What are separation related behaviours in dogs?

Separation anxiety is usually identified through your dog showing separation related behaviours.

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What are separation related behaviours?

They’re behaviours which your dog will only display when you’re absent. Or, if your dog displays the behaviour when you’re there, they’ll do it with more intensity and persistence when you’re gone.

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Some of the most common separation related behaviours are:

• Barking, howling or crying
• Panting, drooling
• Pacing, restlessness
• Chewing, destruction
• Escape attempts
• House soiling or defecating
• Refusing play or food
• Hyper-vigilance or hyper-activity.

These are just some of the most common ones, but essentially any behaviour that your dog does only when you’re away, or with more intensity when you’re away counts as a separation-related behaviour.

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So for example, if your dog only destroys your flooring when you're away, this is a separation related behaviour. And also, if your dog barks when you're at home, but barks more loudly, more intensely or more persistently when you're away, then this is also a separation related behaviour.

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And if your dog is displaying separation related behaviours, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they have separation anxiety. Separation related behaviours usually stem from one of three main causes:

1. Boredom or frustration – this is typically found in under-exercised, young, high-energy dogs who tend to have a lack of mental stimulation or enrichment in their everyday lives.
2. Fear or anxiety about being alone – this is technically called isolation distress, and is where the dog is fine being left with any person, they only find it distressing being alone.
3. Inability to be parted from their person – this is true separation anxiety by name, because the dog’s fear is in being apart from one specific person. They don’t find comfort in being left with other people, like a dog with isolation distress would.

Regardless of the cause of the separation related behaviour, the most important thing is recognising them, and actively working to manage and overcome them.

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If you have a dog displaying separation related behaviours that you’d like to discuss, you can book a free discovery here.

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