welcome sadie

well, we finally got a new dog. i wanted a cute little puppy - we got a gigantic german shepherd that's full grown (i hope)! her name is sadie and she is a great dog...when I am home with her! she's sweet, rarely barks, is housebroken and walks well on a leash. she loves the girls and they love her! when the girls go to bed, sadie lays at the foot of my little one's bed. she follows me EVERYWHERE (like i really need someone else to follow me around all day)!

those are her good qualities - now for the bad stuff! she suffers from major separation anxiety! when i leave the house (even for just a short time), she howls, scratches the door, tears stuff up (fence, trampoline, etc) and gets out of the backyard! the first two days we had her, she tore the bottom of the pickets off of the fence to get under it and get out. saturday night we went out to dinner and a movie and put her in the backyard. we put her on a 25 foot leash (so she couldn't get out of the yard) and we left her on the back porch with food, water and rawhides. when we came home she had pulled the table and chairs off of the porch, ripped off and tore the window screen and chewed up the door frame! everytime she comes back in the house (even if she's just been outside for a few minutes) she gets way too excited and jumps up, paws at you and rolls around like crazy (this is also another sign of separation anxiety)! i don't know if she was abused by a man when she was younger but she is terrified of all men that come to our house! it doesn't help her case any that she won't go near my husband! he was the one that wanted her the most and i think he would have more patience and be more willing to work through all of these problems if sadie would at least have something to do with him!

the biggest problem is i know that she is probably this way because she has had so much instability in her short life and i don't want to contribute to that but i also don't know if we can handle it. i have been reading all about separation anxiety and trying to do everything that is recommended but unfortunately there is no "magic switch" to flip and it just takes time to make her feel secure - and i don't know how much more time we can give her!