Hello all, its been a while since I have posted here but I have been secretly stalking .

I have looked through the old posts and have found some things I want to try but every dog and situation is different so I thought I would ask you - the experts.

Here is my issue. My 4 year old whippet/terrier mix is growing more and more seperation anxiety. We have tried doggy Zanax and unfortunately it just makes her loopy and she fights through it to continue her anxiety. If I am in another room she cannot get to she freaks out. She hates the crate if anyone puts her in it but I have caught her a few times just laying in it with the door open (Im always positive and never close the door when she goes in on her own).
The largest problem is our sleeping arrangements lately. She was a rescue and when we got her she had already had the bad habit of the bed. I wasnt as knowledgable at that time so we let her continue the behavior (very bad i know). Since I had learned it wasnt a good idea we started to work with her to stop it. With quite a few unsuccessful evenings we gave up for a while. Now it is disturbing both of our sleep because she has to be in your skin all night and it gets really uncomfortable. She gets ran nightly for her exercise and then I tried the folowing:
*I tried a crate in the room. She almost lost a tooth.
*I tried the crate in another room. Nope
*Ive tried desensitizing her to the crate - I must be doing something wrong.
*I tried closing her out of the room - whining scratching at the door... everything.
*I placed a baby gate up so she could "see" us - she jumped it and frantically jumped on us in bed.
*I placed the baby gate in the hall with the door closed - that worked other than the whining until about 4 am.
* I placed her on the opposite side of the house with the door closed and the baby gate up so she couldnt scratch the door - successful for the 2 hours she was in there.

Any suggestions? She gets the exercise but she is attached too our bedroom. If we are not home and the door isnt open or if we are in there sleeping and she isnt, she goes balistic. Thanks for your help in advance .

How long have you had her? How was the S/A at the beginning?

How is she with other dogs in the home?

How is she on a dog bed in the bedroom?

Are you saying she's fine when you're away from home if the crate door is open? And no house-destruction?

Where are the other dogs when you're away from the house?

"* I placed her on the opposite side of the house with the door closed and the baby gate up so she couldnt scratch the door - successful for the 2 hours she was in there. "


Then what?

Connie - During the day she is fine, no house destruction as long as she has access to my bedroom. No crate. If the door is shut then she scratches at it. No other types of destruction like chewing or anything.

She is good with the other dog in the house, never raises an eyebrow. He has no S/A and stays in a crate while we are out of the house. (He will mark if he is not crated.)

She will not stay on a dog bed in our room all night. She will start on it and then throughout the night she will weasle her way onto the bed, since we're sleeping we never catch her at the moment she does it to properly correct her. If/when we wake up we tell her "off" and she listens for about 10 min and then perdsistantly tries again and again to get on the bed. We try to be just as persistant. I say try because my hubby tends to be groggy and I think he just falls back to sleep after the first "off".

As for the other side of the house; we will try again tonight and hopefully have the same success all night instead of just 2 hours. The alarm went off and the routine is to let them out to go potty when we wake up.

what if you tethered her to the leg of the bed or something while shes on her dog bed?

I'm not really hearing S/A as much as I'm hearing that you're having a problem re-training something you allowed for a long time. Also crate training needs work (although at this stage, I'm not sure I'd care much if the dog stayed in it with the door closed, as much as I'd care about the insistence on being in the bedroom, now that you've clarified that there's no destruction/potty/etc. need .... yes, I'd want to be successful with crate-training, but I'd probably pick the bedroom battle for now ... just MHO, which isn't very firm on this).

I agree that I would win this bed argument (the dog would not win), and I know you will get more suggestions .... I just wanted to say that the S/A title might be a little off.

It sure is complicated by the inconsistency (might wake up and remove the dog, might now; not awake to correct, etc.), which I don't know how to eliminate without removing the dog's access to the bedroom, period.

Well, this is a useless post. But I'm thinking!

 Quote: Mary Velazquez

what if you tethered her to the leg of the bed or something while shes on her dog bed?

Yeah, what if you did that?

I'm curious about others' comments on that. I understand it's not training (not at all), but the training is so complicated by the trainers being asleep!

Edited by Connie Sutherland (03/27/2012 06:14 PM)
Edit reason: slightly changed topic heading

More random thinking... What if you trained a command to get on and off the bed? You can do that while you're awake. It wouldn't be an instant fix to the problem. But if the dog was consistently rewarded for obeying a command to get off the bed (and waiting for an invitation to get on), that might help.

My dogs get some lovin time in the bed at night, but then know it's time to get down when I tell them to.

 Quote: Tracy Collins

More random thinking... What if you trained a command to get on and off the bed? You can do that while you're awake. It wouldn't be an instant fix to the problem. But if the dog was consistently rewarded for obeying a command to get off the bed (and waiting for an invitation to get on), that might help.

My dogs get some lovin time in the bed at night, but then know it's time to get down when I tell them to.

MUCH better than my own random thinking!

It's funny how trainer-being-asleep screws up almost every training response I've come up with.

Yeah, my dogs too are allowed on, but then respond immediately to the "off" command.

Tiffany, do you know/do marker training?

Another thought here - have you tried giving her a place on the bed, ie, you lay at the foot of the bed and you can be here. If you weasel your way up then you're off the bed.

I don't mind my dogs on the bed, but they NEED to give me my space. If they crowd, they're on the floor. They learn very quickly where they need to be and they're really good at staying in the acceptable spot.

And it's pretty easy for me to enforce when half asleep - If they wake me up, they're on the floor