Saucy Pet

When you are leaving for work and you see your havanese puppy protesting at the top of its lungs why on earth you are leaving it, you know that it is time to seek answers to one of the most highly anticipated havanese training issues: separation anxiety.

Veteran dog owners immediately recommend crate training as a sure way to start working on the dog’s losing its head every time people leave. The routine will look something like the following (although these definitely can be improved some more): put dog in crate for a set number of minutes, then leave room; open crate door and ignore dog for set number of seconds; greet puppy and play with it; repeat and add more minutes.

Some owners apply the simple scheme of first leaving the dog alone in the crate for short periods of time a few weeks a day so it becomes accustomed to the idea of people leaving. The dog will predictably cry for a week or two, but it is sure to get used to what is going, once everything settles into what looks like routine.

So before anybody leaves, the radio or TV is turned on, the dog is told to be a “Good boy,” and is given a treat. Only after this does everybody make a discreet exit.

But perhaps nothing can beat the plan that seeks to remedy the situation by resolving its many dimensions. In that case, the following steps need to be followed.

1. Before leaving, the puppy must be ignored for 20 minutes. The goal is to get the dog adjusted to still being happy even if the owner is home yet not interacting with it.

2. It’s actually possible to get the dog to feel positive about someone’s leaving. The owner needs to give it a very prized treat that it will only get when the person leaves home.

3. A shirt or pillowcase full of the owner’s scent needs to be left inside the crate. The dog can get soothe by this if everybody leaves.

4. Before leaving, the owner has to give the dog the keyword that signals the owner will be back. It could be “Be good.”

5. Upon coming back, the dog needs to be ignored until it is calm. This further tells the dog that it will do fine without its person in the house.

Last of all, dog owners need to know that in havanese training, using the crate to remedy the anxiety does not have to apply all the time. Its door can be left open to allow the dog to have a transition period, although the end in mind is to actually have the dog have a run of the house in a few months’ time, right after the preceding steps are implemented. But even then, the dog’s tantrums need to be preempted by putting away all the rugs, covering and hiding the trash cans, securing the breakable bric-à-bracs, etc.

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