Why does my dog follow me everywhere?

A dog that follows you everywhere, toilet included, is usually not attached to you. It is obsessed, and obsession grows wherever there are no boundaries.

Owners tell me "he's very attached" with a little pride in it. I tell them those are two different things. Healthy attachment is going out for drinks with friends and getting one text: enjoy your night. Obsession is checking Find My iPhone every twenty minutes. One of those is a relationship. The other is stressful for everyone, including the one doing the checking.

The dog on permanent duty

Watch a velcro dog for one evening and narrate it. "You're getting up. Kitchen? I'm coming. Back to the couch? Fine. Toilet? I'll wait outside the door. Oh, the laundry. Nobody told me about the laundry."

Every move you make is the dog's business, so the dog never clocks off. It lies down, but it does not rest: ears working, feet gathered, one eye open, up the second you are. The following is just the part you can see. Underneath it is a dog whose brain is never allowed to switch off.

This is often the same dog that cries at the bathroom door and falls apart when you leave the house. Leaving is not a separate disease. It is one more trigger on the same waterline, and a dog that has spent all day on duty has no room left under that line.

How it gets built

Obsession only happens when there is a lack of boundaries. If my boyfriend had called me every five minutes and I never once said "stop it", he would have started calling every four. And if he had been obsessed with me, I would not have married him.

We feed it without noticing. The dog follows you to the toilet, sits at your feet, looks up, and you pat it. Of course you do, it is cute. But you have just paid the dog for the shadowing, and you are the biggest resource in the house. The dog that leans on your legs for a pat every time you stop is demanding in a cuter way. It is still demanding.

So yes, you created it as well. That is fine. Whatever you created, you can change.

Do not go cold turkey on the dog

The worst fix I see is the withdrawal. In a two person house the dog is stuck to one of them, so that person pulls back completely and lets the other one do all the feeding, walking and training, hoping the dog will transfer. You do not do that. A dog anxiously attached to one person does not become secure because that person disappears. It just loses the one thing it had.

I do not attack the following directly at first at all. I balance the dog's day, and the following fades as a side effect.

Balance first, boundaries second

The day runs on cycles. PLAY that properly fulfils the dog. ANCHOR, so its brain does some work beside you. Then CALM in a crate or on a tether while you get on with your life. If the crate door is not closed, it is not calm.

CALM is the medicine here. Every CALM block is the dog practising the exact skill it is missing: you are moving around the house, and it is none of its business. It will protest at first. Let it. A dog working out how to settle while you walk past is doing more brain work than any puzzle toy.

Then EXPLORE, where the dog gets to be a dog on its own terms. Sniff the yard, chew something, lie in a sunbeam. A velcro dog needs to see a bit of life with its own eyes, not over your shoulder. If you got a second dog to keep the anxious one company, you have probably found this out already: now you have double trouble, and each of them needs its own day.

Once the day is balanced, add the boundaries. Shadowing to the toilet gets no eye contact, no talking, no touching, no treats (the three Ts). The couch is a privilege. If you want to cuddle your dog, come on the floor, on your invitation, not because the dog parked itself on your lap.

What you are aiming for

The dog I want is almost boring. You stand up to make a coffee, the dog lifts its head, takes in the information, and puts its head back down. "Oh. Kitchen. None of my business." It can be crazy when you want crazy. And when you sit at the pub for three hours, nobody knows it is there.

That dog does not love you less. It trusts you to come back, which is what attachment was supposed to mean in the first place.

If your dog is your shadow and you would like your bathroom back, start with cycles. If you want them built into your actual week, that is what a program is for.