Selective Separation Anxiety?

[LittleLucy]

We adopted our mixed breed female dog at 9mos old. She is now about 18mos. We have a crate that we used initally when we were out and slowly started leaving her alone in the house. She did really well but then one day we made the mistake of leaving an avacado on the kitchen counter, she got it and then starting "looking" for goodies around the house when we were gone. For the most part we put things away but she started getting into non-food stuff likes pens and papers. So then we were crating her again for periods of up to 4hrs. I always come home from work mid day to take her for a walk, plus she gets about 2hrs exercise a day, plus is on a "hiking" group 2x week.



Long and short of it - I was away last week and my boyfriend was unable to come home to check on her so he left her out in the house all day - everyday! And she was totally fine - no issues at all. Then when I return home and left the house (to go downstairs to parkade) she immediately went into destruction mode - chewing an umbrella, deoderant, etc. This was with my boyfriend home too!



My question - am I somehow encouraging or supporting chewing behaviour/seperation anxiety? She seems fine if my bf leaves her but when I leave she is destructive. Any ideas?

(sorry so long!!)