Separation anxiety/barking/howling/chewing when left
I’ve only ever owned one dog who suffered from separation anxiety but I’ve helped thousands of dogs and owners to overcome it.
Nowadays I actually don’t believe that separation anxiety exists. What does exist though, are hundreds of thousands of dogs who believe they have a god given right to be with their owners at all times.
They’ve also learnt that the easiest way to ensure they get what they want is to display the behaviour synonymous with separation anxiety.
I don’t make this claim from a place of inexperience, I say it from having helped so many owners solve their ‘supposed separation anxiety’ with very simple, easy to apply and efficient techniques.
Separation anxiety is a human created problem.
In fact, if you treated a person in the same way as you’ve treated your puppy, you’d have the same issue there too. Luckily, with babies, because they don’t start off so developed, there is time for the excitement to settle down before their learning is developed enough to realise what is going on.
Puppies are different though, at 8 weeks of age they are the equivalent of a Five Year old Human and are ripe and ready to wrap you around their little paws.
When a puppy is first collected they go through possibly the biggest event in their life. They are plucked from their parents, removed from the litter, put in a car with the new owners and waved off to their new life.
In human terms this is like scooping up a Five Year old child when they are sleeping, moving them to a strange country with people they don’t know and expecting them to take it in their stride.
These first few days of puppy ownership are when I get on top of any potential separation related issues and you could have done the same if you’d just found us earlier.
I know exactly how the day of collection and the subsequent days went with your new puppy because I’ve seen it so many times before and this is where you started to create the problem that you are now looking to solve.
The moment you got in your car on the way home, your new puppy was wondering what on earth was happening but luckily, you were there to comfort him or her. He or She probably quickly settled and fell asleep on you or your partner’s lap? You made him or her feel loved.
You got home and spent the rest of the day introducing your puppy to your home, playing, giving treats, fuss, cuddles and love. You made him or her feel welcome.
After a long and busy day, you settled your puppy down for the night, probably in the kitchen or the utility room, possibly in a crate and maybe even in your bedroom. Then, at some point, it started.
Your Puppy whined, barked or howled and you dutifully went to take him or her out to the toilet but they didn’t go. You popped them back on their own and it happened again. But again they didn’t go.
The screaming and barking got worse and so did your attempts to calm your puppy down. You tried everything, moving the crate closer to where you sleep, putting a blanket over it, having the puppy in the crate or out the crate. The list of things you tried goes on and on.
Over the days things have got worse and now and you’re starting to think there is something wrong with your puppy.
Well let me tell you straight. There isn’t anything wrong with your puppy.
In fact, your puppy is showing you just how bright and intelligent it really is.
Your Puppy has taught you to give it attention on demand. You are now effectively his or her surrogate littermates and it’s making the very best of it.
The problem is, everything I’ve just described, step by step, the things you did from the moment you collected your puppy have taught your puppy to be over attached to you. To need you. To not know how to cope without you.
When he or she was scared and unsure in the car you cuddled him or her. You unknowingly created a feeling of vulnerability when not close to you.
When you got home you took your puppies mind away from the fact it’s life had changed forever.
You played, you fussed and you coo’d.
You distracted him or her from the new environment and further cemented the fact that you were fun, comforting and helped him or her relax.
You also delivered food and companionship. The most important thing to a Puppy who didn’t have a clue if it was coming or going.
THEN YOU WENT TO BED
All of a sudden your puppy, for the first time, in its whole life, was alone. No littermates, no mum, no you.
Your puppy was alone with no warmth to cuddle up to, in a dark room, in a strange place, with strange sounds…heck even the air smelt different.
Now, this, for a puppy introduced to the home in the right way with an experienced owner who’d done it many times before wouldn’t have been a problem at all, they’d have had a little whimper and then drifted off to sleep.
Not your puppy though.
Because your puppy, with it’s busy and exciting first day, was already overly attached to you and then, when it started being noisy, you rewarded it for all the noise by turning up to take it to the toilet, which it didn’t need.
It wanted your attention and got your attention.
That was when it had the realisation that it’s behaviour had a direct correlation to what you do and, with ease, it could get your attention on demand.
‘Separation anxiety’ is no joke and unless you take the right steps very soon you’re going to find that it gets a whole lot worse.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying
“I love you more today than Yesterday but less than Tomorrow”
Well, never has there been a truer word said.
The longer your puppy lives with you, the more time it spends with you, the deeper the relationship you have together, the more attached he or she is going to get and with that, everything you’re already struggling with will escalate.
What at the moment in reality is a bit of barking, howling and possibly chewing is going to get even more extreme unless you take the correct steps to resolve the situation right away.
If you’re reading this panicking, that isn’t necessary, but we do need to switch things around quickly.
That’s why we’ve developed a step by step guide to reversing over attachment issues.
How to easily teach your puppy it’s ok to be happy in it’s own company and as a result, get you some well needed sleep, give the neighbours no more reasons to moan and get your life back to normal.
Solving separation anxiety is very simple when you know how.
With some tweaks to how you behave with your puppy, some simple guidelines for you and your dog to follow and support from us whenever you need it in just a few days you’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about!
If you think about how quickly your puppy learnt to control your behaviour and get unhealthily attached to you it makes sense that the reverse can be achieved just as quickly.
In fact, I’m so certain, I guarantee it.
Whilst developing and refining the information that you need to get back to your pre puppy life whilst still owning your puppy I came across many other trainers trying to make all sorts of ridiculous claims regarding separation anxiety issues.
They all claim that they can’t guarantee how long it will take or even if you will solve your puppies separation anxiety problem at all.
Yet they are charging ridiculous amounts of money for courses of around Six weeks duration.
Then they charge for blocks of further training.
It sounds like a license to print money to me.
That’s why, when I set out on this journey to develop a one stop shop for solving puppy training problems such as separation anxiety I also wanted to ensure that you didn’t hit other common problems as your puppy grows older.
Owners are only aware of the problems they are experiencing at the time and believe me, there are many many more potential issues which are very easily avoided with the correct knowledge and simple guidance.
In the same way I’ve described step by step how you and your puppy have ended up in this anxiety-causing situation I can describe, step by step, the other mistakes you are already making in other areas which will lead to other problems.
With most trainers, training or changing your dog’s behaviour becomes a weekly chore with little to no results despite the amount of time you’ve spent and the money you’ve invested.
At WKD we offer simple, efficient and easy steps to put right what has gone wrong so far and move you in the right direction towards a well behaved young adult dog in all situations and eventualities.
Based on our tried, tested and proven approach we are so confident in our ability that we cover all of our training with a full money back guarantee. If you try our approach and it doesn’t work, you don’t pay! GUARANTEED!
The reason so many owners struggle with raising a puppy is because they are spending their time on the wrong things and are failing to take a proactive approach.
You don’t realise that your puppy is jumping up when it is small and allow it to go unnoticed until, all of a sudden, your puppy is big and then it’s a problem.
You don’t realise when your puppy is pulling on lead and paying you no attention when it is small because you can just hold on, until, all of a sudden, your puppy is strong and walks become a nightmare.
You don’t realise when your puppy is ignoring your call in the garden or house because there is no consequence and up until around 30 weeks puppies are very owner focussed, then just after that, you realise your puppy is running off to distractions and you can’t get it back.
You don’t realise when your puppy is teaching you to fuss him or her on command, to give attention when it wants it, starting to get possessive over it’s food, the sofa or it’s bed and then one day it growls at you.
Remember, every single dog owner with a problem is suffering the results of not following the right approach when their dog was a puppy.
That’s why we decided it was time to develop the easiest, simplest, most ethical and owner friendly approach to raising and training a Puppy in the World and I’m about to give you your chance to get involved.
What I’m about to share with you eradicates all of the reasons that owners fail when using the common approach of Puppy classes or One2One training whilst further enhancing your knowledge, experience and skills to ensure you get a guaranteed result.
I’ve already explained how you doing ‘what you thought was right’ has landed you in a position where your puppy is overly attached to you and now I’m going to explain how, when it comes to choosing a puppy training provider, it’s easy to land yourself in a similar situation.
This time though, unless you choose wisely, tthe results will be lots of time wasted, lots of money spent and as time goes on, your Puppy will become even more attached to you.
Face to face dog training doesn’t work for in the home problems –
In fact, rarely does face to face dog training work full stop. There are numerous reasons why but the biggest one is that what your dog does at home and what is does in a training environment are two entirely different things.
You cannot teach your puppy to not be overly attached in your home by going to a trainer or having a trainer come to your home and spend a limited amount of time teaching your puppy obedience.
You need to teach your puppy, in an easy and systematic style, how to be comfortable when you can’t or don’t want to be there with him or her and that needs doing at your home, BY YOU.
Face to face dog training doesn’t remind you what to be doing and when –
In life, almost 80% of what people say to us in conversation is forgotten immediately as soon as the interaction ends and you’ll find that when talking to a typical dog trainer, they’ll talk so much jargon and go down different routes that you won’t retain enough to make a difference to your puppies behaviour problems.
Even if what they say and advise makes sense and is practical (which I doubt), If you can’t retain it, you can’t do it, and if you can’t do it, nothing will change in your puppies behaviour..
Face to face dog training doesn’t allow tweaks to be made to the approach –
When dog training, especially if you are getting it right, things change very quickly and when they change, what the owner is doing needs to change so that constant progress can be made. The problem with face to face training is that when things change, you need to wait until your next session to find out what to do next and that drastically slows your progress. One of the most common complaints I hear from Puppy owners is that during the time between training sessions, the trainer wouldn’t/couldn’t support them adequately which caused them to lose the results that had been made, more money being spent over a longer period and ultimately, even longer having to live with the problem.
Dog training is simple and that’s what you need. A simple, proven approach that works.
And that’s exactly what I’ve got for you.
This solution to your puppies separation anxiety, overattachement and the resulting howling barking and crying when left will get you back on a good footing in record time.
Here’s how it works
Step 1 – Understanding.
I’ve already gone into quite a lot of detail as to why your puppy has become overattached to you but there is more to learn. There are key things that owners must know in order to have success when it comes to puppy training. Without this underpinning knowledge or how to simply get as good as me, very quickly, you’re always going to struggle.
Simple to understand and quick to apply hacks to help you understand why your puppy is doing what it does, how to get it doing what you want instead, how to minimise training time, maximise enjoyment time and keep the results over the long term with minimum input.
Step 2 – Getting started
With your new found knowledge of how dogs learn and the key concepts to being a great trainer it’s time to actually start working on your puppies over attachment issues. We provide you with short, easy to understand and even easier to apply steps and lessons to resolving your issues, minimising stress and getting you where you want to be.
3-4 Minutes in length, explained in a straightforward manner, there to watch again whenever you forget anything and the ability to move on to the next step just as soon as your puppy has made the required progress…which it will…quickly.
Step 3 – Tweaking and support
Most dog training fails because the approach employed isn’t working for the dog or the owner and that’s where we really step into our own. It’s actually usually the difference between what you should do and what you ‘think’ you should do that is the problem however, we acknowledge that all dogs and owners are individuals and we need to treat them as such. We are there to help you with your questions, training help or anything else for that matter 18 Hours a day. Yes, Thats right, 18 Hours a Day!!