4 Tips For Handling Dogs Who Deviate From Your Plan

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Fixing Separation Anxiety

Podcast. I'm your host,

Julie Naismith.

And this week,

we're addressing a question that so many of you seem to

have. Why is his separation anxiety better or worse with different

people? Why is it better or worse at different times of

the week or different times of the day?

Well, if this is your dog,

stay tuned because I'm going to explain why this happens and

what you can do about it.

Welcome to the fixing separation anxiety podcast,

where it's all about healing your dog,

regaining your freedom and getting your life back on track.

And now here's your host Julie Naismith.

In a live session today on Facebook,

Jeff asked me about his dog.

So Jeff's dog,

staffordshire bull terrier was absolutely fine when Jeff went to work.

But the weird thing was when Jeff went out,

so say Jeff wanted to go out in the evening,

his dog just fell apart.

So his dog's coping during the day when Jeff goes out

and has to go to work,

but his dog just cannot handle Jeff not being around at

night. So this prompted me to want to record this episode

because I realized that this question is something that comes up

time and time again.

And often when owners do raise it with me,

they feel like it's really unusual,

or it's a unique thing that that dog is doing.

That it's just a really weird situation where you know,

their dog can seem fine in one context,

but just not handle being alone in another context.

Well, here's the thing.

It is not unique.

So that situation that Jeff described in the Facebook live,

not at all unique.

It happens an awful lot,

and it happens a lot more than you might think.

And there are a number of variables,

a number of different scenarios that I come across.

And days of the week is a really common one.

So some dogs just seem to do better on certain days

of the week.

And it's not always weekdays versus weekends.

You'd think that they'd be the obvious one,

wouldn't you?

That if a dog is going to be,

find it easier to be home alone on certain days of

the week,

it might be that they find it easier at weekends versus

weekdays or vice versa,

but weirdly it can be specific days of the week.

So it can be dogs who don't like being left on

Tuesdays or dogs who find Sundays difficult.

It really doesn't matter.

Sometimes it's just a particular day of the week.

Doesn't seem to be working for that dog.

Other variables I see include the time of day and this

one's really common,

but it's not consistent.

Not like I can say to you all dogs find it

harder when the owner goes out in the morning or all

dogs like Jeff's dog find evenings harder.

There really isn't a pattern.

So it could be,

the evenings are harder.

It could be that mornings are more difficult or even sometimes

lunchtimes. There is no pattern.

The pattern though,

is that most dogs do seem to have some preference or

seem to find some times of day,

slightly easier for being left than others.

So if there's a pattern,

that's it.

But can I tell you it's evenings versus mornings or whatever,

no, definitely not,

no pattern there.

The other variable that comes into play when we're kind of

exploring this different scenario's theme is,

who does the leaving?

So in other words,

who from the family or who from the household is the

last person to leave.

So say we've got a couple in the home and say,

dad leaves at eight o'clock in the morning and mum leaves

eight 30,

and the dog just freaks out and cannot handle that.

However, when mum gets up and has to go to work

really early,

she leaves at seven and then dad leaves at eight.

For some reason,

the dog seems okay-ish or at least not as bad when

mum was the last to leave.

So who does the leaving is another really common factor that

affects how well a dog can cope with being home alone.

And if you've got a number of people in your household,

say you've got kids.

This might sound really familiar that when you all go out

together, your dog really struggles with that.

But if there's only a couple of people left in the

house and two of you go out say,

it's you and your teenage son,

your dog seems fine with that.

Again, never really a pattern.

The only pattern seems to be that lots of dogs find

it difficult when different people in the household leave at different

times. One more thing,

two more things,

actually that I see very commonly,

one is light versus dark.

So as the evenings draw in as you live in,

as you approach winter,

as the evenings draw in,

very often,

I start to see dogs struggle with evenings where a few

months earlier in the summer,

they were doing just fine at that time.

So evenings or changes in daylight can have an impact on

dogs. And there's no reason for that.

It's not like dogs are pre-programmed to feel more frightened of

being alone at night.

And in fact,

I've worked with dogs where daylight was more of a trigger.

So again,

it's just,

what's triggering that dog.

No pattern.

Just dogs tend to get triggered by different thing.

And then the final thing I wanted to throw into the

next was weather,

weather, and seasons.

I've seen dogs who struggle when it's raining outside.

I've seen dogs who struggle when it's cold versus warmer or

warmer versus colder.

Now obviously if your dog is frightened of thunder,

then there's a really good chance that weather is going to

affect them because they are on alert for changes in weather.

Because if thunder's rolling in,

they're going to get really,

really scared.

But I'm not talking about the noise phobic dogs.

I'm just talking about dogs who,

for whatever reason,

seem happier when the weather's doing a certain thing.

Kind of odd,

but like I said,

I see these differences in the way the dog feels,

I see this all the time.

It's not uncommon.

And if your dog seems to trend differently according to a

certain difference in the context of when you leave,

don't be surprised.

It's really normal,

but why does it happen?

You might be scratching your head thinking,

but it doesn't make any sense.

I don't get it.

Why a Wednesday evening so difficult?

The answer is,

as with lots of things that go on with dogs,

we don't really know.

It could be.

So I like to theorize,

though. So if I were to go inside the dog's head

and to have a look at what was going on,

it could be that the dog has had a worse experience

at that time.

On that day,

when that person left,

it could be something like that.

So the dog might be thinking,

Oh, I was fine.

Weekends. Not that the dog knows it is weekends,

but I was fine in that situation.

But I can't handle this one.

Actually let me come back to that point about whether the

dogs know if it's weekend or not.

No, they don't know it's Sunday,

they don't know it's Wednesday.

But dogs are brilliant connection making machines.

They make sense of their world by scanning absolutely everything around

them. And they joined up,

they make connections.

So they pick up on clues that we don't even think

we're giving off.

So dogs do work out things like days of the week,

not because they're looking at their calendar,

but because we do different things on those days.

And that's how they know.

That's what we call Sunday.

They're not calling it Sunday,

but we just did different stuff.

So to them that day is very specific and different.

So let me go back to jumping into the dog's head

for a moment.

So could it be that they had a worst experience in

that situation,

that time of day,

that day of the week during that weather?

Yes. Very,

very likely that that could be causing them to struggle during

those different scenarios.

Equally though,

it might just be just because,

as I said,

we don't always know what's going on inside a dog's head.

And sometimes very often,

in fact,

we just have to accept that it is what it is.

So often things that dogs do don't make sense to us,

but they make perfect sense to the dog.

When we can tie ourselves in knots trying to work out

what's going on when sometimes we just have to say,

we might never know,

but let's deal with what we see in front of us.

And the thing about dogs,

when it comes to danger,

when it comes to fear,

they have a really different way of working out what's scary

and what's safe than we do.

So if we look at something,

let's take a really good example of this is if you've

got a dog who gets frightened by people who are wearing

a certain item of clothing,

have you got one of those dogs or maybe you've got

a friend who's got one.

We often think in that situation Oh,

but it's only a man with a hat on,

what are you worried about?

You're fine with people.

By that,

I mean the dog who you walked down the street with,

they pass a man in the street,

your dog is fine.

Couple of minutes later,

you pass a man doesn't look very different,

kind of same size,

same shape,

but the man has a hat on,

Oh my goodness,

freak out time for your dog.

So in that situation,

we're looking at that going it's just a man with a

hat, but because of the way dogs work out safe versus

dangerous, a dog can look at a man versus a man

with a hat and see a man with a hat as

a monster,

like a completely different entity.

When we change something slightly,

we don't see two completely different things,

but quite often with dogs,

when you change one thing,

so change the,

the man to a man with a hat,

change one thing and you change everything.

Dogs are just really bad at generalizing confidence.

And that's why it's not uncommon when it comes to separation

anxiety for them to do differently well in different different scenarios.

We're looking at it going,

but why is Wednesday morning a problem when Thursday morning isn't.

It's just a morning.

It's just a weekday morning.

But as far as your dogs concerned,

if they've worked out,

one's okay,

one's not,

they've done a whole different assessment of safe,

dangerous than you have.

So bear that in mind,

they just have a different way of coming to a conclusion

about what's okay and what's not than we do.

All right,

but if this is your dog,

if your dog does seem to do differently well in different

scenarios, what can you do about it?

The first thing you're going to do is you are going

to collect data,

make sure,

and this applies to any of you who are training separation

anxiety. It doesn't matter whether your dog seems to do differently

well in different contexts.

Everyone should be collecting data,

but it's especially important if your dog seems to have this

variability. So make sure you get a worksheet,

use Google sheets,

use excel,

use whatever you want.

I use a notebook and a pen.

I really don't mind.

As long as you are collecting data that you're filling in

data every single day about your dog's life.

Their level of exercise,

what they ate,

their reactions to the outside world,

what the weather was,

what day of the week,

obviously what time you did an assessment or trained?

How he's generally seeming?

is he sleepy?

Is he playful?

Did anything different happen in his world that day?

Write all of that down.

It might seem mature at the time,

but when you go back to review it,

it's going to get incredibly important.

The data is essential to good separation anxiety training.

So that's the first thing that I want you to do.

Then second,

I want you to use my four step process for a

dog who separation anxiety seems to be different in different scenarios.

These dogs that we're talking about.

All right.

So here is my four-step process.

First, do different baseline assessments to determine when he's worse or

better in what situation or scenario does he do better or

worse and make a note of those differences.

So that's step one.

Step two,

decide which times of the week or which days of the

week matter to you most.

So it does.

Is it really important that you get out on Thursday evenings

because you have a regular game of badminton and you know

what? You really don't want to miss that.

So what days of the week,

what times of the week are really critical for you?

Now, if you don't know how to do a baseline assessment,

I've put a link in the show notes to some information

on how you can do that.

Now, once you've done step one and step two,

you're going to plot the information that you got in those

two steps onto a chart,

head over to the show notes and click on the link,

which will take you to the download or just go to

subthresholdtraining.com/012. So I've provided the chart for you.

You don't need to create the chart yourself.

And when you get the chart,

what you'll see is that there are two axis on there.

I've got easy and I've got important.

And you're going to take those scenarios that you came up

with in one and two,

and you're gonna plunk them onto that chart.

Let me give you an example,

say you discover,

let's go back to Thursday evenings.

So Thursday evenings you've decided are really important to you because

you need to go to badminton and you've discovered that you

don't get,

she copes quite well with Thursday evening.

So it's not a difficult training session for your dog.

Your dog doesn't find it as hard to be alone on

Thursday evenings.

So you're going to write Thursday evenings in the box that

corresponds to easy and important.

Now let's say you did an assessment on Sunday morning,

but Sunday mornings aren't quite as important to you.

You don't tend to go out too much Sunday mornings.

You tend to hang around the house.

Interestingly, you find that when you do go out on Sunday

mornings, when you did the baseline assessment,

your dog really struggled.

So you would put Sunday mornings in the box that corresponds

to low importance,

but difficult.

You see how that works?When

you go to the download,

see one that I've already filled out.

Don't use that one.

Obviously use the blank one.

I hope that would also give you an idea of what

you need to do for this exercise.

All right now,

step four.

You've got a fully completed chart with all your different scenarios

and variables in there.

Now I want you to choose those scenarios that occupy either

the box,

which is easy and important or the box,

which is easy,

but not so important.

Why is that?

Why are we going for easy?

Why aren't we just picking off important scenarios?

Well, remember separation anxiety training requires that you gradually get your

dog used to being home alone.

You need to progress in the tiniest of steps and it

can be a huge amount of work at the start.

And it feels like you're making very little progress in those

early stages.

And that's why I always say to people when I'm working

with them,

Hicks something easy,

pick a goal,

pick a target,

pick a scenario that's going to be motivating for you.

One that you're going to be able to at least see

some progress towards.

Why? because progress is motivating for you and for your dog.

So if you pick Thursday evenings because you need to go

to badminton,

but it's easy.

It is not a cop-out.

It doesn't mean to say you're taking a shortcut.

It just means that you are focusing your efforts.

Does it mean you'll never be able to leave a more

difficult time or does it mean that you can't leave as

a family?

Because leaving as a family freaks your dog out?

No, not at all.

It doesn't mean any of that.

It just means that you're going to work on those more

difficult scenarios later on in the separation anxiety training process.

That's all.

So I hope that this helps you think through this rather

weird situation that your dog seems okay sometimes,

but not others.

Remember that it's perfectly normal.

I always like to give people a very clear step by

step process for working out problems like this,

because we can tie ourselves in knots with them.

So I'm hoping that this four-step process is going to bring

some clarity to you when you face these issues in training.

And don't ever worry that your dogs are freak when you

come across something like this.

Don't ever think that you've hit an insurmountable training problem because

you have them.

If your dog does so differently at different times,

you've got a really normal dog.

You've got a normal dog who just has a unique way

of determining when he's okay to be left and when he's

not anyway.

So try not to let this worry you.

Work through the process,

apply it to your training,

and it will make training that much more focused and hopefully

easier for you.

Thanks for listening to this episode.

Remember, if you like what you've been listening to,

head over to iTunes,

subscribe, and rate me.

Tune in next week for another podcast episode and bye for

now. Thanks for listening to the fixing separation anxiety podcast with

Julie Naismith.

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