From the day Rufus arrived he wouldn't leave my side, and I mean never, I couldn't even visit the little girls room without him sitting next to me.
 I couldn't leave the room to make some dinner, or fuss the cats, he had to be with me 100% of the time. I soon learnt that this was called Separation Anxiety, In Ruf's case he was scared to be left on his own in case he was abandoned again, he had had 3 homes at least, possibly 4 by the time he came to me at approximately 14 months old. Baasically he was feeling extremely vulnerable and scared.
 
 Separation anxiety can show itself in several ways. initially they will show panic, rapid panting and pacing, but as you won't be there to see this you won't know its happening. This panic does tend to subside quite quickly, the signs you'll see on your return are likely to be untouched food and chews, scratched doors and frames, dug up carpets, this is all caused by there need to escape and find someone to be with. Some dogs will bark or howl and some will find the need to go to the toilet in the house through fear.
 
 I was extremely lucky in finding a trainer who was also a dog behaviourist and she gave us lots of help and advice which I will try to share with you.
 
 Firstly you need to teach your dog to be alone, I did this by leaving him for short periods of time in one room by himself and as soon as he didn't whine or cry or scratch I had to go back in and reward him with lots of fuss, this then progressed to making the time I was out of the room longer, again with lots of fuss. At first I'd recommend only being away for 1 minute and work up to about 20 mins. I can't stress enough how important it is to take this phase slowly and not to rush your dog or you could end up back at square one.
 Then you start by leaving the house and following the same pattern as above, leave for one minute and return to fuss your dog, very slowly increasing the time you are away.
 Another trick is when you leave the house don't make a fuss of your dog, just walk out the door, no goodbyes, no kisses, straight out the door.
 
 When you return to your dog after you have been out expect to be greeted with nervous weeing, this isn't uncommon and it isn't the dogs fault he's just so pleased that you are home to him and he is safe again, he has a little tinkle.
 We dealt with this by letting him come out of the front door on our return so he sprinkled outside and there was no harm done, this will gradually stop as the separation anxiety problem is more controlled and your dog learns to feel more secure with being left.
 
 Evenings when I was sat watching telly or quietly reading, Ruf would demand attention, which was easy to give to him by giving him my hand as a comfort, I soon learnt that this was another part of his sep anx showing up and by letting him demand attention I wasn't helping his problem. From then on when he came to me for a fuss I completely ignored him, to the point of standing up and turning my back to him, after a while he would give up and walk away. I would wait a few minutes and then call him to me for a fuss and lots of playing. This taught him that he got fussed when I wanted to do it and not when he demanded it.
 Again you have to stick to this like glue, no matter how hard it is on you or how harsh it seems to the dog. It isn't, you are helping the dog in the best way you can by teaching him/her that they don't have to be with you every minute of the day to be happy.
 You are just showing them that they WILL get attention but on your terms and not there's, this will help them to cope better when you aren't there.
 
 If you have a partner that the dog is not so clingy with, make it there job to feed the dog, walk the dog, give the dog there treats, groom the dog, this will take the pressure off you as the dog has to interact with someone other than yourself.
 You can also make a tape recording of family activity to play when you are out.
 Remove everything that your dog can damage that you don't want eaten, chewed or destroyed, instead of get some cardboard boxes and put a couple of biscuits in them with some shredded paper, tell your dog to 'Find' it, start by doing this when you are in the house so he is learning what a fun game it is, it only takes 2 minutes to clean up and it is teaching him what he can rip up and what he can't, when he's learnt what a great game it is start hiding them around the house and say 'Find it' By doing this with Ruf as I leave the house it takes the attention off me leaving and his mind is on the great game he's playing and where are those biscuits.
 and also put a t-shirt that you have worn to bed so it is covered in your scent in his bed so he can still smell you when he's settled down.
 
 I have had Rufus just over a year now and he can safely be left for up to 3-4 hours without any damage to the house, there were certainly days when I never thought we'd get to this stage with him, if you've any queries why don't you pop onto this site's chat forum, there will be lots of us around to help out with this sort of problem and we've lots of advice to offer.

Time and patience are the only solutions for dealing with separation anxiety