SmartPetLove Snuggle Puppy Behavioral Aid Toy

It’s not a bad product, and it may work for other dogs just fine, but it just hasn’t worked for our dog the way I hoped it would. We very recently lost our older, senior dog. Our other, younger dog (who is also a senior), had always been around the older dog, ever since we got him as a puppy, and is struggling to cope with the loss of his constant canine companion. When our dogs were together, they had no problem being left alone for a few hours whenever my husband and I were out. They were always happy and excited to see us when we came back, but never acted like they were distressed or upset. However, now that our one dog is by himself, he’s not used to being left alone for any length of time. We try not to leave him alone for too long, but we can’t both be home 24/7 all the time. Even just being gone for a short period of time, half an hour to an hour, he’s always extremely anxious, fussy, and vocal upon our return, which he never had been before. We plan to eventually get another dog to keep him company, but we want to give him time to adjust to life without his best dog pal, as well as ourselves time to grieve the loss of our sweet pup, before we introduce a new dog. At the same time, we don’t want him to be overly upset any time we have to step out of the house. I heard the Snuggle Puppy could help sooth a dog’s anxiety while dealing with the loss of an animal companion, so I thought I would try it. First of all, the heartbeat noise is very loud. When I first turned it on, my dog got scared and ran and hid from Snuggle Puppy. I turned the heartbeat off and left the heat pack in, and he seemed fine with it then and liked snuggling with it. Once he warmed up to it, I turned the heartbeat back on to see how he would react, and he was still fine with it, and continued to snuggle up to it. The next time couple of times my hubby and I left the house, I put the Snuggle Puppy in our dog’s usual spot, but it didn’t seem to do anything in terms of soothing his anxiety as he was still just as anxious and fussy upon our return (I tried leaving it both with and without the heartbeat on, and it didn’t make any difference). Overall, he likes it well enough. As a matter of fact, right now he’s resting his head on Snuggle Puppy like an pillow and sleeping. The problem, though, aside from it not doing much to sooth his anxiety when we’re not home, is that he doesn’t care about the heartbeat being on and the heat pack being in it, which essentially just makes it a really expensive stuffed dog toy. Right now the heartbeat is off, the heat pack ran out of heat so I tossed it but haven’t replaced it, and he’s just as content as can be with it being a plain old stuffed toy that doesn’t do anything. Keep in mind, it might work just great for other dogs to sooth their anxiety, but you could also just wind up with just an expensive stuffed animal. At least he likes it!