Dogs are pack animals, meaning they are social animals, for thousands of years already. They get their first taste of separation anxiety when they are separated from their mother as puppies. New puppy owners therefore need to take in stride a puppy's restless pacing and yowling in its first few nights in its new home. In the dog's adult years, problems may arise as a result of the dog getting attached strongly in a dependent way on one person. The trigger for all this is when the dog is left alone more often, or at different times, than the dog is used to. Naturally, it is Jack Russell Training that can help out here.

Indeed, there are a variety of remedies to alleviate, if not dispel, separation anxiety. These include taking the dog on quick walks daily, obedience training, and conditioning the dog to unexpected comings and goings.

But what if what is being done is actually not helping the dog at all? Examples of what do not work are:

• Punishment. First of all, corporal punishment already belongs to the set of antediluvian techniques best forgotten. Dogs simply put can't make heads or tails over the link between making a mess and getting punishment after doing it. It is also next to impossible getting them to understand that if they do not make a mess, they won't get punished. Sure, the dog may appear "guilty" when the owner pulls a face before a mess, but what it can only grasp is that you being near a mess spells trouble.

• Getting an animal companion for the dog so it does not get lonely. Actually this does not work, since the excessively tight bonding happens between owner and dog, not between another animal and the dog. So this means getting the dog some animal company may have little to no dent at all at the distress it feels when the owner disappears from sight.

Tying the dog next to the ruined piece of furniture, applying hot sauce on the furniture, MAY have positive effects, but the dog's tension will only get transferred elsewhere.

To be fair to the dog, and what years of Jack Russell Training tells us is that it is not out of ill intent that the dog throws a tantrum for being left behind, or out of boredom nor disobedience. All owners simply need to realize that the greater the damage at home caused by an anxious dog, the greater the dog's feeling of vulnerability, and-or insecurity. The dog clearly had an irrepressible need to unburden itself of tension, and the damage shows just how desperate the need was.