Not separation anxiety; not canine grieving from loss of other pet...

Hello y'all. My name is Kristi and this is my first time to visit your
forum. Before posting this thread, I searched for my answer in the
one's already posted, but found nothing.

My boyfriend has a female, 9 year old half Pit Bull and half Bird dog.
She is EXTREMELY attached to him; he can't go to the bathroom without
her becoming distraught from worrying about whether or not he is okay.
This is not the real problem though. My boyfriend will be leaving next
week for work related issues and will be gone approximately 6-9 months.
I am severely concerned for her health, considering that when he leaves
the home for a couple of hours, she immediately goes to her bed and
sleeps until he gets back. This happens without fail, everytime he

Sandy in OK...

A week is not much time to change habits. I think you might want to
start taking her for walks and interacting with her right now. And
also, have your BF transfer the care for all her needs to you right
now. You need to feed her, to let her out, to exercise her BEFORE he
leaves. This will be very difficult for him, since I know he cares
about his dog and feels bad about leaving her, but he needs to act
neutrally towards her until he leaves. Not ignore her. Acknowledge her,
be pleasant to her, but avoid big emotional interactions. A teary
goodbye to his loved dog might be theraputic for him, but he needs to
be thinking about what is good for the dog. You may want to move her
bed, or give her other sleeping arrangements to break the habit of
going to her "place" and sulking. Create new habits. Keep her occupied.
Avoid a lot of attention or sympathy when she is acting sully. Dogs can
be loyal, but also are very resilient. I suspect she won't mourn for
too long, especially if you make her life interesting while he is gone.
Sandy in OK.

Michael A. Ball...

The dog is *not* worried about Him: she is worried about herself! Not to
mention that she has been allowed to develop an inconvenient habit.

I believe it is reasonable for her to miss him over "6-9 months", but
she will survive. Have your boyfriend to leave a shirt, or something
with his scent on it, and use that item to sooth/reward her. *Do Not*
leave that item in her bed! Period. And don't give her attention, when
she is in her bed. Let her come to you. Let her realize that her bed is
not the only safe place.

It would probably help [her and you, too], if you could show her some
extra attention, as a proxy. If she doesn't know any "tricks", teach her
some. Develop her self confidence. In "6-9 month", she might not even

montana wildhack...

I think this simple advice is really much bigger than it seems.

Teaching a dog a trick helps teach you and the dog to better
communicate, it teaches the dog some default behaviors, it does build
confidence, it builds trust, it causes you to focus on engaging the
dog, it exercises the dog's brain and it's self-rewarding for both
animals.

When DH & I got married, he brought his three dogs into the marriage.
We had to convince them they should be OUR dogs. One of the simplest
ways of doing this was to work with each dog - and all of them at one
time - on the simplest obedience issues. I then went about teaching
each dog a trick. One of the dogs was not particularly interested in
doing tricks, but we discovered that there were a couple of tricks she
would do.

She was very good at "find which hand holds the hidden treat" (and
believe me, not all dogs do this well) and that evolved into "boxing."
I could get the boys to balance a treat on their noses until released,
and one of them immediatly got the idea that he could flip the treat
into the air and catch it. It took the other boy a little time to
finess that.

There are lots of little tricks that are not difficult to master and
they may be used as building blocks for other things.

So walk the dog every day and work with her on different things for a
few minutes every day. I think going to classes was mentioned and
that's a great idea, too.

need your boyfriend! As always, the goal is moderation.

I hope you will report on your/her progress, because this could be a
real learning experience for some of us!

__________________________
When I count my blessings, I count my dog twice.

walks out the front door. He has never been away for longer than a day
and I am seeking advice and ideas of how to alleviate the distress she
is more than likely fixing to go through. I would certainly hate for
anything to happen to her, especially while he is away.

Any and all input is greatly appreciated,
Kristi Love