3 months of working on Cooper's separation anxiety and we finally turned a corner

wanted to share this because when i was in the thick of it i couldnt find many posts about what actually worked. Cooper is a 4-year-old rescue lab mix and when we first got him 8 months ago, we couldn't leave for more than 20 minutes without coming home to destroyed furniture and neighbors texting us.

the vet suggested a behaviorist ($150/session, ouch) and we did 4 sessions total. the main thing that changed everything was desensitization - basically practicing leaving for 30 SECONDS, coming back, doing it again. it felt ridiculous but it worked. we worked up to 2 hours over about 6 weeks. we also got an Adaptil diffuser ($35/month) which honestly i was skeptical about but it seemed to take the edge off.

the thing nobody tells you is that it's not linear. week 4 felt like we'd gone backward and i almost gave up. but then week 7 it just clicked. Cooper can now handle a full 8 hour workday alone with just his food puzzle and a worn shirt of mine. if anyone is going through this i'm happy to answer questions - it's genuinely one of the hardest things we've dealt with as dog owners