u/Eline87

It turned in a very long story. Sorry:

In short: main question is how to train separation anxiety after a holiday when before my dog was fine for up to 6 hours being alone.

Our dog will turn 3 in May. We adopted her from Romania when she was 6 months old and mainly focused on building her confidence. In the beginning, we gradually trained her to stay home alone, and after about 5–6 months she was doing very well for 4–6 hours. Most days, though, she is alone for no more than 3 hours.

We have relatively few close friends and family nearby. Unfortunately, even after 3.5 years living here, that is still somewhat the case. Because of this, she is not really used to staying with other people. Since my husband’s family lives on the other side of the ocean, we still try to visit them once every two years. In the year before our flight, we took her to stay with my parents 7 times (a 9-hour drive away) for periods ranging from 4 to 20 nights, sometimes while we were away for a night ourselves.

During our vacation in February, she stayed there for 10 days. Even though everything seemed fine, she appears to have developed a form of separation anxiety afterward. We use a webcam when we leave the house, and instead of relaxing on the couch or in her bed, she now stays in a waiting mode. She either lies with her head on her paws or keeps her head up alert, listening for us to come back. Sometimes she just sits there the entire time.

Before the vacation, we always gave her a snack when we left, but now she only eats it once we return. She does not make any noise, but she is clearly restless. Leaving her in the car is not an option in summer when I’m working. Right now it works and she stays calm there, but my workplace is too busy for her for more than 2 hours (many people, loud music).

What can we do about this now? There is no difference between being gone for 5 minutes or 4 hours, by the way.