Kill 'em With Kindness (a dog tale)

My husband works in security, graveyard shift. For the last couple months until I'm not sure when, he has to go back to work on Wednesday afternoon for a First Responders Training Course. He is learning lots about how to take charge in an emergency situation. Because of this, our dog gets left home alone for a few hours. She is neurotic and does not handle this well.
We got the dog (her name is Niobe) from Jeff's dad's family. She is house trained and well behaved. She is a really sweet dog. She snuggles up to me when we go to bed at night and one time, when I was crying, she looked at me so concerned and licked me and tried to make it better. In the last few weeks, I've decided she is MY dog. I've had a lot more patience with her and taken ownership of her. I don't mean she's mine and not Jeff's; she's definitely OURS in that way. But I mean... her past life I guess.
Anyway, in spite of what a good dog she is, she has a very hard time being alone. The few times we've left her- to go out on the weekend, when Jeff goes to class, etc- we come home to a mess in our house. It's upset me because this is exactly the reason why I didn't want a pet. I don't want my house to be stinky and dirty. The other day, she had a problem when I made her go back in the house and I went out to meet Jeff when he got home for work- she was alone for literally two minutes! It was very frustrating.
I usually get home before Jeff does on Wednesday's. I've had to deal not only with the mess but also with the dog freaking out so badly it scares me. She barks, she whines, she jumps, she walks in circles, not to be crude, but she goes "potty" and doesn't even know it. It has scared me a few times and made me want to cry because I don't know what to do to calm her down and I don't know what's happened to make her so nervous.
I decided to take the approach that she's scared and needs comfort. For the last few weeks, I take her immediately outside and I sit on the grass and hold her and talk softly to her. Jeff doesn't like to hit the dog but he thinks that's the only way she'll learn to not make messes. I finally decided it wasn't doing any good and she knows she's in trouble so all it takes is some stern words and showing her what she's done. Other than that, I try to let her know she's safe.
Yesterday, Jeff and I met at the movie store on the way home so we got home at the same time. He had put the dog on the patio, locked out of the house, to see if this would do any good (we haven't done it before, afraid of the noise she makes). We got home and let her in the house to go straight out the front door. Much to our surprise, she didn't make any messes. I was a bit annoyed that she could hold it when she's on the balcony but not when she's in the house. Perhaps it helped to confine her to a small space?
We took her outside where she did her normal whining, barking, circling, jumping. It's a really hard noise to withstand. Jeff said "smack her and tell her to shut up." I promise he's not mean, he just thinks that's how you get her to behave. I said "no. She's scared and smacking her doesn't help that." He listened to me. She calmed down rather quickly. We didn't have a mess in the house. He didn't have to feel bad for smacking her. I didn't have to feel bad.
As I thought about it later, I decided, whether it's true or not, to think that my being nice to her has helped the situation.

I guess I'm thinking of kindness this week because I've overheard a few people at work that just aren't nice. I don't know why people would take the time and energy to actully be mean about someone. And it was in that whole high school, be popular kind of attitude. I like the person they were being mean about so I guess I felt defensive. She also does so much to help my job be better that I'm mad that they don't appreciate her just because she's "not cool" or something. It also bugs me because (now I'm not being nice) these people think they are all that when they are old and fat and ugly and only sort of dress nice. And when it comes down to it, who really cares!?!?!