It is not just humans who will suffer from tomorrow morning’s return to work. Research shows that a dog left alone at home can become as traumatised from the experience as a young child.
A new study of man’s best friend suggests that the daily rat race is intense enough to put a pooch on the psychiatrist’s couch.
John Bradshaw, director of the Anthrozoology Institute at Bristol University, who has spent 25 years studying the behaviour of our pets, estimates that 1.5m dogs in Britain suffer from a Home Alone syndrome known as separation distress.
Many dog owners believe that once they close the front door to go to work in the morning, their pet stretches out on the sofa or raids the rubbish bin for leftover food.
Bradshaw and his researchers found a different picture after placing video cameras in the homes of 20 dog owners who all believed their pet was content to be left. The footage showed some of the dogs pacing in circles around the doormat, panting heavily and whining. It was such a traumatic experience for one dog it had to be sent for a consultation with an animal psychologist.
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In another study the scientists followed the development of seven litters of labrador retrievers and five sets of border collie puppies. More than half the labradors and almost half the collies showed symptoms of separation distress lasting more than a month, peaking at about one year of age.
“Such numbers suggest a real and ongoing crisis for dogs,” says Bradshaw, who describes the experiments in his book, In Defence of Dogs, to be published this month.
He says Bruno, his own black labrador, was just as bad, chewing up his bed, furniture and even the wallpaper when left alone. Rarer results of separation distress include self-mutilation.
However, smacking your pet on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper on returning home to discover the damage is counter-productive because the dog will not know what it is for.
Dogs cannot associate being punished with something they did even a few minutes before.
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“They have a different kind of memory,” Bradshaw said. “They are not good at thinking backwards and forwards in time. They can remember their litter mates years afterwards when they meet again, but they are not good at reasoning. They cannot think back and realise what they did an hour ago is the reason their owner is cross with them.”
Indeed dogs often see punishment as a means of getting attention.
They have a similar reaction to laughter in the house. The first embarrassing “hump” on an owner’s leg may start as play rather than sexual behaviour. But it will be repeated if it is greeted with amusement, subsequently extended to visitors to even greater embarrassment.
Bradshaw believes dogs have a better understanding of humans than other species, including chimpanzees. They have a range of different “settings” for handling their owners, relating to other dogs, befriending the family cat and dealing with small children.
He says dogs are capable of grieving and can sense who in the family likes them best, showing this by watching, following or lying down facing them the most.
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Victoria Stilwell, a former actress from Wimbledon in southwest London who has become an animal behaviour counsellor in America with a television series, It’s Me or the Dog, agrees, saying: “We mustn’t devalue the capacity that animals have to feel. We should give them the benefit of the doubt.”
Bradshaw argues that for centuries man has wrongly assumed the dog is a domestic version of the wolf that our ancestors one day invited to sit by the fire.
The DNA of dogs and wolves is almost identical, but they are different.
The “wolf pack” mentality has meant dog trainers teach pet owners to assert their dominance over their animal.
However, this is now seen as outdated because it came from studies of unrelated wolves put together in zoos where they had to compete to be top dog. In the wild, wolves live in family groups and are rarely aggressive to one another.
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Bradshaw’s remedy for the home-alone dog? Train it to believe that seeing the master or mistress going out will have a positive outcome by returning at short intervals to give it a treat or a rub behind the ears. The intervals gradually get longer until the dog can be left all day.