Your Love Language is Leadership

Most anxious dogs need a very proactive and present handler to guide him into good choices and make him practice his calm mindset all the time so that his anxiety doesn’t take over again. When we are heavy on the unearned privileges, freedom, affection, and soft mushy stuff and light on the rules, structure, boundaries, and consistently then we create the opportunity for the dog’s anxious brain to become highly anxious again. Truly loving our dog means doing what is in his best interest at all times despite the effect it has on us. And for an anxious dog, ‘truly loving’ him means consistently giving him what he needs most in life to feel stable and function successfully and not the softer stuff which makes us humans feel good 😉. He needs a regular crating routine, restricted free roaming, structure at all times, consistent daily exercise, holding him accountable for his training and calm mindset, firm boundaries especially on personal space and affection, and an understanding that separation anxiety is a form of addiction (once an addict, always an addict and it takes consistent lifelong work to keep it at bay). Separation anxiety is an addiction to togetherness so the more we indulge the soft stuff with the dog and and neglect the tough but more important stuff, the more easily the dog relapses with separation anxiety.

The way to help a dog gain more confidence and and feel more peace and less anxious and less insecure is not with treats, affection and free ranging (those things serve human needs) but actually through more structure, more boundaries, more rules, and more discipline (impulse control). These are the things that serve a dog’s needs. Structure - thanks to the place command, crate training, and the implied stay within her obedience commands - these are the things that keep them mentally balanced.