One night I came home from work to find our house in disarray. The pungent scent of urine filled the air. Pillows were scattered everywhere, their stuffing torn out. Vases and other knickknacks were reduced to mere shards of porcelain and glass. Some of my books were ripped to shreds. At first I thought that my apartment had been burglarized but I realized that the burglars couldn’t have missed seeing the flat screen television, DVD player and speakers prominently displayed in the living room. The one thing missing was my dog, a large Labrador retriever named Bob. I worriedly searched the rest of the apartment and found nothing else amiss. Upon entering my bedroom, I found Bob under the bed chewing one of my shoes. If that wasn’t bad enough, I saw a pile of dog stool right on my pillow. As I scolded him for making a mess, I wondered why a normally well-behaved dog like Bob could make such a mess. That’s when I learned about pet separation anxiety.
Pet separation anxiety manifests itself in different ways. They can be destructive, as Bob was, or choose to disturb your neighbors with a fit of loud barking and whining. They may also spread their stool and...