Hi,
Our 5 month old pup (whippet x saluki x deerhound) is coming on in lots of ways now, but one thing that we have not had much improvement in at all is leaving her on her own. She sleeps downstairs in the kitchen at night, but with our other dog for company and since both me and my husband work from home she sees a lot of us each day.

However if Teasel's not around and we shut Millie in the kitchen and leave her on her own (if she's not asleep that is), she'll immediately start a major panic with howls and moans and (very often) wees and poops on the floor. If we leave her in the kitchen but walk upstairs leaving the doors open (for example), she won't necessarily follow straight away (so she's not obsessively clingy), and doesn't panic. It's being shut in on her own that really freaks her out. I think her mother (a rescue) did have sep. anxiety too. Is this learned behaviour or genetic? Is it a case of leaving her alone for very short periods of time and building this up? Since there are bound to be times in future when we'll need her to spend time on her own.

We have noticed that she does love human company more than our other dog - when she's asleep, she likes to be close to you etc. if possible.

Look forward to hearing if anyone has advice on this.

Thanks!
Best, Sarah

I think a crate might be a good idea in your situation.  Not for toilet training or destruction purposes this time, but because a crate is a great way to begin to get a dog used to being separate from you.  Eg - at first you would introduce the crate as a nice place to be (see link below) and then you would get her used to being shut in the crate while you are in the room - so she can still see you but she can't follow you everywhere.  When you've got to that stage, then you would go out of the room for 1 second and return, and slowly build that up. 

Have a look here:

http://www.ddfl.org/behavior/crate-train.pdf

http://www.clickersolutions.com/articles/2002/sa.htm

Hi onetwothree - thanks for your suggestion. We do have a crate, so I will see if we can make progress. The links you gave me are very useful - wish I'd seen them a couple of months ago!!
Best wishes, Sarah

adding onto the great advice by onetwothree, i would like to say that when you are at the stage of leaving alone, that you dont make a big thing of it when you leave or return and that you dont come back in and dont let her out unless she is quiet, so that she learns 1) that you leaving is nothing major and that 2) you wont come back if she screams the place down, being quiet and waiting patiently brings you back
hope that makes sense and also helps
melanie

have you tried leaving her a bit at a time for her to get use to it