A Tale of Two Kittens and One Puppy » A small breakthrough?

The problem with trying to desensitize for separation anxiety is that you are not supposed to leave them alone at all during the time you’re working on desensitizing. And that’s really difficult.

I am not away from home all that often. I go grocery shopping once a week, I volunteer at a cat rescue, and I like to go out to eat once a week. Yet every time I do one of those things, it’s almost as though I have to start from square one, and it’s very frustrating. We’ve made small progress, but it’s very small.

Today I decided I would try giving Chester one of his chew toys smeared with peanut butter instead of treats for staying. The idea being that he’d be so occupied with the peanut butter he wouldn’t even notice I was gone.

At first, it backfired. It seemed to scare him — as if it was proof that I was leaving. He jumped off his bed, and didn’t want to get back on. He totally ignored the peanut butter.

After about 4 minutes, though, apparently it was too much for him. He starting licking the peanut butter. I changed clothes, and then took away the chew toy. Gave it back, then left the room for one minute — and he was still working on his chew toy when I got back. Big progress.

The problem is that if I were to try and leave him with the chew toy and go out grocery shopping, most likely the next time I gave him the chew toy again he’d freak out or ignore it or both. What I need to do is build up the time I can leave him with his chew toy without him getting anxious.

What I’m trying to do right now is do my grocery shopping on the weekend so my husband can be there with him. I hate going to the grocery store on the weekend! Which also begs the question what do you do when you forget something, as I did this weekend.

I will probably try putting Chester in doggy daycare on the day I do cat rescue, which means dropping him off, coming home, going back out, maybe stopping at the food store, picking him up . . . a long day. The things we do for our dogs. Maybe we’ll have to consider getting a dog walker for when we go out to eat. Or maybe my husband will have to go and get us something — I need a break once in a while!

I really want to try and get through this problem without drugs.

My husband doesn’t think desensitization will work. Being a typical male, he’s not very patient. If he doesn’t see progress, obviously it’s not working. His solution is to just leave him, but we’ve been doing that — along with desesitizing — for months. It hasn’t gotten us anywhere.

The real trick is to get them relaxed when you leave before you can leave them. Sort of a catch-22. And even though Chester’s separation anxiety is mild, it’s already very entrenched. Like most people, we didn’t seek help quickly enough. It’s much easier to nip a problem in the bud, rather than try to undo something that’s ingrained.

In some ways it’s even more frustrating because other than the separation anxiety, Chester is just about the perfect puppy. He’s not destructive, he’s friendly to people and dogs, he doesn’t beg, he obeys extremely well (most of the time), he’s affectionate. Okay, he barks just a little more than I’d like when startled, but we’re working on it, and it seems to be slowly improving.

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