Hi all
We got our boy almost 18 months ago now. He was first our foster for a few months before we officially adopted him in April of last year. He's 5 years old now and an ex racer from Ireland.
He's just about a perfect dog in almost every way. He's calm and confident but sweet and affectionate. He walks nice on a leash, is not reactive to other dogs, doesn't jump on furniture or countersurf, and is overall just a wonderful guy.
The one major issue is with separation anxiety. My partner and I both work from home and so he still hasn't gotten comfortable with being left alone. We've been working on it for over a year now following Julie Naismith's Be Right Back program but it doesn't feel like we're making any real progress.
We've put in the work and have done hundreds of training sessions. We've gotten up to about 30 or so minutes at our peak but he's regressed quite a lot and we're back to about a minute before he starts getting anxious.
I'm starting to think he will never be able to be left alone which is very disappointing. He's very confident in just about everything else in his life except for this.
Has anyone had any breakthroughs after working on this for awhile?
Are there any other training programs you've tried that you've had success with? Be Right Back doesn't seem to be working for us.