Separation Anxiety

Panda, as you probably know by now, is pretty awesome. She's smart, she's well-behaved, she's only ever had one accident in the house (it was our fault, and it was in the bathroom!) - basically she's the perfect dog. 

Except!!! She can't be left alone. That's right - she has what's called "separation anxiety," which basically means she gets upset when we leave her, and she's disproportionately excited when we come back. ("When we leave her" includes when other people watch her, although she's gotten better with dogsitters.)

If I remember, I'll post a picture of what she did to the bathroom door after we left her in there for a few hours at a time twice a week for a few weeks. It's not pretty.

Our hope, of course, is that she won't always have separation anxiety - we've been working hard to train her to be happy when we leave, or at least not to be distraught. And we're making progress. These days, she seems to have outgrown scratching the door when we leave, but she still whines, howls, paces, and is generally unhappy enough that we worry about what kind of damage she might do, either to the apartment or to herself. 

So we consulted with a behavior specialist (Thank you Gordon!) and our new veterinarian, and together we decided that Panda would do best on anti-anxiety medication. As of tonight, she's been on Prozac for a week and a half, and I've stepped up the training in the hopes that she'll be more susceptible to reform now. 

The game is this: I leave and try to come back before Panda gets upset. Sometimes I leave delicious treats in a bone to distract her for a while. Sometimes she's calm for a few minutes, sometimes she gets upset immediately. Here's an example of Panda unhappy after I leave (warning: this is kind of sad):

See what I mean? The good news is, this is a huuuuge improvement over what she used to be like. Wish us luck with the rest of the process!