Working With Separation Anxiety with Elton the Cockapoo

Our Jarrow dog trainer has recently been to see little Elton the Cockapoo.

Elton is a lovely young dog but like many others throughout lockdown, hasn’t really been left alone. Due to this, Elton now has severe separation anxiety.

We started with our whole dog approach like we do with all behavior problems, ensuring that there are no other issues are anxieties and that the dog feels safe, secure, and well-balanced before training.

Once we were happy with Elton’s environment, we got into the training!

Here’s what we did:

• Taught a bed cue and that good stuff happens there

• Taught Elton to settle

• Built impulse control so that he learns to hold a position or boundary while things happen around him

• Put the 3 together and we have a dog that goes to their bed, happily, and waits regardless of what happens next.

Our next step is building distance and duration to this and gradually distractions like picking up keys and opening the door.

This will be ton in tiny steps and using our proven automated tracking system to get some real life results.

We will be going back soon to help them progress their training further.

Well done Elton and family, you’ll do great.