My German Shepherd suffers from separation anxiety and has tried to eat her way through a metal door. We’ve since then started crating her, but she never relaxes. So I was thinking about making an app that does the following:
When in away mode, the motion sensors will detect movement. If there is movement and the door is vibrating (because she’s scratching at it) then play a recording of me in another room. Once motion is detected in that room, play the same recording in a different room. It will do this for every room once to keep her trying to find me. After motion is detected in every room, play my voice in the kitchen which will disperse a treat as a reward. Then repeat the process if she scratches at the door again.
The goal is to get her mind off of us being gone. If she’s playing hide and seek with virtual me, she won’t be eating our house.
What’s your thoughts on this? Do you think this will make things worse or better?
One problem with how the dog will react to it… Once your dog realizes how (s)he gets rewarded, which will be quite fast, your dog will just hit the kitchen door over and over again getting treats over and over.
What I would do is have the treat dispense randomly. That way your dog can’t find a pattern.
Also some dogs are able to tell a human voice between a human voice over a speaker. Test this with your dog before going through the trouble and spending a whole bunch of money to put this together.
Hope this works out for you though. My boy Maximus was a rescue and he took a year or so of HARD work every single day to get him not to want to destroy everything after we left. Actually he just stayed in the house by himself for over an hour for the first time last week. I know your struggle and I wish you luck! Let me know if you need anything.
P.S. I’d recommend you read up on crate training (if you haven’t already of course). Proper introduction to the create is very very important. Not only is proper introduction important but you need to strengthen the bond between your dog and their crate. It’s a daily process that requires a lot of patience.
We had our dog crate trained for the longest time then about at the 2 year Mark, we started letting her free. One day we came home to bloody paw prints, a destroyed screen door, a damaged metal garage door and destroyed dry wall. Ever since then any time we’re away she freaks out. We continue our struggle every day to get her back where she was mentally.
My dog showed early signs of the same thing. I nipped it in the bud by changing the way we act around her when leaving or coming home. Do you have a closed back yard?
Nope, we don’t make a huge fuss at all. We did try a thunder shirt, but there doesn’t seem to be any improvement. She just looks at us like, “great, now I’m freaking out and I look stupid.” We think most of it is when our daughter isn’t around. But our tests are inconclusive. some times she freaks out when our daughter isn’t home, other times it’s when I leave.