AD | When some of us have to head back into a more office-based role (as opposed to home working, or even hybrid working), it’s only natural that this may cause upset to our pets. And supporting anxious pets is something that we may not have thought about. After all, many of our dogs and cats will have enjoyed extra human companionship (that we’re sure they’re very grateful for!). So a change in this routine can trigger behavioural problems in our furry friends.
Supporting anxious pets through change
I’ve been a remote worker for the better part of 12 years, and our cats, Spooky and Ginger, are well used to me being around all day. But if that’s not the case for you, the good news is, there are a number of ways you can help your pet to feel calmer during periods of change and upset. If you’re heading back to work and experiencing a shake-up of your routine, here are some top tips for making that transition easier for your pets…
Try natural calming products
Natural calming products such as room sprays and liquids may help to aid your pet’s anxiety and nervousness. Natural pet supplement brand, Broadreach Nature, have designed a special Calming range for both dogs and cats that works to reassure and calm your pet.
Their Calming Room Spray for dogs has been formulated with a special blend of extracts to stimulate canine pheromones. And it can be used in all types of situations which may trigger anxiety, such as: separation, travel, vet appointments and fireworks.
Fellow cat owners, you’ll be glad to know our feline friends are covered too. The Broadreach Nature Calm Care Sprinkles are suitable for both dogs and cats, and have been created to support stress and worry related issues. Featuring a palatable feline-friendly salmon flavour, you can simply drop this in your cats’ meals twice daily. Formulated by vets, it’s also blended with natural ingredients including Ashwagandha extract, known for its calming properties.
Seek support from neighbours
If you’re at work for a full day, it’s important that a lunch time drop in is arranged for your dog. Although cats tend to be fine left to their own devices for a little longer. To be honest, they’ll probably just sleep all day! But it’s worth seeking help from a neighbour or close friend/family member to ensure your dog receives a visit or two during the day. If they don’t feel totally alone then this will go a long way towards helping them feel reassured and relaxed.
Take it step by step
You might find it’s a good idea to introduce a change of routine gradually, rather than an overnight switch which could cause anxiety in your pet. Try leaving them on their own for short periods of time with their favourite toy and/or comfort blanket. Then gradually build up to a few hours, so that they get used to being alone in the house again. Or give them interactive toys with treats inside and delicious meaty chews to keep them happily busy while you’re away.
Small, high-value rewards, such as the freeze-dried minnows from Fresh Is Best available here, can make these sessions more appealing.
Make the change positive for them, so they learn to adjust to it in healthy ways. But do remember that dogs should never be left alone for more than four hours. Top tip: remember to keep your voice calm and try to avoid creating too much excitement when you return! Your pet needs to remember and understand that being by themselves is OK.
Keep the radio on
Small distractions such as the sound of the TV or radio may help to provide your pet a little comfort while you are away. (We always do this whenever Bonfire Night comes around, and I’m sure it helps our cats). Because silence can feel unsettling, and your dog or cat may find this low noise soothing, while it helps them to adjust to a new daily routine and separation from you.
Are your pets affected by a change in routine? Do they suffer any nervousness or anxiety? Have you got any top tips to share for supporting anxious pets?
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I have a nervous cat, and we have builders in the house at this very moment – she is currently hiding under my bed! She gets frightened by fireworks too. We have used the calming sprays before but it was hard to tell whether they had any effect. I might try putting the radio or some gentle music on! Thank you for this guide.
Ah, your poor girl, having builders in is sooooo stressful for animals 🙁 I’m sure something like Classic FM would help – a mix of gentle music and voices. Hope she’ll be OK and your building works are finished soon.
Love this! Animals have feelings just like we do, I’m sure our Guinea Pig is depressed after out other one died. She’s also fell out with my partner, as she took the other one out of the cage and to the vet, never to return.
Thank you, and yes, they do! Oh, I’m sorry to hear about your guinea pig – and I’m sure you’re right, she would definitely remember that your partner took her companion away!
I’m getting a puppy this week so am reading as much as possible about pets. This was a really helpful post with lots of great tips to consider!
Oh yay, how exciting! And thank you, I hope this was useful for you :_
BB-8 has my Alexa on while I’m out and she loves it!
Love, Amie ❤️
The Curvaceous Vegan
She’s a lucky girl! x
Great post! Thank you for sharing! I have two guinea pigs and they can get anxious sometimes and I give them some treats to calm them down.
You’re welcome, and yes, treats are always a good one to take their minds off stress 🙂
Really great tips, Lisa. Luckily, Rory isn’t a particularly nervous pet. He doesn’t care about loud noises or anything and doesn’t even FLINCH when a firework goes off haha! When he was a pup he would howl quite a bit if he was home alone. We would always leave the radio on and my neighbour would pop in once or twice. He’s fine being alone now though – think he probably relishes it, especially with everyone being in the house all the time in lockdown!
Thank you, Jenny, and that’s so good to hear how chilled Rory is, not even fireworks bother him, wow! I know what you mean about relishing some alone time though, haha, I’m sure our cats would love that too! x
Happily, like you, I work from home and so does my husband, so for our dog, very little changed. Without lockdown and coronavirus, I would have taken him to the beach or on a long walk on the moors, but we are not going to do that, as these places are very busy.
It can be difficult for them to return to what it was before, that is true.
That’s good to hear about your dog but it’s a shame your usual walks are too crowded now. Hopefully that will change soon.
These are helpful tips for those who work and have pets at home. I’m lucky that I am able to work from home. So, I’m here for our dog and bunny. Although our bunny would be fine.
Thank you, I’m glad they were helpful – and good to hear your bunny is so chilled!
My husband has been working from home since March. I worked from home for 2 months and am back, but he might not even come back until September. Our dogs are in pure bliss. We don’t know what we’re going to do when he has to go back, especially because one of them has separation anxiety. These are great tips!
Your dogs sound so happy! I hope they won’t be too stressed when he goes back – perhaps he might go back part-time or spend some time working at home? Fingers crossed, but I’m glad these tips were helpful!
I know for a fact our older cat is quite nervous. We’ve tried various things with her and although some of them worked, the only thing that really helped was patience and time.
There’s a reason they say time is a healer – your cat sounds lovely though 🙂
This is such a helpful post for pet owners! A calming spray sounds really effective x
https://www.femaleoriginal.com
They can be, or a plug in diffuser is really good too. x
I work from home too, so nothing has really changed for my dog, but he can be quite nervous so this is so useful. We try to leave something on for noise when we have to leave, but we’ve found that once we actually leave he’s fine and just sleeps all the way through until someone gets home again. Taking it step by step is great too, better to get them used to it that way xx
Hannah | https://luxuryblush.co.uk/
Friends of ours do that for their dog too and it really seems to help. I think being shut in all day is stressful for them – cats tend to go out anyway and sleep for 2/3 of their day as well! xx
I love that you have shared your thoughts on the anxiety our pets can face! To be honest, since we live out on four acres of land, our lives have not been affected as much as people living in apartments, so I love that this post made me think about realities that are not my own.
My old cat, Meow, used to love a good nip in the catnip patch, but these calming sprays sound fantastic. 🙂
Thank you, Jaya. We don’t have 4 acres but we do live in the country so we’re lucky too. And I think a lot of calming sprays do have a catnip base so Meow was onto something! 🙂
When I moved homes 2 years back my cat became TERRIFIED of everything. He’s a little better now since we introduced some calming spray around the house. He still isn’t keen on people he doesn’t know, especially males as he associates them with loud building work. It’s good to read some extra tips that I haven’t tried yet so thank you!
Cats are so territorial, I’ve often read that they’d prefer to stay where they are as they become attached to territory rather than people. I’m not sure how true that is but it’s something to think about 🙂
This is such a helpful post! We recently took our cat with us on vacation and he got very stressed over the drive. I will have to implement these tips for when we travel with him again to make it easier on him. Thanks for sharing!
Ah, cats don’t do travel very well, do they?! I’m glad this was helpful for the future 🙂
Love this so much!! Pets can have such bad anxiety so great tips to support them!
Thank you, I’m so glad it was helpful 🙂
Never thought to keep the radio on – great tip!
Glad it was helpful!
Really useful post thank you, Lisa. We don’t have any pets at the moment, because I feel our life has been changing quite a bit over the last few years and it worried me about how a pet would cope. We are hoping to get a dog in the next few months, so I will have to remember some of these tips! x
Helen
Thank you, Helen, and how exciting to be getting a dog in the near future. I hope these tips will help you then! x
I’d never heard of calming products like those before. Thanks for sharing! It’s so hard to leave the house when you know your pet is stressed. Appreciate the tips!
We’ve used calming products for our cats on and off for years, depending on when the situation called for it (moving house, another aggressive cat) and they work really well!
Hugo doesn’t mind being left alone too much, he usually sleeps the whole time. But he does start to act up a bit if we’ve had a few days in a row where we’ve been out a lot more than usual (not that that’s happening at the minute). And he’s always a bit more clingy if we’ve been out a couple of nights in a row, but my grandparents only live 5 minutes walk away so he always has someone come over to spend time with him if we’re out for more than a couple of hours. He HATES fireworks though, nothing really works to soothe him other than close contact and cuddles. If one goes off when he’s in a room by himself I’ll find him cowering under the dining room table when I go to check on him. We had a dog when I was younger that used to get bad separation anxiety and we got all of the sprays and stuff for him x
Sophie
It sounds like Hugo has some very feline traits! But that’s good that your grandparents live so close by, especially when fireworks are being let off (which seems to be more and more frequently these days). Glad you’re all stocked up for him if any anxiety kicks in then! x
I have a very anxious Shar-Pei prone to frequent Shar-pei fever episodes, so this is a very helpful post to have on hand in addition to the techniques that I use.
Thank you for sharing!!
Oh that’s wonderful, I hope some of these additional tips will be useful for your lovely Shar-Pei!
We have 2 cats. Both completely different in character. One who will happily saunter off outdoors for the day and in to sleep at evening time where as our other cat. She’ll only to out for a short time late at night, she will hide if we have visitors and seems nervous and shy. I wonder if these may help calm her nerves being around new people.
It’s very possible that they could help – and you could try a plug-in diffuser too, if spraying your visitors isn’t to your/their taste!
Really interesting. We had a super skittish rabbit. Over time he got calmer particularly around us but there are some great tips here!
Thank you – the cat spray might be OK for rabbits too but maybe best to check with the manufacturer to be sure!
I adopted a rabbit during the shutdown, and she is loving our home. She gets to free roam and is just so happy. We do leave her alone for periods however, and she has done very well. She’s always happy to see us when we get up first thing or come back after a couple hours out. I’m hoping she’ll just as good when we go back to work full time.
Ah, she sounds so cute and very well adjusted and happy. Lucky you – although she might like some gentle music in the background when you do go back to work full time 🙂
I don’t have any pets Lisa, but these tips sound nice. Some sound is always calming and keeping radio/tv on is such a great idea. 🙂
You can’t beat some soothing background music or low voices, can you? 🙂
We keep our TV on for our pups when we have to go out, it stops them getting as agitated. They tend to curl up and sleep. Great tips 🙂
Cora | https://www.teapartyprincess.co.uk/
Ah, bless them! Yes, I think it’s very helpful for dogs in particular – thank you!
I’ve used diffusers before and found them really helpful for my felines
They’re great, aren’t they? 🙂
These are some really great tips. I’ve been lucky that my dog hasn’t really been that anxious in the past but I do always leave the radio on for her.
Thank you – and yes, leaving the radio on does seem to work wonders for pets on their own, doesn’t it?
This is a great post, Lisa! Since our pets are our family, when they’re upset, we’re upset. It’s awful to see them so nervous, afraid, and not know what to do for them. It must be terribly hard on them, not being able to get us silly (and apparently dense!) hoomans to understand what’s wrong! 😉
Our Dizzy is a very nervous kitty because of her terrible start to life. We’ve been giving her an all-natural calming product for at least 2 years now and it is a miracle drug for her. I’ll have to look into BroadReach Nature though. They sound very interesting.
Thank you for sharing, Lisa. I hope your weekend is relaxing and restorative! ♥
Oh, Holly, thank you so much, this is so kind of you and wonderful to hear too. Dizzy is very lucky to have you, she sounds like a lovely cat 😍
These tips are very useful. Thank you for sharing.
You’re welcome 🙂
Pets truly bring so much laughter into our lives. My dog’s goofy personality always cheers me up, even on tough days.
Ah, that’s so lovely to hear about your dog – and I agree about pets enhancing our lives too!
Very helpful tips, an enjoyable read as always 🙂
Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!