Separation Anxiety and Biting
 

Hello again everyone!

So, our little Vino is a bit over a year now, and he is the sweetest little monster ever. Sadly, our little baby suffers from severe separation anxiety and it's a bit heart-breaking.

If he thinks for even one second you are leaving him, he will bark and whine, and now he's started biting like crazy and his little bottom jaw keeps going like he's keeping the engine warm.

If anyone goes near the front door, or says bye, or hugs, he starts freaking out and jumping; thankfully he doesn't bite at this point.

We take him in the car every day since he stays at grandma's during the day. During the ride, so long as no one is around our car, he is a perfect angel; snuggles with us, watches out the windows, and has no issues.

However, if anyone walks by the car, or we go through a drive-thru, he starts barking at them, and jumping around, and if you try to grab him to stop him, or move him, bye bye fingers.

He is even worse when he thinks/knows one of us is going to get out of the car. We reach for our seatbelt and he goes right for our hands to try to stop us. He will do everything to try to prevent us from getting out of the car.

We've tried a bunch of different things; verbal commands, restraints (harness to belt), crates/seats, pheromones, loud abrupt noises to startle him, etc. Things work initially, but he becomes desensitized very quickly and continues to go absolutely nuts.

My wife and I do not mind the barking and whining, his whines/grunts are so freaking cute that it's ridiculous; the biting we need to stop though.

That all said, aside from leaving him home and not bringing him with us everywhere (which isn't an option cause he's our baby and he'd still have his anxiety), we don't know what to do. My wife has even thought of getting him a little muzzle just to prevent his biting when in close quarters (AKA car rides), but we don't ever want to do anything to hurt him, but there is only so much we can take of him hurting us.

What are your thoughts, is this really something someone can retrain in him, what can we do? He loves us so much, and we love him even more, and it's sad that he has to go through this, my wife and I are no strangers to anxiety, and we want to help him anyway we can.

As a bonus, here is some pictures of our little guy :D

https://imgur.com/a/2eZGddo

Thank you all in advance for your time!

Sounds like you need to go to the vet and get something for the anxiety. He also should not be lose in the car for his safety. He either needs to be buckled in or in a travel kennel/crate.

Hi DoHxBoY,

Vino is a cutie! I'm so sorry that you and your honey-boy have to go through this. There are so many rewards at the back end, so I hope you can see it through.

Your lil guy may have separation anxiety--Lovetodream88 suggested a visit to the vet to have Vino's checked for anxiety. That sounds like a good idea. BUT, it also seems Vino acts out when you are there with him and other folks happen about, which sounds like a socialization issue.

In my experience, yorkies are never too old to train. These little ones so want to please us.

Your post doesn't mention walks. Do you take Vino on long harness/leash walks? Is that part of your routine with him? While the vet may prescribe some meds, walking Vino may do even more for all of you. It's good for his health, helps him burn off excess energy, allows you to observe his behavior around other people and animals. As well, it's good environment during which you can use positive reinforcement to remind Vino that you are the boss.

You wrote, "My wife and I do not mind the barking and whining, his whines/grunts are so freaking cute that it's ridiculous; the biting we need to stop though."

Possible Vino's barking and whining are frequently just a lead in/prelude to more aggressiveness. So, you want to catch it early and have him calm down before it reaches a point at which he has less control.

Bless you for lovin' your sweetie.

Cesar Millan, "The rundown on aggression," cesar's way.

Kirstin Julie Viola, "Cesar Millan Gives Us Some of His Most Surprising & Effective Dog-Training Tips," 2017, sheknows.

While the title's focus is on "other dogs," the article mentions meds that may help with doggie anxiety. "When Your Dog is Overly Aggressive Towards Other Dogs," (n.d.?), PetMD.

I would stay away from Cesar he is not liked by many many people on here. He is not an actual certified trainer and his methods are herindious. I would look more into Victoria Stilwell and positive trainers.

This may be a case of each to his own. I have not found Cesar's techniques to be horrendous.

He has no actual training and believes in being alpha which is not a theory that works and has been debunked. He does not train using positive reinforcements. There are some absolutely terrible training videos of his that have surfaced and he I believe was charged with abuse against his ex wife. He is not a good trainer and shouldn’t even be called that. In some cases he is even abusive. https://canineprinciples.com/10-grea...-cesar-millan/ Modern Dog Training vs. Cesar Millan

Vino
 

There seem to be a few issues here. Sounds like he has become your watchdog, and I know how that is! He is defending you, your home and car. But I agree the biting is worrisome. Luckily my watchdog will lick any intruders to death, but not bite.
I know that there are many who do not like Cesar’s approach to training, more negative than positive reinforcement, but he has some good idea as well. The most important of which to me is not to allow your dog to become the alpha animal in the home. If we are the alphas, animals tend never to attack them. So perhaps some obedience training may help to let Vino know you are the boss and that you don’t need his protection.
I made the mistake of allowing my dog to rule when he was younger and sick, and he got away with a lot. It has taken years to calm him but he still rules in some occasions. Like a spoiled brat, he likes his way and still is the barky watchdog. I still try training him at nine years old, but some habits are hard to control. But he is such a sweet and loving dog and I can live with his occasional bratty traits.
Hang in there and good luck.

Vino, anxiety
 

On this matter, I am sorry your Vono gets anxious. Luckily my dog does not have that problem and has learned to be alone as he knows we will come back and he usually gets a treat when we return! I did ask the vet about anxiety meds but he said that they can often cause more harm than good. So we just used patience, training, and time to make most of the behavior improvements.
Luckily Vino is young and easier to train. But I do agree positive reinforcement does work and inducing fear into the dog does not.

:thumbup:

Dogs will never be able to see a human as alpha because they don’t see humans as another dog that’s one of the reasons the whole alpha dog thing has been debunked.

Anxiety medicine really doesn’t do much harm when really needed in fact when it’s really needed it can do more harm not to medicate. Callie had some issues awhile back like years ago and she only had to go on them for 3 months.

Ok Taylor. It may be debunked, but I believe that a human can be alpha to a dog. But that is just my experience and belief that others may not share.

Again Taylor, that is your positive experience and I am glad it worked for Callie. My vet said that Prozac, I believe, was not always helpful and could cause bad effects. But perhaps other meds may be more helpful with no adverse effects. A dog psych suggested giving my dog Prozac a long time ago for his fear aggression, but after what the vet said I did not do so. It was time and patient training that improved him.

If your open to it you might want to check out this article https://www.whole-dog-journal.com/is...s_20416-1.html

There are lots of new advancements in anxiety medicines now even more since Callie was on one. They even have ones specialized for different issues. I just know that my anxiety is terrible and I couldn’t imagine how much worse it would be without medicines so I would hate for an anxious pup to feel like that.

Alpha and anxiety
 

Thanks for the Alpha link. I quickly scanned through it and found it informative. Perhaps alpha is the wrong word I used, it was not meant to be that I dominated my dog in a cruel manner, but rather that he knew I was in charge. One can be in charge and still use positive techniques.
Thanks for the update on the newer meds for dog anxiety, I am behind the times there!

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so up on the times lol. I swear sometimes it’s like I’m at the vet every week.

Wow, this thread blew up a bit! I actually only got one email saying I had a reply, came expecting one reply and see 2 pages! :D

Thank you all for your input!

When this initially started becoming a big problem, we did seek counsel from our vet and she mentioned a few methods such as Adaptil, keeping him in a crate in the car, or even buckling him in; none of those worked completely. He wanted nothing to do with the Adaptil, often avoiding whatever we sprayed (wish we had this when he was chewing on things!), buckling him in just meant he went completely nuts in one place and tried to hang himself with the belt/harness, and the crate idea was "semi-successful".

My wife does keep him in a crate when her mother is driving them around, and he is relatively calm/sleeps. However, as soon as the car pulls into a parking lot, he goes nuts because he knows someone is going to get out of the car. So, the crate idea partially works, keeps us from being bit and him from barking at any panhandler or kid waiting to cross the street, but he is absolutely still suffering from the anxiety.

In regards to the safety of him being in a crate or strapped in, I've yet to find a solution that truly works and is actually safe. I watched the crash test videos that were performed by Subaru and pretty much every option caused the dog to explode out of the crate, carrier, or harness. The best option appeared to be the ClickIt Harness by SleepyPod, but even that was redesigned and fails now where it didn't before. Even then, He is only 7lbs and it is rated 18-90.

Right now he has the Kurgo Tru-Fit Harness which came with a seatbelt tether. We tried using the tether and.. of course.. it didn't work very well. He would still try to jump all over the place, whined and cried because he couldn't get to us, nearly hung himself on the seatbelt behind him, and all sorts of other issues. We also tried the Kurgo Skybox, but needless to say he went sky diving out of that no matter how we adjusted the straps/harness/belt.

That all said, if you have any better suggestions for him riding in the car with us, we are all ears. I think something that actually goes between us would be best but I haven't seen anything that would fit the bill.

He is not going anywhere, and I would never give him up because of this; we will definitely see this through to the bitter end.

Unfortunately, we do not "walk" him very often. He does come with us when we go shopping, and he does walk in those times, but we are not very outdoorsy (it's way to hot down here) and he is pad trained, so he doesn't get brought out on "business" walks. That said, he chases his "sister" Belle, a cat about his age, all over the place and we play with him quite a lot, so his energy is usually expended in those situations.

Mentioning socialization, at first he was amazing, and would go to anyone and everyone. Lately, he's been very over-protective and doesn't like when people come too close. He is also selective in this as well, some people can come right up to him and pet him, others he gets very guarded from them simply looking at him and he starts barking. With dogs, he is fine with other little dogs, but he's always barked at bigger dogs since he was a baby. Our Neighbors have a Yorkie and a Pitbull nextdoor, he is perfectly fine with the Yorkie, but thinks he's all big and bad when the Pitbull comes around.

His whining and growling is definitely a precursor, and we've tried our best to stop him in those moments but nothing seems to work. My wife was even chumming him with bits of treats in an attempt to retrain him in the car and praise him when he was quiet or would stop on a command; but it didn't last/work very well.

When I mentioned in my original post about being no stranger to anxiety, it is exactly as you say. My wife suffered from debilitating anxiety, and medication more or less saved her life. This is why it breaks out heart that he is going through this and we want to do everything we can to help him.

The vet did prescribe him Trazodone, and it "kind of" worked. Shortly after giving it to him, he would shake uncontrollably for a few minutes and then basically be completely comatose the majority of the day. So, it did calm him down, but those tremors scared us to death and we did not want to give that to him again. Maybe there is a different medication we could try, but did I also mention it is impossible to give him pills? He knows a pill, no matter how we try to hide it, and they never get taken easily. He has been on Trifexis (Heartworm/Parasite/Fleas) for 9 months now, and I dread the day we need to give it to him each month.

We just want our little guy to be okay, to be content with being alone and be okay with us leaving him for any given time.