It's Dog Show Time Again!....Crufts 6-9 March....What if your dog hates being left?

Well it's Crufts this week.....time to head down to the NEC near Birmingham.

I love going and will probably be there on Sunday because that's Hound and Terrier day.

I will, of course, be leaving my dogs behind. You can't take your dogs into Crufts unless you're showing. There is no shade in the car parks, and it wouldn't be fair to keep them shut in the car for hours anyway.

So what if your dog doesn't like being left?

Separation anxiety can sometimes be dealt with quite easily.

Tips to try are:

- Leave the house without doing anything special with your dog, e.g. don't fuss it or give a treat. Wait 5 minutes and then go back in and ignore your dog. The message is : leaving and coming back is no big deal. Then increase the time gone over the next few days or weeks.

- Put the radio on. The charity Dogs Trust has done research on this. Pop music and the human voice are broadly neutral. Classical music has a calming effect. Heavy metal drives them wild! So tune into ClassicFM. Leave the volume low - dogs have much more sensitive hearing than people. I do this with mine. We also used to do this at the rescue with good results. It is also useful when fireworks are going off.

- Rescue Remedy can help. Put a few drops on the tongue before you go. It is one of the Bach Flower Remedies and can be bought over the counter at your chemist (or on the internet).

Your vet can prescribe drugs, but why dope your dog up?

You could always ask a friend or good neighbour to pop in a few times.

Let me know if you've got or had a dog with seperation anxiety and what you found helped with the problem.

Cheers for now , Ti