Dog Toys to Help with Separation Anxiety

For some reason, Duke has had some issues with what I think is separation anxiety. He is doing things he has never done in the past- getting into garbages and going to the bathroom in the house. While these things are not the end of the world, I wonder- what happened to my dog?

The more I thought about it the more I thought that maybe it is a form of separation anxiety. That instead of eating the carpet or destroying the table, he was destroying and eating the garbage. It seems to be the worst right when we leave -I once took a shower and didn't let him into the adjoining room, and he got into the garbage- and then it it over.

So what I thought is that I needed something (and something good) to distract him for the first 5 minutes when I leave. He is not a big chewer, so bully sticks, himalayan chews, deer antler chews, etc where not going to work. I have down the kong filled with frozen peanut butter before, but I usually forgot to fill it back up and the soft peanut butter wasn't going to work. So I was stuck. I thought about giving him a Nina Ottosson dog toy, but since he really isn't into a lot of dog treats and food, I wasn't sure if that was going to work.

I decided that I had to try once since there wasn't much else I could do. I finally brought one home and set it up. Of course I had to put really good treats in there. The first time I gave it to him, he looked at it, smelled it, licked it a few times and went to go find his ball. I thought, see I knew he wouldn't like it. But then Jax thought it was pretty neat and started using it, of course then Duke thought it was pretty neat and was able to get it to work after a few times.

Well, not after many uses, it seems to have done its job. When I left his morning, instead of trying to stop me from getting out of the dog and freaking out that I was leaving him behind, he was upstairs trying to get the treats out of the toy. So HOPEFULLY, this will be it. He can forget that I am leaving, get his treats, and then lay down and relax.

So, if you are looking for dog toys to help withe separation anxiety, I would highly recommend the Nina Ottosson Dog Toys.