Artie lay beside me, obviously exhausted.
So were the young couple who had adopted him just four days ago – four days and three long nights to be precise. Three sleepless nights as they tried to leave him alone.
The lady has taken him to work with her each day.
Never left alone
The six month old Rottie Husky cross has probably never in his entire life been all alone. If the humans were out there were always other dogs and puppies to snuggle up with and to play with.
Nico was another dog who Niko panicked when his humans left him alone. He was even unhappy when just one of them walks out of the room.
On the first night, because of Artie’s crying, the young couple eventually let him sleep on their bedroom floor. The second night they shut him away in an empty room having taken ‘advice’ to leave him to cry.
He barked and howled all night.
On the third night they could stand it no longer so one of them came downstairs and let him into the sitting room, sleeping on the sofa. They are well aware that the howling will have been keeping neighbours awake too.
They don’t want him to be sleeping in their bedroom, but realise they now have a choice to make. He will need to start off up there or else they will need to be sleeping downstairs for a while. They can’t just leave him to cry. That does Artie no good at all, and it does them no good either.
They decided that starting in the bedroom was the better option.
The plan is to have his blanket on the floor near the bed, and over the days or weeks to each night move this to the door and then just outside the door. They will have a gate in the doorway which will be open to start with, and when he’s ready they will shut it so that he won’t be totally excluded.
The master plan, though, is for him to decide that it is better downstairs. From the moment he enters their bedroom at night they will ignore him – it will be the most boring place there is. If he comes over to their bed, they will turn away. In the morning, once downstairs they can give him attention again.
Artie exhausted
The other dimension of the problem is that he needs, over time, to be chilled when left alone when they are out for reasonable periods of time. This, too, needs working on gradually. It is fortunate that he can go to work with them and also that he is happy to be left with other people. Just not all alone.
Here is the story of another dog, Henry, who couldn’t be left alone without panicking
The perfect owners
They are so lucky to have found such a wonderfully good-natured, friendly, well-mannered dog and Wood Green who rehomed him must know that they are the perfect owners. They may be at the start of a honeymoon period, so as he settles in to his new life and loses the stresses of the night-time panic, he may become more playful and cheeky.
We have looked at all aspects of his new life from diet to walking nicely and training, and I shall be helping as he settles in and matures.
