Gambit is the most high-maintenance, and for lack of a better term, "emo" dog that I've ever dealt with. He has very severe separation anxiety. When my roommate's out, he is a complete emotional wreck. Every single time. He has no interest in food or treats. He has very limited interest in playing. He just mopes around the house, and he cries and whines at the door and at the windows, waiting for her to come home. Even if he's sitting right next to me or on my lap, all he does is whine and whine. He's started doing this thing where he "howls" at night if he has to sleep in my room. He doesn't sleep, he just cries all night. If I leave him out of the crate, he scratches at the door, or puts his face next to my bed and cries. I got 3 hours of sleep last night because he won't leave me alone unless I crate him, and even crated he doesn't stop.
During the day he's rarely more than a foot away. I tend to pace around the house when I'm on the phone with somebody, and even if I'm having an hour-long conversation where I'm slowly going in circles the whole time, he's still right next to me EVERY step of the way. If the dog and I are home alone, and I have to take the trash out, I may be gone for 1 minute tops. But when I come back inside, Gambit acts as though he hasn't seen me in a million years. He jumps from the floor up to shoulder level over and over and over. If I'm carrying things, he knocks them out of my hands. If I ignore him he starts whining loudly or standing right in my path or running between my legs, which is going to trip me someday. It's not just "I'm excited to see you!" It's more like "I thought I'd never see you again!"
This morning, I woke up to a note that Lia was calling in sick and that she just wants to sleep. I realized that I had to leash him and take him outside as soon as he left the crate, otherwise he'd cause a fuss. In the ten seconds it took me to walk from my room to grab the leash and come back, he started barking loudly at 6:30 in the morning, so I had to quick run back in so he would settle down. I took him out and then when I brought him in I realized I couldn't let him off the leash because he'd be loud and whimpery like he always is, and probably start whining outside her door and she'd wake up and I'd get yelled at. I also couldn't crate him because apparently he feels like barking today. So when I prepared his food, I had to hold him with me on the leash. When he was eating, I had to stand there with him leashed while he ate. When I showered, I had to bring him in the bathroom and tie him to the door knob (where he promptly started crying again.) Then I had to immediately bring him back into my room and crate him so I could go to work. He wouldn't get in of course, because he knows that the crate means he's going to be alone. So, I had to pick him up and put him in. Which led to more crying. We can't leave him uncrated or he'll destroy or pee on everything and he's not interested in any of his toys or chew things while we're gone because he's too depressed to satisfy his own boredom. This is what most days are like.
I was doing some research. This is the worst kind of separation anxiety, in which we should probably be taking him to the vet because he needs to be on a constant supply of anti-anxiety drugs (and may need to be for months or years.) I'm also learning that the worst thing for a dog like Gambit is to be faced with a full-blown version of what he's distressed about, like for example, every work day where he's alone all day. And from what I've been seeing, the only way that we can treat his problems with training is to do the thing where we gradually leave for longer and longer periods of time, and this process takes WEEKS. But that won't work in this case because every time we are both at work he reverts back to full-blown distress again. I think that's why he's been getting worse these last two weeks. He's even started to become aggressive towards other dogs, especially the landlord's dogs downstairs, and that obviously can't continue. He cannot handle a living in a home situation like this. He needs to be with someone who is ALWAYS home. At least until his problem goes away, which again could take months or years. So unless we find a daily dog-sitter or take him to doggy day-care (I assume that we wouldn't be able to afford either one) we're pretty much screwed.
I suspect that even if I worked with him on this problem every day, that it wouldn't fix it as long as he's still all alone during the work day. I can try to train him to stop jumping, or barking, or being dog aggressive, or "leave it." But those aren't the problems. Those are all symptoms of the separation anxiety and they won't go away until that's fixed. That's something that I can't cure unless one of us is home all day, every day. If a kid was his "dog-years" age and acting this way, he would be in extreme psychological counseling. I love the dog very much, but I don't feel as though we're equipped to handle this.
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