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If your dog is injuring themselves when left alone — broken teeth or nails from a crate, bloody paws from a door, a jump from a window — stop leaving them alone today and call your vet. That is not a training problem to work through gradually. It is the severe end of separation anxiety, it usually needs medication alongside the behaviour plan below, and dogs in that state do not "get used to it" with more exposure. They get worse.
The short answer: separation anxiety is a panic response to being left, not a behaviour problem, and the single most useful thing you can do before anything else is film the first thirty minutes after you leave. A dog with true separation anxiety is distressed within minutes of the door closing — pacing, vocalising, drooling, scratching at exits — and the video settles whether you are dealing with that, with a bored under-exercised dog who trashes the house an hour later, or with a dog who is only frightened of one thing that happens while you are out. Those three need different plans. This page covers how to tell them apart, the crate question, the step-by-step desensitisation plan that actually works (with the numbers), the two medications licensed for it, what the "3-3-3 rule" is and is not, and the narrow place a calming supplement fits.
Written by Marc Brannigan, Co-Founder & CEO of HempMy Pet. Last updated 15 October 2026.
Is It Separation Anxiety? The Six Things It Gets Confused With
About half the dogs described to vets as having "separation anxiety" have something else. The right column is the tell that separates them.
| What it is | What it looks like | The tell |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Separation anxiety | Distress that starts as you prepare to leave and peaks in the first 30 minutes: howling, pacing, drooling, scratching or chewing at doors and windows, toileting indoors, refusing food. | It begins before or within minutes of the door closing, and it is aimed at exits. Door frames, window sills, the crate bars. The dog is trying to get to you, not entertain themselves. |
| 2. Isolation distress | Identical signs, but the dog is fine with any human present — a sitter, a neighbour, a stranger. | Anyone will do. True separation anxiety is attachment to one person or household; isolation distress is fear of being alone. The second is much easier to manage, because a dog walker or daycare solves most of it. |
| 3. Boredom and under-exercise | Chewed shoes, a shredded cushion, a raided bin. Usually an adolescent dog. | The dog naps first and wrecks things later, is not distressed on the video, targets interesting objects rather than exits, and does the same things when you are home but distracted. |
| 4. Incomplete house training | Urine or faeces indoors when left. | It also happens when you are home, or the dog has never been reliably clean. Anxiety toileting happens only when alone, often in a dog who was perfectly clean before. |
| 5. Noise or event phobia | Destruction or escape attempts on some days and not others. | Check the calendar. Thunderstorms, fireworks, the bin lorry, builders next door. The dog is fine alone on quiet days. That is a fear of the noise, not of your absence. |
| 6. Medical | House soiling, restlessness, or a sudden change in an older dog. | New in a dog over seven, or with drinking more, or on a new medication. Urinary infection, kidney disease, Cushing's, diabetes and cognitive decline all produce "separation anxiety" that is not. Rule these out with a vet first. |
Sources: the ASPCA's separation anxiety guidance and VCA Hospitals, plus what we hear from owners.
The Camera Test
Thirty minutes of video answers more than a month of guessing. Every behaviourist asks for it; almost no owner has done it before the first appointment.
Set a phone or a cheap camera on the room your dog uses, leave exactly as you normally would, and watch the first thirty minutes back. You are looking for three things:
Separation anxiety shows in the first few minutes, and often starts while you are still putting shoes on. A dog who settles for an hour and then chews a cushion is bored, not anxious.
Anxious dogs work the exits: the door you left through, the window that faces the drive, the crate door. Bored dogs work whatever smells most of you or is most fun to shred.
Panting with no exertion, drooling, yawning, lip-licking, pacing a fixed path, whining that rises to howling, refusing a food toy they would normally empty. That is panic. A relaxed dog eating a stuffed toy is not.
If the dog is distressed within ten minutes of you leaving, it is anxiety. If the dog sleeps for an hour and then redecorates, it is boredom. The plans are different and the video is the only way to know.
Why It Happens
Not because the dog is spoilt, and not because you let them on the sofa.
The common triggers are a change in who is there or when: a rehoming (shelter dogs are heavily over-represented), a death or departure in the household, a move, a child leaving for university, and above all an abrupt change in routine. A dog who had someone home all day and is suddenly alone for eight hours has not been given time to learn that absences end. Some dogs are simply wired for it: sound-sensitive, clingy breeds and individuals who shadow one person around the house are more likely to struggle when that person leaves.
What does not cause it: cuddling your dog, letting them sleep on the bed, or "giving in" to them. There is no evidence that affection creates separation anxiety, and plenty that punishment makes it worse.
The Crate Question
"Dog separation anxiety crate" is one of the most-searched phrases on this subject, and the honest answer is: sometimes it helps, and sometimes it is the worst thing you can do.
A crate works for a dog who already sees it as a den — one who chooses to go in it when you are home and sleeps in it with the door open. For that dog, a covered crate in a quiet room can be the safest place to be left.
A crate makes things worse for a dog who panics when confined. The signs on the video are heavy panting, drooling that soaks the bedding, frantic digging or biting at the bars, and the crate moved across the floor. Dogs with separation anxiety break teeth and nails on crates, and the confinement itself becomes a second fear layered on the first. If you see any of that, stop crating. A single dog-proofed room behind a baby gate, with the crate door open inside it, is the usual alternative.
Toileting in the crate ("dog pooping in crate separation anxiety") is almost never a house-training problem in an adult dog who is clean when you are home. It is a stress response, and no amount of crate training fixes it until the anxiety is addressed. Cleaning with an enzymatic cleaner matters — ordinary cleaners leave the smell, and the smell invites a repeat.
Crate training a dog with separation anxiety is therefore a two-part job: first the crate has to become a good place (meals in it, door open, you in the room, over days or weeks), and only then does it get used for absences, starting with seconds. Skipping to "put them in and leave" is how dogs learn to hate it.
The Plan That Works: Desensitisation, With the Numbers
This is the part most pages describe in one vague sentence. The actual protocol, used by behaviourists and set out by the ASPCA, has specific steps and specific durations.
Mild cases: counterconditioning
If the video shows mild unease rather than panic, pair your absence with something the dog loves and only gets when alone: a frozen food-stuffed toy that takes 20 to 30 minutes to finish. Give it as you leave, remove it when you return. Over a few weeks the departure predicts something good rather than something bad. The limit of this approach is that a truly anxious dog will not eat when alone, which is why it only works for mild cases, and why a dog ignoring the toy on video tells you that you are in the next group.
Moderate to severe: graduated departures
- Defuse the pre-departure cues first. If the dog starts pacing when you pick up keys or put on a coat, do those things many times a day without leaving — keys in the pocket, sit on the sofa. Repeat until they stop meaning anything. This alone can take weeks.
- Start with out-of-sight stays inside the house. Behind a bedroom door, then the bathroom, then the door you actually leave by.
- Begin with absences of one to two seconds. Not minutes. Seconds. Build to five to ten seconds. Give the food toy just before you go. Wait a few minutes between repetitions so the dog is fully relaxed before the next.
- Read the dog, not the clock. If you see dilated pupils, panting, yawning, drooling, trembling, pacing or a frantic greeting on your return, you went too far. Shorten the next absence.
- Build slowly to 40 minutes. The ASPCA protocol then moves in 5-minute increments, then 15-minute ones. Most dogs who tolerate 90 minutes alone can handle four to eight hours; start with four.
- Do not leave the dog alone outside training sessions while you are doing this. This is the step everyone skips and the reason most home attempts fail. Every real absence that produces panic undoes days of work. Daycare, a sitter, a relative, taking the dog to work — whatever it takes for the few weeks the protocol runs.
- Keep departures and arrivals boring. No long goodbyes, no excited hellos. Come in, put the bag down, ignore the dog until they settle, then greet quietly.
With several short sessions a day at weekends and two a day on workdays, the ASPCA puts the usual timeline at a few weeks for a dog who has the medical and medication side handled. Severe cases take months.
Exercise, and the "3-3-3 rule"
At least 30 minutes of real aerobic exercise before you leave, plus food puzzles, scent games and chews, takes the edge off every case. A tired dog with a full stomach and a job to do is a dog with less capacity to panic.
The 3-3-3 rule that comes up in every search on this subject is a shelter rule of thumb for newly adopted dogs, not a clinical protocol: roughly 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn the routine, 3 months to feel at home. It is useful because it tells new adopters not to judge a dog's separation behaviour in the first fortnight, when almost every rescue dog is clingy. It is not a treatment plan, and a dog still panicking at three months needs the protocol above, not more time.
When the Dog Panics Only When One Person Leaves
A specific version worth its own paragraph, because it is common and it changes the plan.
Some dogs are fine alone but fall apart when a particular person leaves, even if the rest of the family is home. That is hyper-attachment, and the work is on the relationship rather than the absence: the attachment person does fewer of the good things (feeding, walks, games) and the others do more; the dog is taught to settle on a mat at a distance from that person while they are home; and the person practises short, boring departures from a room while someone else is present. It responds well, but it only responds if the whole household is consistent.
Separation Anxiety at Night
A dog who cannot settle when you go to bed in another room is showing the same thing on a smaller scale, and the same graduated approach applies: a bed in your room first, then by the door, then the hallway, over weeks. In an older dog, though, night-time distress is more often cognitive change, pain or a need to toilet than attachment, and we set out how to tell those apart in old dog restless at night.
Medication: The Two That Are Licensed for It
For moderate and severe cases the behaviour plan usually needs a drug underneath it, because a dog in a panic cannot learn. This is a vet conversation, and it is worth having early rather than after six months of failed training.
- Fluoxetine (Reconcile) and clomipramine (Clomicalm) are the two drugs with FDA approval for separation anxiety in dogs, both specifically "in conjunction with a behaviour modification plan." They take four to six weeks to reach full effect, they are daily, and they are typically continued for months and then tapered.
- Trazodone and similar are used situationally for the days you cannot avoid an absence, or layered on at the start while the daily drug builds up. Our trazodone page covers what to expect from it.
- Benadryl and other antihistamines are not anti-anxiety drugs; they sedate some dogs and make others worse, and they do nothing for the underlying panic.
Drug therapy on its own rarely fixes separation anxiety. Medication plus the desensitisation protocol is what the evidence supports, and a board-certified veterinary behaviourist (DACVB) is the specialist to ask for if your own vet is not confident. For every option, over the counter and prescription, graded by anxiety type, see what you can give a dog for anxiety.
Where Hemp Actually Fits, and Where It Doesn't
We make hemp products, so read this part with that in mind. Here is the honest placement.
Where it does not fit: a dog who is injuring themselves, a dog who panics within minutes of the door closing, or any case where the owner is hoping a supplement will replace the protocol above. The controlled canine evidence for CBD and stress is thinner than for joint comfort, and nothing over the counter treats true separation anxiety on its own.
Where it can fit: mild cases, and as one small part of the plan in moderate ones, for owners who want it. Given as an oil by mouth, most owners notice something within roughly 30 to 60 minutes, so for a predictable departure it goes in ahead of time, not once the dog is already pacing. We set out what the research does and does not show, and where L-theanine, chamomile and melatonin sit alongside it, in hemp and CBD for dog anxiety and in our evidence-graded guide to calming treat ingredients. If your dog is on fluoxetine, clomipramine or trazodone, talk to your vet before adding anything; we cover the interaction data in CBD and your dog's medications.
For mild cases, ahead of a predictable departure
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What Not to Do
- Do not punish anything you find when you get home. The dog cannot connect it to an event hours ago; all they learn is that your return is frightening too, which makes the next absence worse.
- Do not get a second dog to fix it. True separation anxiety is attachment to you, and a second dog rarely helps. (If it does, you had isolation distress, which is good news.)
- Do not "flood" the dog by leaving them for a full day to get it over with. Panic that goes on for hours sensitises the dog; it does not teach them it is fine.
- Do not rely on a bark collar. It suppresses the symptom and raises the fear.
- Do not skip the vet check in a dog over seven or one whose behaviour changed suddenly.
When to Get Help
Call your vet this week if:
- Your dog has injured themselves trying to escape, or damaged doors or windows
- The video shows panic within the first ten minutes
- They will not eat when alone, even a favourite treat
- Neighbours report howling for most of your absence
- The behaviour appeared suddenly in an adult or older dog
- You have tried a graduated plan for a month with no progress
Ask about referral to a board-certified veterinary behaviourist or a certified applied animal behaviourist; the Merck Veterinary Manual's overview of canine behaviour problems describes how they approach it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I help my dog with separation anxiety?
Film the first thirty minutes alone to confirm it is anxiety rather than boredom or a noise fear, rule out medical causes with your vet, then run a graduated departure plan: defuse the keys-and-coat cues, start with absences of a few seconds behind an inside door, build in small steps to 40 minutes and then to 90, and do not leave the dog alone outside training while you do it. Add 30 minutes of exercise before departures and a food toy as you go. Moderate and severe cases usually need a licensed medication underneath the plan.
What is the 3-3-3 rule for dog anxiety?
A shelter rule of thumb for newly adopted dogs: about three days to decompress, three weeks to learn the household routine, and three months to feel at home. It is a reason not to judge a rescue dog's clinginess in the first fortnight. It is not a treatment, and a dog still panicking when left at three months needs a desensitisation plan.
Does dog separation anxiety go away on its own?
Rarely, and it tends to get worse without a plan, because every panicked absence rehearses the panic. Mild cases in young dogs can improve as routine settles and exercise increases. Moderate and severe cases need structured desensitisation, usually with medication, and with that most dogs improve substantially over weeks to months.
Is it cruel to leave a dog with separation anxiety?
Leaving a dog in genuine panic for hours is harmful, which is why the protocol asks you not to leave them alone outside training sessions while you work on it. Leaving a dog who has been taught, in steps, that absences end is not cruel; it is the goal. In the meantime daycare, a sitter or a relative bridges the gap.
How do I know if my dog has separation anxiety?
The signs are distress that starts as you prepare to leave and peaks in the first half hour: howling or barking, pacing, drooling, chewing or scratching at doors and windows, toileting indoors in a dog who is otherwise clean, and refusing food. The confirming test is a camera. A dog who settles for an hour and then chews a shoe is bored; a dog who is fine with any other person present has isolation distress rather than attachment to you.
Should I crate a dog with separation anxiety?
Only if the dog already treats the crate as a safe den. If the video shows heavy panting, drooling, frantic digging or biting at the bars, or the crate moved across the floor, crating is making it worse and can injure the dog. A dog-proofed room behind a baby gate with the crate open inside it is the usual alternative.
Why does my dog have separation anxiety when only one person leaves?
That is hyper-attachment to one person rather than fear of being alone. The work is on the relationship: the attachment person does fewer of the walks, meals and games and the rest of the household does more, the dog learns to settle on a mat at a distance from that person while they are home, and the person practises short, boring departures while someone else is present.
What can I give my dog for separation anxiety?
For moderate and severe cases, the two drugs licensed for it are fluoxetine (Reconcile) and clomipramine (Clomicalm), daily and alongside a behaviour plan, with trazodone sometimes used situationally. Over-the-counter options, including hemp, only have a place in mild cases and as a small part of the plan, given ahead of a predictable departure; none of them treat true separation anxiety on their own.
How long does it take to fix separation anxiety in a dog?
With a graduated plan run several times a day, the ASPCA puts mild to moderate cases at a few weeks. Severe cases, and dogs who need medication to reach full effect first, take months. The biggest predictor of success is whether the dog is kept from unplanned panicked absences while the plan runs.
The Short Version
Film the first thirty minutes. If the dog panics early and works the exits, it is separation anxiety; if they nap and then chew, it is boredom; if they are fine with anyone home, it is isolation distress; if it only happens on some days, check the weather. Then: vet check, defuse the departure cues, absences measured in seconds building to 90 minutes, no unplanned absences while you work, exercise before you go, and a licensed medication underneath it for anything beyond mild.
A calming supplement is a small part of a mild case, given ahead of the departure. It is not the plan.
Shop Calming Support → All Hemp for Dogs
What Can You Give a Dog for Anxiety · Hemp for Dog Anxiety · Calming Treat Ingredients, Graded · Why Does My Dog Follow Me Everywhere · Why Is My Dog Whining · Night-Time Restlessness · Serving by Weight
Marc co-founded HempMy Pet in 2016 with his business partner Natalie Mondine, the company's COO. HempMy Pet breeds its own hemp genetics, grows them on its certified-organic Colorado farm, and formulates every batch in-house under human-grade standards — seed to sale, nothing sourced overseas. Every batch is third-party tested and the certificates of analysis are published. More about us.
HempMy Pet ran its own 90-day study of 37 dogs with chronic joint discomfort. Of the 32 that completed it, 30 (93%) showed a benefit, and 94% of owners reported their dog's quality of life had improved. It was overseen by Dr. Robin Downing, DVM, MS of the Downing Center for Animal Pain Management, with Lori Kogan, Ph.D. and Peter W. Hellyer, DVM of Colorado State University's College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, and published in the Journal of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association. Read the methodology.
Why Dr. Downing: in 2005 she became only the third veterinarian in the world credentialed as a Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management. She founded the International Veterinary Academy of Pain Management, is a Diplomate of the ACVSMR, a Certified Veterinary Pain Practitioner and a Certified Canine Rehabilitation Practitioner, and was the AVMA's 2020 Bustad Companion Animal Veterinarian of the Year. Chronic joint pain is her life's work. Read the published paper (PDF).
This article is general information for dog owners, not veterinary advice. It is reviewed and updated as new peer-reviewed evidence is published, and where the evidence is thin or negative we say so.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This article is general information, not veterinary advice. If your dog is unwell, contact your veterinarian.
