Ben has three phrases: "Won't be long" means a few hours, and Bowie goes to the ledge by the window and looks out. "See you soon" means a few days, and Bowie goes under the sofa. "You coming with daddy" means he is coming, which makes Bowie truly happy. Bowie and Ben never trained these sentences, this simply formed over a couple of years, as Ben's trips became more frequent, and Bowie was simply paying closer attention than Ben had realised. Ben's usual limit for leaving him alone is at three hours, though Bowie can manage five or six. While still in London, Ben went out to the movies, keeping the phone face-up under his seat with the camera open. Unable to concentrate on the film he watched Bowie walking from the bedroom to the sofa and back, just pacing. Ben watched Bowie, knowing fully well he is the problem, not Bowie.
In the fourth episode of the Pawplexity Pawdcast, we talk about leaving your dog alone: what the dog does with it, and what that reveals about us.
Judge, when left alone, climbs onto the coffee table and stares at the door. He prefers the glass coffee table to the couch as it is colder, and after a while has his paw prints all over it. Only when he eventually accepts that no one is coming back immediately, he moves to the couch. Judge also one time ate a hole in the couch while Bruce and Tatiana were out. Tatiana came home to stuffing lying around everywhere. She couldn't find the source and finally realised it might be close to where Judge was lying. Moving him away she found the hole underneath him. He had covered it with his body, preventing her from finding it. He knew.
Training puppy Makenzie to be left alone was slow. We got stuck at step 5 for a while and eventually abandoned our efforts. We tried the protocol: incremental departures, keys picked up and put down, the front door opened and closed until the sound of it stopped meaning anything, and got stuck at the step that required us actually leaving. In London we tried again from the beginning and hit the same wall. Our natural response then was to stop again, and organise our lives around not needing to leave her alone. With a world just slowly emerging from the pandemic, this seemed completely reasonable. It also suited me, even though I would not have admitted to that back then. None of this would have needed a protocol in Germany, where pet sitters are still rare and cameras rarer, and a dog left alone during the day is simply left alone, or handed to a friend for the afternoon. Learning to stay alone is a long process for many dogs and often takes considerably longer than training guides tend to suggest.
What eventually worked for us was not following a protocol. One day we just put on shoes and coats, set up the camera, and sat in the hallway downstairs watching Makenzie on screen. She usually came to the door and lay down there to wait for our return, which in itself made me uncomfortable. I did not want her to be so miserable, that the only place she could endure waiting was by the door. That was until I read Be Right Back by Julie Naismith, which mentions that waiting by the door in itself is not at all wrong or expressing anxiety.
The difference is how the dog waits, not necessarily where. Watching Makenzie curled up on the bare floor and realising after a couple of times that this is where she chose to wait, I put out a soft mat: if she was going to wait there, she should at least be comfortable. The next time we left, she settled onto it. I checked the camera more than once, but she stayed curled up there, not making a sound, until she finally stretched out fully. What the camera showed me over several times we left was that there were two distinct things Makenzie was doing at the door: some days she settled quickly, and on other days she just sat and sent single barks, meaning she was not yet ready to be left alone, and expressing that feeling. I genuinely think that her barks did not mean to call us back, but that she needed a little more time before being able to cope.
There were a few instances when one of us returned home due to her barking, and after having spent a few more minutes together, was able to leave without problems at all. On other and very rare occasions, she would come to sit by the door to block us leaving when she realised we were getting ready. Those were the days when she was absolutely not able to handle staying alone. Once I understood what she needed, I was glad to give that to her in the variety she required: returning to sit with her for 10 more minutes, or giving her a little time to settle on her own while waiting outside, or not leave at all. What Makenzie was showing me was not separation anxiety in any clinical sense. She was telling me clearly what she needed on a given day, and these different things called for completely different responses. Not every dog struggling with being left alone has separation anxiety in the clinical sense. The range of separation-related responses is wide, and what a dog needs depends on the individual dog in that moment and situation.Not every separation response is the same thing: what looks like distress is often a dog communicating clearly, and the two are worth telling apart and acting upon accordingly.
A friend of mine forgot her dog Lisa once for an entire workday. She came home in tears, certain of the worst, and feeling truly guilty. When she opened the door, Lisa was on the couch, completely relaxed and unbothered. She had spent a full day alone and was fine. The friend who had forgotten her was not. Short absences do not automatically put a dog into a negative emotional state. The dog's prior experiences with staying alone, and what they have learned to expect in that regard make a difference, too.
The physiological stress of being alone does not simply end when the door opens. How we return home, whether calm or rushed, present or distracted is part of how that stress resolves in our dogs. A greeting that is calm and present helps the dog's system to settle better than a rushed or emotionally charged one does. How we return is a large part of how our dogs perceive our not being home, which means that coming back is not a neutral moment to them.
The dogs work out how to be left. We're still working out how to leave.
This is the Pawplexity Treat for episode 4 of the Pawplexity Pawdcast „Leaving your dog alone“. The audio reading of this post is available in the Pawplexity feed. Find it here.