Drama!

One of the things that worried us most about moving to Paris was the effect the trip would have on Panda's separation anxiety, which we had painstakingly treated throughout last year. We were very careful to leave her a little bit - not too much - as soon as we arrived, and to leave her for shorter and slightly longer periods a few times a day.

Unfortunately, despite all our precautions, Panda relapsed last night. We went out to dinner with a friend-of-a-friend of my mom and her daughter, and when we got back three and a half hours later, we found this note taped to our door:

"Please do not leave your dog to bay at the moon* in your absence. It's unbearable (for your neighbors as well as for your dog . . .)!"

[*That's the translation I found at wordreference.com, we take it to mean that she was whining and howling.]

What's more, as soon as we got to our door, one of our neighbors came out of his apartment to confront us about Panda's howling. He has a three-year-old daughter (which we know, because we listened to her shriek for an hour and a half during dinner the previous night) and Panda made it impossible for her to sleep. The guy said that the next time this happens, he's going to call "les flics," the police. We don't know whether the police respond to domestic disturbances caused by animals, but we'd rather not find out.

So, at least for a little bit, we're back to intensive separation anxiety training. We sit in the stairwell, or right outside the door, or in another room within the apartment with the door closed. We give Panda treats when we leave and take them away when we return. We play the radio and white noise so she doesn't hear noises outside the apartment and so she doesn't feel as alone. And we use the built-in webcams in our computers to monitor her (via Skype) when we're farther away than the stairwell.

Along with retraining Panda to be less devastated when we leave her alone, we're undertaking a public relations campaign in our building, starting with an extremely apologetic letter that we'll post in the stairwell. Given how thin the walls are, and given that we've already heard from three neighbors (#1: the note; #2: guy in next-door apartment, who claimed not to have left the note; #3: neighbor from upstairs with whom we spoke this morning when we were hanging out in the stairwell and who recommended a bark collar!), the audience for our letter is likely large. Here's hoping we can still make friends in our building over the next 9 months.