Urgent! Royce The Love Dog needs unconventional doggie day care or dog walkers

[Korinita]

This is Royce, the most loving dog on the planet, no joke.

His only downfall, however, is that he gets anxious in the afternoons literally between 3-5pm while I am at work (a habit that he acquired in September after I went back to teaching full-time) and tries to get out of the house, sometimes hurting himself and/or doing damage to the blinds, trim, etc. For this reason, we had a full-time doggie person who became severely ill two weeks ago :-( I used to take him to her house in the morning & pick up after.

In the last two weeks, we have had a dog walker come around lunch time and for the first five days he did great with no signs of anxiety. The last two days however, he took out the blinds and then ripped his dew claw out.

Ideally, I would like to cure him of this anxiety and have a regular dog walker from 12-1...he seems to do fine after the dog walker leaves...after that, perhaps he looses his patience, moral??? I am considering energy work, medication, acupuncture and homeopathy and even crate training.

Finding the right someone who could be with him while I am at work is also an option, and not as easy to find. Are you that special someone? He does not do well at doggy day-care...he is more of a people-dog and not into being with a bunch of dogs. He does along with most other dogs, cats, kids, etc.

We live in Downtown Sebastopol and I work in West Santa Rosa. Please let me know if you think you can help or have any ideas.

You can call me at 889-9559

Many Thanks,
Korina and Royce

[diaba]

I have a pit-mix, he''s 13 now. When I first got him, he had a lot of separation anxiety. He would get very stressed out if anyone left him: ripped the carpet off the floor when a dogwalker left him, jumped off a deck when the landlord left him, broke thru a fence when the pool guy left him, you get the idea...

What worked for us was getting a second, well-adjusted dog. He's had 3 different "sisters"(one at a time), each labs that were female, shelter or rescue dogs. A rescue dog would give you more info about the dog, and be able to take him/her back if it didn't work out. I know it sounds like twice as much work, but it didn't turn out that way for us.

We also had to keep him indoors because he was quite the fence jumper.

I hope your able to find a good help, or maybe a second dog.

take care, diana