Be sure to stop by the Caribou Arts & Craft Show this weekend, Oct. 18 and 19, and say hello. This is one of the biggest shows that you will find in our area, with so many different vendors and crafters.
The Central Aroostook Humane Society will have a wide variety of baked treats at our booth, along with our super popular lottery board raffle. All proceeds will help care for our animals.
Does this scenario sound familiar? You leave your home and return several hours later to find it destroyed by your pet. Furniture is knocked over, contents of closets are pulled out onto the floor, woodwork is chewed, garbage cans are knocked over – their contents strewn throughout the house. To add insult to injury, carpets, floors, bedding and furniture are soiled by your usually perfectly housebroken pet. What’s worse is that upon your return your pet greets you with wagging tail and yelps of happiness celebrating your arrival — as if nothing happened in your absence.
Separation anxiety is the inability to cope when loved ones leave and most often occurs when the pet realizes it is alone. Pets that have had more than one home are often afraid that when their owners leave, they may never return. After all, this already happened to them before.
This situation is hard enough on the average pet that is transferred from one loving home to another, but is further aggravated when the pet was uprooted from a home, brought to an animal shelter where he spent time in a kennel, then was adopted and brought into yet another home. Of course, this pet would suffer from insecurity, no matter where he gets settled, no matter who he grows attached to.
Separation anxiety may also strike at the end of summer vacations when the kids go back to school or are off to college, or owners who teach or have other jobs with summers off go back to work. Pets that have become accustomed to having the family around suddenly find themselves alone.
The best approach to dealing with separation anxiety is prevention — never letting it begin in the first place. However, in most cases, this is a pre-existing phobia. These attacks can always be helped and the symptoms lessened by taking some important steps.
Every pet suffering from separation stress should receive a lot of exposure to new and different environments and large amounts of time socializing with strangers. Pets should be taken on walks to different neighborhoods, visits to friends and relatives, where they have the opportunity to adjust to the sounds of the real world.
Create a pleasant home environment, with wonderful things that occur only when your pet is left alone. Leave a radio on a talk station to help comfort the pet. When leaving the house, place favorite toys and treats around rooms for your pet to find. The idea is to have your pet begin to associate pleasant things with your departure.
Exercise is a known stress reducer and, as with human beings, pets may fare remarkably better when exercise is included in their daily routine, particularly when done an hour or two before you leave your home. Remember, a tired pet is more likely to sleep and be less destructive.
Go from room to room, standing outside a closed door and talking to your pet through the door. Begin the procedure for a few seconds only, and then open the door and lavish great praise on him. Continue the procedure and slowly increase the period of time he is in the other room and the distance away from the door.
As he adjusts to this step, try standing outside the front or back door, again talking to him the entire time. Again, gradually increase the time and the distance from the door as he adjusts. Then it’s time to leave your home entirely, for a minute only, returning with plenty of hugs and kisses and praise. Expand this program a few minutes at a time until he is secure in being left behind.
Stop by the Central Aroostook Humane Society, 210 Cross Street, Presque Isle, to see our adoptable furry friends. You can also check us out on Facebook.
Please be responsible: spay and neuter your pets.
Gloria J. Towle is on the Central Aroostook Humane Society Board of Directors.
