My Mini Aussie Has Separation Anxiety, How Do We Fix This?

by K
(Upstate NY)

My Mini Aussie is 7 mo. old and has extreme separation anxiety. My husband and I got her when she was 8 weeks. old, so she is really bonded to us. My husband is a remote engineer so he has always been home with her from day one. We are very active people, we like to travel, go on hikes, etc. We absolutely adore her and she goes with us any time she can, but if we do have to leave her behind, you would think she is dying.

She is crate trained and doesn't mind going into her crate as long as we are relaxed and home and the crate door is open, but the second we start getting ready and we get her Kong out (she gets it anytime she goes into her crate), she bolts under the couch. The moment she goes in, she starts to ball. She just cries and cries. She cries and barks most of the time she is in the crate. We know this because we did a voice recording when we left a couple times. One time we were gone 3 hours... she did it almost the entire time.

As soon as we get home she squeaks and jumps and gets beyond excited... we try to not acknowledge her as much or make a big deal out of our arrival so she doesn't get too worked up, but it doesn't seem to matter. She just loves to be with us.

We want to break this because my husband will be accepting another job where we will both be away from the house most of the day, so she will have to be in the crate every day until the pup sitter gets there. We don't want to stress her out when we have to leave her behind.

Any advice is welcome! thank you!

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