Background:

A couple years ago, my family fostered a group of three puppies, each two weeks old, for a local animal shelter at which we were active volunteers. These puppies, all female, represented 3 of 5 siblings found abandoned. We raised them until they were eight weeks old, and shortly after returning them to the animal shelter we found ourselves placing a phone call to reserve one of them, named Koko, for our own. We picked her up a couple days later (being on vacation at the time) - one of her sisters was still unadopted and keeping her company when we picked her up.

As a puppy, Koko was the most energetic of her siblings (although not particularly hyper), and when she was just half a year old she impressed us with her amazing athletic ability to easily jump over things 2-3 times her height. She's also a very fast runner.

Koko, now 2 years old, is the youngest of the three dogs who are part of our family; a terrier mix, possibly part Keesh Hound (sp), she's about 25-30 pounds. Our other two dogs are a West Highland White Terrier (currently 9 years old) and a Golden Retriever (currently 4 years old.)


Problem:

After we officially adopted Koko, we noticed she was a very loving dog - much more so than our other two dogs. Where they were a bit more standoffish, Koko loved to be with her family; strangers, however, petrified her. When a stranger (say, a family friend) arrived at our house, she would run up to them and bark - and as they walked, keep dodging back and barking from safety a few feet away. With some coaxing, though, we could convince her that the stranger was alright.

Then, when she was a year old, we noticed a strange new habit; whenever my mother (who has spent, by far, the most time around her, and who also usually feeds her) left the house, she would stare out the window and just wait for her to return. Often she would spend hours staring out the window.

Before long, she began to howl whenever she was left without human company during the day. She also acquired the habit of howling whenever our answering machine picked up, whether she was in human company or not (presumably as a response to hearing the recording of my mother's voice).

Half a year later, and she couldn't be left alone at night anymore. She would howl nonstop, and was even becoming destructive. So she, unlike our other dogs, got to sleep in my parents' room (sometimes on their bed, but she typically preferred the floor.)

And now, at the age of two, she's become so obsessively paranoid about being left alone that she will run upstairs to their room after dinner. Someone has to go up and coax her to come downstairs so she can be let out with the other dogs.


At first we thought it was just because we had first taken care of her at such a young age - but her symptoms have just grown much, much worse. The symptoms make her look like she's neurotic. My father joked that she was acting like a developing serial killer; while I'm fairly certain that dogs aren't capable of insanity, his words did ring true insofar as: if this problem keeps getting worse, we may have to put her down.

I beseech you, if you have any idea what might be wrong or what we can do, please help.

Alright, thank you so much for the advice. It just helps so much to have a place to start.