Dog with severe isolation anxiety - help beyond Rover?
My wife and I have a sweet pit bull that’s about 10 years old and absolutely loves people.
We adopted her from a shelter about eight years ago. We'd been able to leave her alone for a few hours at a time with no problems until last year when she developed extreme isolation anxiety. Now, if she's by herself for around two hours or more, there's a strong chance she’ll start tearing at the walls and damaging the house.
We've been to the vet repeatedly about this and are actively using exposure therapy and treatments from the veterinarian to deal with it. I'm not looking for advice on this part of the situation, as we've talked with many experts. It’s VERY hard to deal with.
We've had a tough time finding a dog sitter who can stay around the house without leaving the dog for long periods of time. Two we hired from Rover who had great reviews wound up leaving her for longer periods than they'd agreed to on multiple occasions, which led to substantial damage to our home.
I'm wondering if you know of a better way to find dog sitters that could help us, ones we can verify are solid and who will be able to meet our needs. We live in western Massachusetts.