{"id":1551,"date":"2012-09-19T09:51:46","date_gmt":"2012-09-18T23:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2021-08-02T17:39:13","modified_gmt":"2021-08-02T07:09:13","slug":"separation-anxiety-according-to-dunbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/dog-behaviour\/separation-anxiety-according-to-dunbar\/","title":{"rendered":"Separation Anxiety According to Dunbar"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is part of the series in response to Dunbar’s 2012 Australian seminars. See\u00a0index<\/a>.<\/small><\/small><\/p>\n

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Photo \u00a9 Ruthless Photos.<\/p><\/div>\n

To me, Dunbar\u2019s approach to separation anxiety was a little simplistic, but I think this is because Dunbar believes most separation anxiety is actually \u201cseparation fun\u201d.\u00a0 When dogs are left alone, they often find things that they enjoy doing.\u00a0 Or, if they are used to owners coming home and punishing them, dogs may also have anxiety regarding the reuniting<\/em> with the owner, and not so much the separation itself.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Dunbar believes separation anxiety can be fixed. \u00a0His tool is, unsurprisingly, a Kong<\/a>.\u00a0 He suggests getting a dog into a Kong routine, where Kongs are associated with good things (not the owner leaving!).\u00a0 The basic principle is to start a dog in a crate next to you with a Kong, and gradually move the crate further away from you, further away from the room you\u2019re in, and slowly increase distance \u2013 all the while the dog having a Kong to enjoy.<\/p>\n

For normal dogs, it\u2019s okay to give a Kong as you leave the house.\u00a0 Upon return, Dunbar suggests you encourage play with the Kong.\u00a0 The idea that your dog, upon anticipation of your return, may pick up the Kong instead of choosing more destructive avenues for their enthusiasm! (This is one of the best bits of advice I got from Dunbar over the weekend.)<\/p>\n

ThatMutt posted on owner-causes of Separation Anxiety<\/a>\u00a0and, if Dunbar\u2019s approach seems workable to you, then you may enjoy the strategies put forward in their post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A review of Dr Ian Dunbar’s strategy in combating separation anxiety.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[371,12,11,376,375,388,482],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dog-behaviour","tag-anxiety","tag-dog","tag-dogs","tag-dunbar","tag-ian-dunbar","tag-kong","tag-separation-anxiety"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4968,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions\/4968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/leemakennels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}