be put in rooms that their owners don't really use -- your scents aren't there! (Our sister would come over to walk him, refill bowls, & change his newspapers.) Taffy loves to be allowed to take over my bedroom if I drive to the city about 14 minutes away. He always slept in my room as a pup, so to him IT IS HIS REAL SLEEP DEN. He runs upstairs when he sees me putting on my coat and getting a purse, hoping he can stay on my bed and end up snoozing on my pillows! However, if he has Not eaten his breakfast yet, but has gone to bathroom a second time just before I leave, I will close off the baby gates and have him stay downstairs instead of up in my room, so that he will eventually go eat his a.m. breakfast in the kitchen. He finally eats while I'm in town, and then he goes through the two rooms' connecting d oor to snooze in his den crate or on the den rocking chair pad in that family room. Now, if he was upstairs in my room, I'd have to close my bedroom door, no food dishes upstairs....he just loves to guard the bed! Plus, if my door is not shut, he loves to sneak from my bedroom into the front room on the second floor where the 2 little parakeets large cage is, and he tries to put his paws upon their cage's table to watch them...which makes them nervous wrecks...they think he's a predator out to get them! He probably would love to get ahold of those fluttering creatures, too! (One did get out and flew across the room, I yelled "No, Taffy, No!" in my old teacher's voice and he stopped fast. I told him "Out!" and closed the door behind Taffy until Petey was back on my finger and into his cage. The birds go to their highest perches and watch Taff if he's in their room! As far as their concerned he is like a "fox". At any rate, do Practice going in and out of rooms where the pup can go and make him wait outside the rooms where he isn't allowed to go...like the company living room or dining room. Use barriers! We have baby gates, and Mike made long 10 - 11 inch high clear plastic strips from Lowes plastic sheets that we just sit across doorways...Taffy hates them...of course we took him up to them & said No! You have to watch out for them yourself; don't go tripping over these clear barriers!! P.S.--Remove when company arrives or Splat! I can only think of a very few times when Taff jumped a plastic barrier to get back a toy....he got a big,"NO" and toy went away for 10 minutes. He says hello to our company in the living room with me holding him if he doesn't know the people, and then goes up to my room to snooze..not all people like the cute, bouncy Yorkie greeting,and Taff can wind himself up into "full, crazy Yorkie mode" for visitors--spinning, hopping,& twirling like a dervish. (He can only go into our company rooms if he is called to come in and is lifted over the "door barriers" by us.) Sadly, Not all people are dog lovers, so we do just a quick hello with them! Also, practice leaving your pup at home by himself by just walking outdoors to the end of your porch, then to the mailbox, then a short drive away, then stay away a bit longer. Act pleased to see the pup again, but stay calm! Resume your regular routine! He should be relaxed if you come and go; you'll still get kisses. Let him know you'll always return and will be glad to see him!! LOL,Sue & Taffy |
05-26-2014, 05:51 AM | #14 |
YorkieTalk Newbie! Join Date: May 2014 Location: northern ireland
Posts: 4
| We have had our yorkie for almost 1 month now , she is 7 mths old and suffers from separation anxiety. We had finally got her settled to sleep in her crate at night if this is beside our bed and we will slowly progress to move this out of the bedroom over time. Initially she was barking everytime we went out of the room even for a few mins, we only come back in if she is quiet and then give her a treat. She has access to the kitchen where her toys , crate and food is however if we leave her she cries non stop, she has stopped barking but cries, shakes and urinates on the floor if left alone even for a few minutes. She was a rescue dog and we know that she didnt have a good life before she came to use and we want to help her become less stressed and used to being alone. She will be a delight when someone is with her but as soon as she is left alone she gets very distressed. we have tried a phermone spray, diffussers, leaving some of my clothes with scent on and a herbal tablet however nothing seems to be helping. we tried to build up the time she will be alone by leaving for 10secs, 30sec, 1 min etc abnd doing "fake leaving" but crying starts almost straight away. I walk her and play with her every timebefore leaving her but while we are away from her she doesnt eat, drink , playwith her toys etc until we return ( we have left a camera on so we know that she paces and cries). we are considering hiring a behaviour specialist and our vet also suggested he could prescribe an anti anxiety medication for her if no improvement. has anyone got any other suggestions of what we could try? i leave the tv, music on etc also anytime she is alone. On our return home she goes crazy, and jumps, pants, tries to bites us ( gently!) and take about 20mins to calm down despite if i ignore her or not. I need to be able to leave her for 4hrs while i go to work. can anyone help????We hate seeing her in such an anxious state. |
07-27-2014, 04:39 PM | #15 |
Donating Senior Yorkie Talker Join Date: Jul 2014 Location: Cave Creek, AZ, USA
Posts: 165
| This is a great thread. I am not sure if I will end up with an adult Yorkie or a little pup but it's been awhile since I had to do much training (11 years) so I am devouring this thread and I am going to pick up that book. Thanks Yorkietalkjilly and Yipyap. |
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