If your dog does not like being left alone and starts barking, whining or howling then it could be that they are displaying a symptom called “separation anxiety”.

A new study from Bristol University has shown that scratching the door, destructive behaviour and even “toileting” can be manifestations of a pessimistic dog. This may not be as “barking” as it first sounds.
Like humans it seems that some dogs can have a more optimistic look on life whilst others have a negative attitude. Scientists know that happy and positive people are more likely to view a vague situation more as a positive challenge… Well it would appear that this may be the same for some dogs!
Dogs that become nervous or restless when on their own can show a tendency to also view vague situations pessimistically as well and this may be reflected as a negative or disturbing condition.

To test a dog’s predisposition towards being either optimistic or pessimistic the team of researchers at Bristol took a group of 24 dogs (12 male and 12 females) from two different locations in the UK and carried out two tests which used dog food bowls placed in a variety of places within a test room.
The dogs where kept at the back a screen and then let into the room which had either an empty dog food bowl in the farthest left of the room and another food bowl with food in it that was on the far right side of the room.

Once some of the dogs had learned to associate that an empty dog food bowl was on the left side of the room and that the bowl on the right was full of dog food, the team switched the bowls round. At the same time some of the dogs had the bowls reversed, with the full dog food bowl on the left and the empty one on the right.
Now that each of the dogs knew where their respective “full” dog food bowl was and on which side of the room it was the team moved the bowls to vague positions in the centre of the room and timed how fast each of the dogs ran to the new vague positions of the bowls.
The rationale of this trial was to examine how a dog responds to a reward (food) placed in a now vague location and to measure if they ran faster to seek out this positive reward which would indicate an “optimistic” reaction to a vague situation, or more slowly indicating a lower expectation of the reward or a more “pessimistic” attitude.
Well it would appear that some of the dogs where more optimistic and showed a far more positive attitude to life and ran quickly towards the vaguely placed bowls in the centre of the room.

Ok, so we know some dogs can be more optimistic and see the dog food bowl as half full but how can this explain why some dogs become anxious even destructive when being left alone?

Well during the trials the team also scored the dogs on how they acted whilst being left alone after human contact and it was revealed that the pessimistic dogs also displayed the greater separation anxiety effects such as scratching at the door, barking, whining even howling.

Does your dog see the dog food bowl as half empty or half full and show any of the symptoms of separation anxiety or is this a “barking” mad? Leave your comments below…

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