Does separation anxiety exist?

For around eight years in this village in central Spain, no-one had
ever mentioned a case of separation anxiety. Axel would be described
as a dog that barks for a while when his owner goes. Maybe (as barking
is a form of communication) to check that the owner had really gone.

Tobe, ex-hunting-mutt-stray, went for his shots and I commented he had
chewed a CD and a dictionary. 'He's bored' said the vet 'you need to
take him out more. ' No mention of 'separation anxiety'. Tobe is a
highly active dog who chews what is to hand, or paw, if left without a
walk for too long. Including the wall. The vet gives prescriptions to
take to the local pharmacy. She makes no money from prescribing DAP or
other products designed to alleviate anxiety. There's no incentive for
her to medicalize dog behavior that falls into the spectrum of
normal.

Spaniards are pretty tolerant of noise. Barking dogs are not a problem
unless they bark at night, in which case it is suggested that the dogs
go to live in a stockyard, away from the village proper. The old-style
way of keeping pet house dogs was to let them come and go at will.
Che, our neighbor's dog, howled when his owner went into hospital, but
mainly because Che was shut in, and had lost the freedom to trot
around the village.

So how far is 'separation anxiety' a real condition? And how far has
it been created by Anglo dog culture, our trying to fit dogs into
lifestyle that don't suit them, plus incentives for vets to medicalize
any behavior that owners find a problem?

Alison (another one)

"canisfamiliaris" wrote in message
...
For around eight years in this village in central Spain, no-one had
So how far is 'separation anxiety' a real condition? And how far has
it been created by Anglo dog culture, our trying to fit dogs into
lifestyle that don't suit them, plus incentives for vets to medicalize
any behavior that owners find a problem?

Alison (another one)

"canisfamiliaris" wrote in message
...
For around eight years in this village in central Spain, no-one had
So how far is 'separation anxiety' a real condition? And how far has
it been created by Anglo dog culture, our trying to fit dogs into
lifestyle that don't suit them, plus incentives for vets to medicalize
any behavior that owners find a problem?

Alison (another one)


Hello Roo ! Yes I expect our culture doesnt help SA.

"Seperation anxiety" has been around for a good 50 years that I'm aware
of. Before our present way of keeping pets evolved.

You are talking about two different CULTURES. Cultures often define what
is acceptable animal behavior and not acceptable, and under what
conditions. Veterinarians react according to their cultures.

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia, USA

On 25 mayo, 09:16, (Jo Wolf) wrote:
"Seperation anxiety" has been around for a good *50 years that I'm aware
of. *Before our present way of keeping pets evolved.

You are talking about two different CULTURES. Cultures often define what
is acceptable animal behavior and not acceptable, and under what
conditions. *Veterinarians react according to their cultures.

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia, USA

Hello Jo, How do you know that SA has been around a good 50 years? And
what is 'separation anxiety', how would you define it? Vets react in
part according to whether they can make dosh from labelling something
a treatable medical condition, which, granted, is part of their
culture ...

Alison, 'tother one wot was roo!

Wellllllllll...... in August I will have been around for 70 years, and I
remember dog owner friends talking about seperation anxiety while I was
still in school....

The general definition of SA is barking or howling soon after the owner
departs, often continuing for hours, and/or damage to the indoor
environment only when the owner is absent. Anxious licking of a body
part is sometimes seen.... often a wrist.... and this can be so frequent
and continued as to cause a large sore that doesn't heal until a method
of prevention of licking is found and consistently used.

Jo Wolf
Martinez, Georgia, USA

Your examples are of low level anxiety. Consider Penny or 23 Pounds of
Trouble

http://www.basenjirescue.org/REALITY STORIES/Good-Bad-Ugly.htm

or this Great Pyrennes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl5RmqC28pg

Most people would not try to treat these sort of problems, they would
give up on first encounter. More so when they are poor or in otherwise
constrained circumstances.

As to vet treatment in rural Spain. While the Spaniards I know best
treat their dogs well, those Spaniards are by and large upper middle
class. Spain, while better off than most of the world, is still poor by
the standards of North America and most of Westrn Europe. Current
unemployment is well over 20%, something the US hasn't seen since the
worst of the Great Depression and life in the countryside tends to be
harder than in the cities. When I spent a couple of weeks in a small
village in the Spanish Pyrrennes the summer of 2000, the standard food
for neighborhood dogs seemed to be leftover bread, and they were left to
run free the way no city or suburban dogs would be. Their freedom would
reduce the sources of separation anxiety (lonely lets visti the
neighbor!). Given the food the dogs there received, I expect the vet
bills were for the sheep, goats, and cows of the nearby farms.

However I must say that the best trained city dogs I have seen were in
Southern Spain, particularly Granada. Most off leashe but ehaling well
with their masters.

--
Bill Clodius
los the lost and net the pet to email

Hello again Jo. This is your definition:

The general definition of SA is barking or howling soon after the
owner
departs, often continuing for hours, and/or damage to the indoor
environment only when the owner is absent. Anxious licking of a body
part is sometimes seen.... often a wrist.... and this can be so
frequent
and continued as to cause a large sore that doesn't heal until a
method
of prevention of licking is found and consistently used.

Now what this says is that the dog is making a noise, or destroying
objects or licking. It doesn't say why the dog is doing this, ie dogs
can bark, howl, destroy objects and lick for reasons other than
anxiety due to separation from their owners or carers. Toby, my ex-
hunting mutt, sometimes howls when I shut him up after his morning
walk. He does this when there are bitches in season. He does not do
this outside the breeding period. (This is a village where most people
don't spay bitches, and they tend to come into season at the same
time. Tobe is an entire male.) Tobe used to eat objects in the room
when I left him alone too long. He was a hunting dog, unused to living
with humans, and had never learnt that in human homes, some stuff is
not for chewing. Tho' he might fit your definition of SA, it would be
a misdiagnosis, because he is quite cool about being left alone, and
doesn't fret outside the breeding season, so long as he isn't shut in
for too long.

Both Tobe, and Conor, my oldster mutt brought up as an English pet
from puppyhood, are 'velcro dogs', ie given a choice, they'd follow me
round the house and settle where I settle. Genetically they are
probably both the sorts of dogs who might exhibit stress if left
without human company, but Tobe has learnt to be more independent - he
spent a few weeks with no owner, after his former owner dumped him.
And he would have received little in the way of affection, as one of
several hunting dogs in an enclosure in the countryside. Their only
contact with a human outside the hunting season was to be fed once a
day. If they were lucky. Tobe doesn't find the outside world scary, on
the contrary, sometimes on walks he takes off for a solo tour of the
village, coming back and barking to be let in an hour or so later..

Conor does sometimes bark and howl anxiously if I shut him in and I am
in the house. However, my husband reports that he is fine when I leave
him alone after a morning walk. Conor normally sleeps in the bedroom.
If he is shut up at night with the other two dogs, he does bark and
howl. However, if I go down to tell him to settle, without going into
the room where he is, he is quiet. Now, an 'SA' diagnosis might lead
one to think that Conor barks and howls due to anxiety at being left
alone. Barking is often seen as a symptom of anxiety when people talk
about SA. But this doesn't fit the facts. Conor howls when I am there
but not accessible, rather than when he is genuinely alone. What does
fit the facts better is looking at barking and howling as a method of
communication, rather than a problem behavior. Conor may be calling
out, saying 'Hey, where are you? Have you forgotten me?'. He's
anxious, yes, but because he doesn't know what's happening, which
isn't quite the same thing as SA. When I leave him in the morning
after his walk, he does know what is happening, because we follow a
ritual, walk, making his bed, putting out fresh water, and saying
goodbye to him. He knows that there is no point barking, because I've
gone. My guess is that there is an element of this with Chris's dog,
who is less anxious when he knows what's happening, when he can see
Chris go. Tho' people don't usually talk about 'I don't know what is
happening anxiety', it certainly exists in dogs and humans.

Lastly, Tilly, Conor's littermate, developed a habit of licking spots
until she was bald and sometimes sore, a little after puberty. The vet
reckoned it originated in an allergy, and she is a quarter Cavvie, a
breed prone to allergies. I was with her most of the day, but often
working so unable to pay her attention, so she went to stay with my
mum in the day, in a busy household, with a lot to watch. That helped
her get out of the habit. So, tho' the problem was originally medical,
it was obviously made worse by boredom. Again, that might sound like
SA, as she did it when left alone, but it wasn't quite SA.

Anglo culture often creates dogs prone to separation anxiety, in the
sense they come to depend on humans, and are more likely to be
distressed if a human carer is not around. Dogs are also more likely
to be shut up in houses alone in the UK and US. And because the
concept of SA is deeply embedded in modern Anglo dog culture,
sometimes we jump to conclusions about what is happening, and that may
not be helpful for the dog.

Alison, with three mutts in a village in central Spain

Hi Bill, Your account is very interesting. Yes, the way dogs are kept
is very different in the Spanish countryside. The house mutts here are
often allowed to trot round the village if they want to. Not all pet
dogs sleep indoors. Bigger dogs like labs especially generally sleep
outside. One 'symptom' of SA, trashing the house, simply doesn't
happen if the dog isn't allowed inside the house. My Tobe is part
podenco, and podencos are primitive hunting dogs, not considered
suitable as pet house dogs, on account of being high energy, heavily
into chomping, and sometimes snappy. Any grumble about what he had
chomped sometimes led people here to say 'well why are you so dumb as
to have him indoors?' Owners here don't think in terms of SA, but in
terms of dogs barking and destroying objects. They think it natural
for a dog shut in in a yard for a long while to bark, but probably
because it wants to be let out. They don't see barking as a reason to
take the dog to the vet with SA. Yes, leftover bread from the baker's
is collected for the hunting dogs here too. The dogs here also get
butcher's leftover scraps, like chicken's feet and heads, and their
teeth are generally much cleaner than those of most English dogs I
met.

There's a lot that happens here that makes me sad, but there are also
upsides about the way dogs are kept. And, as you say, well-behaved off-
leash are pretty common here, I find more so than in Wilts, UK.

Alison, in central Spain

On Tue, 29 May 2012 23:10:19 -0600, (William
Clodius) wrote:

Your examples are of low level anxiety. Consider Penny or 23 Pounds of
Trouble

http://www.basenjirescue.org/REALITY STORIES/Good-Bad-Ugly.htm

or this Great Pyrennes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl5RmqC28pg

Most people would not try to treat these sort of problems, they would
give up on first encounter. More so when they are poor or in otherwise
constrained circumstances.

As to vet treatment in rural Spain. While the Spaniards I know best
treat their dogs well, those Spaniards are by and large upper middle
class. Spain, while better off than most of the world, is still poor by
the standards of North America and most of Westrn Europe. Current
unemployment is well over 20%, something the US hasn't seen since the
worst of the Great Depression and life in the countryside tends to be
harder than in the cities. When I spent a couple of weeks in a small
village in the Spanish Pyrrennes the summer of 2000, the standard food
for neighborhood dogs seemed to be leftover bread, and they were left to
run free the way no city or suburban dogs would be. Their freedom would
reduce the sources of separation anxiety (lonely lets visti the
neighbor!). Given the food the dogs there received, I expect the vet
bills were for the sheep, goats, and cows of the nearby farms.

Ever read what happens to Spanish galgos when they're not hunting up
to expectations, or their owners are done with them?