Why does my Weimaraner follow me everywhere—even to the bathroom?
I get this question all the time. And to be honest, you bought a breed that was designed to be glued to your side. Weimaraners were bred in Germany to hunt all day long with their owners, sleep in their beds at night, and do it all again tomorrow.
That’s not a quirk. That’s 200 years of genetic programming. The problem is that most people have no idea what they’ve signed up for until they’re in the shower with a gray dog staring at them through the glass door, whining because the steam is blocking their view of you.
I made every mistake in the book with my first Weimaraner: following was adorable, sleeping in my bed was fine, I worked from home so we were constantly together, etc. until I had to go away for three days and my neighbor called me six hours in because my dog had wrecked the baseboards, been howling non stop, and refused to eat. That was no longer cute. Here’s what I’ve learned since then: there’s a difference between the natural velcro behavior of a Weimaraner and true separation anxiety.
Most dogs following their owners from room to room is healthy; panicking, drooling, destroying furniture, or having accidents while alone is not. These Weims surely do need more human contact than most. I’m not going to tell you to lock your Weim in another room to “teach independence” because that advice ignores your dog’s reasoning.
But I will tell you that you need to build your dog’s confidence so they can be alone when they need to.
Why traditional advice is ineffective
Most separation anxiety guides tell owners to ignore their dogs when they leave and return home. Don’t make feeling sad into making a big deal out of your departure.
I tried this. It works a little, but not because it addresses the problem with Weimaraners, for the problem is that most of them are really anxious, not just nervous. Effective advice targets distress, which is what you need.
Begin by making your departure cues inconsequential. Your dog probably begins panicking as soon as you grab your keys or sit down to put on your shoes. They’ve learned that these actions predict your departure.
You need to disassociate from those cues. Grab your keys 50 times a day and then sit down in the other room. Leave for 15 seconds and come back.
Turn the button on the coffeepaker and sit back down. Repeat this every time you do it for weeks. It’ll be a pain, but it accomplishes what you need, which is teaching your dog that keys don’t always mean leaving.
Now practice short absences. I’m talking really short. Walk out the front door and walk right back in, then do it ten more times.
Then walk out for five seconds, then five more. Ten seconds. Thirty.
That’s how long it takes for your dog to hit their panic threshold. Hopefully by then your dog can handle going out that long. But you have to go slow.
Too fast and they shut down or get worse. To get your Weim to overcome this problem can take three to six months. For serious cases.
If you’ve been working with your Weimraner and coming home to damage after 3 months, seek professional assistance with pharmaceutical options. There is no shame in it. You all know I feel quite strongly that crate training often makes separation anxiety worse, not better.
I realize they’re meant to be dens, safe havens and ultracool, but I have seen too many Weims hurt themselves trying to bust out of their crates, break teeth on bars or drown in their own drool because they’re infinitely more panicked when they’re stuck in a crate. If your dog wasn’t comfortable in a crate already, introducing one during a crisis almost always worsens it. If your dog’s in such a bad way that a crate seems necessary, bring them into a room you’ve sectioned off and cover the windows with a blanket and a camera so you can monitor them. (This is really, really important.) You need to see what’s really going on.
Maybe they settle after 5 minutes, which is a much easier problem to fix than one that won’t allow them to sit still for the first hour. Or maybe they paces and drools and wastes ten pounds of drool for 3 hours, which is garbage and will give you something to work towards. Don’t buy a second dog hoping this will “cure” the attachment.
Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn’t, and you end up with two anxious Weims rather than one. The attachment isn’t to specific dogs but to individual owners.
The long term reality
I need you to understand that you’re not going to “cure” your Weimaraner of their complete attachment to you. It’s bred in their bones. What you are going to do is build his confidence so he can be OK alone when he needs to be.
Those two behaviors—shadowing you and freaking out when you leave—won’t be separate goals. The second will eventually drop away, the first will remain. And here is a final piece of advice that I really want to work in.
Leave an old T-Shirt (that you haven’t washed in a while) in your dog’s living space when you go. Something you’ve worn all day, something you’ve napped in. Your scent truly is a calm-inducing balm and definitely the easiest thing you can take care of now.