Are Aussiedoodles Anxious? How To Help Your Dog Cope With Separation

Aussiedoodles are known to fiercely love their families. So do they get upset when they are not with them? Are Aussiedoodles prone to separation anxiety?

Aussiedoodles are known for their affectionate nature. They will prefer to be with their people over being alone. So they can be prone to separation anxiety. However, there is preventative training that you can do now, to help them feel comfortable when they need to be away from you.

Dogs are social animals. In the wild, this social behavior helps them survive, as hunting in packs is typically more efficient. Through domestication, we have created dogs that work cooperatively with us. Aussiedoodles have the DNA of breeds that retrieve from water and work on farms, both jobs that require closely working with humans. So their social nature is bred into them and reinforced by their interactions with us.

We love our dogs, and want to spend time with them. As a dog trainer, one of my priorities when working with puppies and their people is to start working with independence training, or teaching a puppy how to be alone. It is not fair to them to have us interacting with them most of the time and then just hope for the best when we need to leave. We need to make associations with being alone and having fun so they learn it is not the end of the world when they can’t be with their people.

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Teaching Your Aussiedoodle To Cope With Separation

From the moment you bring your Aussiedoodle home you can start doing some independence training.

Dogs need some decompression time when joining a new household, however there are very simple things you can do right away to help your dog become more comfortable being alone.

This study indicates that the number one risk factor of separation stress developing is hyperattachement to their owner.

How do you prevent your Aussiedoodle from hyperattaching to you? At first it is as simple as making sure you are not paying attention to your dog at every moment. This sounds easy, but when a new dog comes home, most people like to interact with them constantly as they get to know them.

But think of it from your dog’s perspective: if you are interacting with your dog at every single moment when you are in the room, your absence will be felt much more when you leave their sight.

So start easy. Find a place for your dog to relax with a chew treat and sit nearby. Completely ignore them to see how your dog does entertaining themselves with a bone. If they seem ok, stand up. Does the dog stop chewing to see what you are doing? Take note and sit down. Repeat several times.

After a few days, start walking around while your dog is engaged with a chew treat or toy. Don’t walk out of the room just yet. If the dog thinks that when you get up you’ll leave, they may become anxious to stay close to you.

If your dog seems alarmed when you stand up or walk around try the following:

Change up the chew treat. Make sure you are using a chew that will last at least 5 minutes. So not a dog biscuit, but a bone or stuffed toy. I like stuffed toys because you can switch up the filling every day, which will give you valuable information about what your dog likes the most.
Make your movements less exaggerated. If standing up causes your dog to ignore his chew, stand up halfway and sit back down.

If you are crate training your dog you also want to do the above exercises while your dog is in their crate. Too often, people only use the crate when they leave creating a negative association with the crate (crate=alone). If you haven’t started crate training yet, but would like to, follow this video to help your dog learn to be relaxed in a crate.

Advanced Independence Training

Getting your dog to problem solve without help from you is also a great way to teach him independence.

Set up a dog pen with a few simple obstacles. This can be as simple as a yoga mat, sports cones or even random dog toys scattered about, or even just a piece of furniture. Hide treats around the objects. Some of the treats should be right out in the open.

Put your dog in the pen to search for food. If they are too busy looking at you for guidance, try silently throwing some treats to get the game started.

Sniffing is a great way to get your dog to unwind more when they are not interacting directly with you. Studies show that sniffing actually helps to lower your dog’s heart rate. So it is a naturally relaxing exercise.

As your dog stops looking to you for guidance and just starts sniffing, move around the room and see if your dog keeps searching or focuses on you.

If your dog is too worried to search while you move, just quietly stand near the ex-pen and ignore him while he searches. With enough repetition (and a variety of treats to hunt for) your dog will start to enjoy the game enough that you can try to move around a little a few sessions later.

Leaving Your Aussiedoodle Alone

If your dog does not seem stressed when you leave the room there are still rules you should follow when you depart:

Don’t make a huge fuss when you leave. If you like to get your dog amped up saying goodbye, you are spiking their adrenaline which makes the jump from being neutral to being anxious much shorter!
Don’t make a huge fuss when you come back home. I know an enthusiastic greeting from your dog can be contagious, but if you have high energy greetings, your dog will be winding themselves up waiting for you to come home. This will increase their heart rate, and again, puts them closer to being anxious than they need to be.

Does My Aussiedoodle Have Separation Anxiety?

True separation anxiety is actually not very common. While there are many dogs that might get stressed when their owners leave, a true anxiety is a different beast. Here are some important things to look for:

Eliminating in the house when they are fully housetrained (I have seen many people mistake a lack of complete house training for separation anxiety)
Excessive vocalization
Chewing and digging. This is often at exit points, and may even be escape attempts.
Inability to calm down, ie- pacing

Years ago, when I first suspected that one of my own dogs had separation anxiety, I asked my neighbor if he could hear my dog vocalize throughout the day. He reported that he could.

Now there are many video camera options. You can set up a video and monitor your dog’s behavior via webcam.

This will give you many clues to what is going on. Does your dog seem stressed all day? Or just during parts of the day? I once had a student that told me his dog only had separation anxiety on Thursdays. But that is not how anxiety works. If snakes make you anxious, you can’t decide to only be scared on a Thursday and fine on a Friday. Separation anxiety works the same way.

I asked the student what day his garbage was collected. It was indeed a Thursday, changing the suspected fear of separation to a concern for the loud noises caused by the garbage truck.

Getting this info is key to a behavior modification program. Could you imagine desensitizing a dog to being alone in the above situation? You would be setting both you and your dog up for failure and frustration.

If your dog does seem stressed all day, and is damaging themself or your home, you will want to have them evaluated by a veterinary behaviorist. A veterinary behaviorist can dig deeper and create a behavior modification plan and medications to help your dog with their anxieties.

Visit the American Veterinary Society of Animal Behavior to find a consultant near you.

Separation Stress

If your Aussiedoodle seems stressed when you are leaving, but you don’t think it is a full blown anxiety, you should take some action now to prevent it from growing into a bigger issue.

Here are a few things to focus on:

Departure Cues

You get up and grab your car keys and your dog is instantly by your side, maybe even whining and jumping on you. This is a sign that grabbing your keys indicates to your dog that you will be leaving.

Keys are generally one of the most common departure cues our dogs pick up on. But they can see any behavior we tend to perform as a predictor of their people leaving. So pay attention to your Aussiedoodle in the morning.

Does your dog pace when you get dressed? Or when you make your morning coffee? If so, these actions are departure cues.

One of the simplest ways to change your Aussiedoodle’s view of these tasks is to repeat them randomly and repeatedly without departing. Spend a weekend randomly picking up keys, pretending to make coffee, anything that is part of your routine. You want to repeat these enough without leaving that your dog gets bored with them.

Then start adding going out the door, and coming right back in.

Keep in mind that dogs are so tuned into our body language that it can be tough to fool them.

It took having a baby to desensitize my separation dog to the departure cue of leaving the house. With a baby I was constantly going back and forth to haul things that we needed to bring. And I was also more forgetful, which meant I would generally come back inside 3-4 times before leaving the house. That was what finally helped her learn to ignore that cue.

The Forty Minute Rule

In general the most stressful time for an Aussiedoodle with separation stress is the first 30-40 minutes of your departure.

So that makes 40 minutes our goal when teaching a dog to relax. The easiest trick here is getting your dog engaged with a chew toy that will take them about that long. Again, I use dog-safe chew toys stuffed with canned dog food. You can try a large variety of stuffings so the curiosity of what you’ll provide that day piques the dog’s interest even more.

If your dog is too stressed to chew at first, then you will want to refer to the advice above in independence training. Get your dog chewing as you walk around, and finally in and out of the house. Once you build success leaving the room, you can start to build up to that 40 minute goal.