[bellasmomok]

Bella (little girl, obviously) used to absolutely freak out when we'd leave too, and I mean just leave the room to where she couldn't follow us and would pee on the floor and have it tracked everywhere!!! Yuck!! Seperation anxiety galore! That's all pretty well gone now, though she is a little vocal when we leave occasionally still. Here are the things we did that fixed (or at least made better) this problem: we always give her a treat when we leave her (whether in a room for several hours while I'm a work, or in her crate for just a couple of hours while we go out)--bones, dried chicken breast strips called "Breathies" (I cut them in half), etc...; we try to have everything ready to walk out the door--the longer she can hear that we're still there but she can't be with us, the more likely she is to cry; we started out putting a potty pad by the door (when she was in the room) that we left from so that if she had an accident it wouldn't be difficult to clean, but we don't have to do that anymore; and probably the best thing we did was separation anxiety training. How it works: gather up your things (if he sees you do that), put him in the bathroom and close the door, take 1 or 2 steps, then open the door back up. Do that lots and lots of times. Then increase it to a few seconds away before you open the door. Keep increasing it gradually by just a few seconds at a time (doing it several times at the same interval before increasing) until you're at minutes. Then you can increase to several minutes, etc... I would keep walking further and then walk right back as I'm increasing until I gradually walk out the door and right back inside to let him out--then I would stay outside for a few seconds and come back in to let him out. This is pretty time consuming and gets old VERY quickly, trust me, but it works! The whole premise is....."she's going to come back! I don't have to get worked up because she will be back!" Also, with increasing the time, you're letting him know you'll be back, but he won't necessarily know when. And, even though you give him a treat when you leave, even if it's a really great one, don't expect him to eat it at first. He'll be too worked up and worried about you leaving to eat it, but eventually when he gets it, the treat will be a good distraction. I hope that helps!