There are days when life feels hopeless. But the feeling of hopelessness and factual hopelessness are not necessarily the same thing.

My dog Beau’s separation anxiety is a fact: A clinical medical condition. It took a few years of desensitization training and medication for him to feel calm staying home solo.

There were many days when his condition felt hopeless. In the beginning, he couldn’t tolerate three seconds alone without a full-blown panic attack: barking, hyperventilating, and self-destructive behaviors. A behavioral trainer told me there was hope: I could change Beau’s mindset and behavior. I could leave home freely.

There wasn’t a definite timeframe for this change, but it could be weeks or months. Over weeks and months, Beau progressed to a few minutes solo and then regressed. We had to begin the desensitization training over. This pattern repeated.

The trainer explained that regressions were a normal part of the process, but when we lost what we worked hard to gain, over and over, I began to feel hopeless. When months of training turned into a year, then two, my feeling of hopelessness grew.

The Dark Days of Hopelessness Don't Last

Why did I keep going? I asked myself this every time Beau regressed. What was stronger than my hopelessness was a hope-laden bedrock that told me not to give up. When a vet told me Beau would never be a dog who could stay home for four hours, I felt defiant. How did she know? And........

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