A lot of families have a temporary, custom schedule during the holiday season. Between work-from-home days, frequent holiday visitors, and school breaks, a lot more time is spent at home than usual during the holidays. With this increased amount of time at home, your dog likely got used to spending a lot more time with you. Now that the holiday season is over, it can be tough for your dog to ease back into your usual routine. Our dog grooming Franklinville NJ experts provided some tips on how to help your dog ease back into the normal routine.
Managing Separation Anxiety
Your dog has a very high chance of developing separation anxiety when you return to in-office work, start working out again, and do other parts of your normal routine. Separation anxiety can cause your dog to be very clingy when you are around and act up when you are not. It is important to handle this in a healthy manner. The best way to handle this is positive reinforcement through separation. It is important to reward this behavior so your dog can understand separation is okay. For example, you can reward your dog with a treat when they lay in the other room while you are in a separate room working.
This skill is very important for all members of your family to master with your dog. It shows the importance of your routine to your dog and shows your dog that attention cannot always be given to them. The best way to avoid separation anxiety in the future is to prevent it entirely. Never love bomb or give your dog hours upon hours worth of attention because it is hard to guarantee that amount of attention every day.
Integrating Your Dog Back Into Your Routine
Another great way to ease your dog’s stress level is to develop a training plan surrounded around your daily routine. The goal of this training plan is to align your dog’s behavior up with your routine. This form of training is easy to carry out and can be set up in many ways. The best way is to simply start carrying out your tasks and reward good behavior to your dog. For example, if you are working from home, start working on your computer and reward your dog when he relaxes in the other room away from you. This will help them understand that leaving you to your tasks is the right behavior to exhibit. Keep up this positive reinforcement for all your tasks and watch over time. As time passes, your dog’s behavior should improve greatly and they can become used to your routine a lot easier.
Another key for this type of training is when to interact with your dog. If your dog chooses to disobey and try to leap on your lap, do your best to ignore their behavior. If you succumb to their behavior and let them leap onto your lap, they are not going to understand the idea of distancing from their owner. This overtime can make the separation anxiety stronger and harder to break.
If you have any questions or concerns about your dog’s behavior, reach out to Halo House Animal Resort at 856-694-0980!