Bandit is a 40 lb, year and 3 month old lab mix. He is calm and content when we are home, but that quickly changes once we leave the house. If he is not crated, we will often come home to find that he’s destroyed something. So far, he has destroyed CDs, toilet paper, mail, shoes, window blinds, pens, and recently a pair of my husband’s pants. This is not normal behavior for him because he does not chew on anything while we’re home. He will also pace, whine, and constantly look out the windows and look at the door. Sometimes he will eventually settle down, but not before he’s shredded something. There have been a couple times where we left him and he didn’t destroy something, but we haven’t had a day like that in a while. He will also whine and look at the door when one of us leaves. Before it would last for about a half hour, but now it’s about 10 minutes. He has to follow us when one of us leaves the room. If I don’t let him follow me into another room, he will pace and whine at the door and will usually find something to destroy.

We’ve been crating him, which seems to make the situation worse. We’ll leave some classical music playing, give him a few kongs filled with frozen peanut butter, make leaving and going not a big deal by staying calm and limiting interaction 10 minutes before we leave and when we come back, and giving him blankets to make him comfortable. It’s a traditional barred crated, so we even put an old bed sheet over it to make it cozy for him. He tore up the bed sheet and used it to cover his poop and tore his blanket to shreds. Before he would only poop a couple days a week, but now he is pooping every day and has started to pee every day as well. He also whines while in the crate and has tried to break out of it. He’s bent the bars so much that one of the smaller walls with the door is bent inwards. We found him bleeding once from his mouth as well. We take him on half hour walks before and after we come home, but he still pees and poops (the longest he is in the crate at one time is about 6 1/2 hours). He’ll pee and poop even when I’m gone for 2 hours. I’ve seen him drool and pant before as well.

We’ve tried giving him OTC calming chews, benadryl, calming chews from the vet, and even Xanax. None of it seemed to help him. We can’t kennel him because my husband doesn’t come home until 9:30pm (I work until 12:30am) and we haven’t been able to locate a kennel close to us that would be open at that time. I haven’t gone to a behavioraist because we can’t afford one. He might need desensitization therapy, which we can’t implement because he can’t be home by himself during this. We don’t know anyone that will watch him. 

Our dog has separation anxiety and we are unable to provide the care he needs. When we adopted him 3 months ago, we thought he’d only be home alone for about 2 hours a day, but my husband’s work scheduled unexpectedly changed so that overall the dog is by himself for around 8 1/2 hours a day. Next year our schedule will be busier and he will be home alone even more. We’ve tried to re-home him, but haven’t been successful. I’ve tried taking him back to where we got him (Capital Area), but was told that they would have to euthanize him due to his anxiety. He’s a sweet dog and does not deserve the death penalty.  

He is very friendly and LOVES other dogs and people (I wonder if his anxiety would lessen if there was another dog around). He’s calm in the home, but is very energetic when he goes outside or when we take him to the dog park. He does pull on his leash to the point where he chokes himself, but since we got him a head halter he hasn’t been pulling as much. He does know a few commands (sit, stay, paw, down, crawl, and is working on stay and bed). He doesn’t bark very much, but whines a lot. He loves to sleep on our bed and furniture, despite our best efforts to keep him off. He’s up to date on all his shots and we’ve been giving him his monthly flea treatment. He got a clean bill of health from our vet at Chittenden Animal Clinic. He’s well behaved during baths and has never been aggressive toward us or others.

If interested CONTACT Lisa at lchimche@kent.edu

Please fill out an adoption application today at https://fflah.rescuegroups.org//forms