My puppy is 7.5 months old, we adopted him 2 1/2 weeks ago. He had been dropped at at pound at around 3 months, and then picked up by the shelter because he was so young.

I believe he has seperation anxiety. When we open the back door for him to use the bathroom, he won't go out unless we are with him. He actually barks/howls/jumps/paws at the door. If we step out with him, he is fine. When either of us leaves the room, he's right behind us. I close the door to to use the bathroom myself and he's scratching at the door. When we crate him at night he howls off and on for hours!! We attempted to cover the crate, that made it worse, we gave him a stuffed kong, he ignores it. We finally moved the crate into our bedroom so that he could see us and that seemed to help, the crying lasts only a few minutes at bedtime now. I do positive reinforcement crate training with him daily, but there are times when I can't get him anywhere near the crate (typically when I have to leave!!) I leave random treats, I've put his water dish in the crate and I've fed him in the crate, i sit by the crate to encourage him to lie down and praise him, and pet him when he does. He' s never left along for more than say 3 hours max with a good long walk/ run or 30 minutues of play in the backyard before we crate him. I would say he's only crated other than overnight maybe once a week.

Any suggestions to make him less anxious?? I really don't want to put him on medications, I feel if we keep working on it and hope he realizes that he's not going to be abandoned, that this is home and we love him.

I appreciate any ideas anyone has, or things that helped them

OH..I feel bad that this thread was missed for ae09.

After today at the vets, and adding up past happenings, I am convinced the family gave Piper up because she has SA. I posted how she couldn't stand it when I was out of her sight even if she heard me when I first got her. I have ignored this behavior and continue to leave and come back so after two weeks I have no reaction from her. I have been testing her and Willow free in the breezeway while I run to the store or post office and they are both laying there quietly when I get back now. She does wimper everytime Colton comes home and leaves again but he does this so often that I am confident she is going to realize he will always come back. Today at the vets, she was fine until they took willow out of the room and she screamed bloody murder! This is the first time she has had Willow out of her sight so I'm gonna have to work on this. This may ruin Colton and Kierra's chances of taking her when the time comes but that's ok becuase they can always rescue another dog and I will just keep Piper if I can't work this out of her. I would love some tips if you think there is more I can do to work with her.

FYI, this is kinda ironic since I heard from the rescue yesterday and they are hesitent that Lumen will fit in with us becuase she is showing signs of SA. I'm about to respond to the email to ask how bad the SA is.