Your dog isn’t being dramatic.
They’re panicking.
It comes down to one number: how long your dog can be alone before distress starts. Find that number, train just below it, move it. Five minutes a day for seven days.
Built on published veterinary behaviour research, not opinion — see our references and how we test products.
SOURCE → Salonen et al. (2020), Scientific Reports 10:2962 — 13,700 pet dogs. VERIFY AGAINST THE PAPER BEFORE PUBLISHING.
Three days to a number. Seven to move it.
Everyone else hands you forty lessons. This is one mission a day, and one rule you don’t break between them.
Find the number
Camera on. Leave, and return the moment the first stress signal appears. That’s your real threshold, not the one you assumed.
Train below it
One absence a day, deliberately shorter than the threshold. Your dog never rehearses panic. One variable at a time.
Move the number
Re-test, then add the real cues — keys, shoes, the door. Then you keep going with the weekly plan.
Never exceed the threshold between sessions.
Not for the shops. Not for ten minutes. Every panic episode undoes days of work — and it’s the single reason most owners plateau. Other programmes bury this on page sixty. We put it on day three.
Start where your dog actually is
Anxiety isn’t one condition. Five problems, five protocols, and the fix is different for each.
Separation anxiety
Barking, destruction and toileting the moment you leave. Threshold training and departure cues.
Noise & storm fear
The most common canine anxiety of all. Fireworks, thunder, bin lorries — and what actually helps.
Fear, confidence & rescue
Decompression, shutdown and reactivity. Counter-conditioning in plain English.
Crate & confinement
Confinement anxiety is its own problem — and crating an anxious dog often makes it worse.
Breeds & anxiety
Fearfulness varies up to eighteen-fold between breeds. What the research says about yours.
7 Days to Your Dog’s Number
One five-minute mission a day. A printable log. No cost, no upsell wall, no forty-lesson course.
The only kit the protocol needs
You can’t train a threshold you can’t see. Everything past the camera is optional, and we say so.
Furbo 360° Dog Camera
Non-negotiable for this protocol. Without eyes on your dog you’re guessing at the threshold, and guessing is what causes setbacks. Check which alert features need the paid subscription before you buy.
VERDICT → Buy once. Highest-value purchase in the process. Just starting? A phone propped on a shelf works fine for week one.
Calming vests and supplements
Neither fixes separation anxiety. For some dogs they take the edge off enough to make training possible. For others they do nothing at all.
VERDICT → Only alongside the protocol, never instead of it. Ask your vet first.
Some links earn us a commission. It never changes what we recommend, and nothing enters the kit list unless the protocol calls for it.
Breeds & anxiety index
Built on a peer-reviewed study of 13,700 pet dogs. Filter by the trait you’re dealing with.
▲ Placeholder values — populate from the study before promoting this page.
7 Days to Your Dog’s Number
One email each morning. One five-minute mission. A printable threshold log. By day seven you’ll know your dog’s real number — and have moved it.
04 FIRST ABSENCE05 CUES06 SETBACKS07 RE-TEST