Willow has some major separation anxiety when it comes to me. Towards my husband she could care less. I can't even go into the bedroom and shut the door without her freaking out; clawing at the door and the floor, howling, barking, pacing etc.
Now, I know there are plenty of posts on separation anxiety. But I feel like since its only with me there's some underlying problem. She isn't babied and we haven't done anything different with her than we did with Bane. She HATES treats. We have tried Begging Strips, Milkbones, and Minty flavored treats. She chases them across the house and then leaves them.
With Bane, when we left, we would always give him a treat, tell him good boy and leave. When we returned home he would get a treat, playtime, and a nice long walk. We do this with Willow other than the treat thing.
I have yet to speak to my vet as she wasn't in today, but is there anything we should be doing differently? We don't leave for long; two to three hours at most and if we do plan on being gone over that we take them with us and go to the dog park in between errands or go down to the beach as a treat for them.
Bane never had any issues like this. He now curls up on the sofa when we tell them we'll be back in a bit and goes to sleep. Willow will start crying and barking as soon as the door starts to close and it absolutely kills me to hear her crying like that.
I was thinking of getting them a calming spray that plugs into the wall and spritzs the spray every hour or something like that. I don't want to do anything that would harm them. And yes, we have tried the kong with peanut butter, a rawhide, anything and everything we have tried and I am now just at a complete loss as to what to do.
Thanks for any suggestions.