Why You Need to Stop the Sky Falling on Your Dog's Head

Welcome to another episode of the fixing separation anxiety podcast.

This week,

we're going to be looking at how we can make the

world a less scary place for our dogs.

And especially for us separation anxiety dogs,

and why that matters so much to him,

to you and to your training.

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.

Now last week I went to a seminar presented by Dr.

Karen Overall.

You haven't heard of Dr.

Overall, there's a really good chance that you might have heard

or even be trying out her relaxation protocol.

So Karen overall is the person who developed the relaxation protocol

that I know so many have used.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to go to a two day

seminar where she presented on both days,

all day on all things related to behavior in dogs and

cats, behavior,

change, behavior,

medication, behavior,

training, you name it.

It was two days of behavior Fest,

I guess.

It was wonderful,

really good,

a couple of sessions.

And whenever I go to her sessions,

she always makes me think about things.

I learn a lot,

and I come out with lots of different ideas and conclusions

about the way I do things.

Karen Overall,

for those of you who don't know is a leading vet

behaviorist, and she is really fascinating.

So if you ever get a chance to listen to her

talk, I highly recommend it.

Like I said,

she always makes me think.

And one thing that she said in particular during this last

session was something that really struck me.

She said,

the first thing we need to do with a fearful or

anxious dog is we have to stop the sky falling on

their head.

So we can never really know what goes on inside our

dog's head.

But certainly when you look at their body language,

when you look at all the clues they give off through

the way that they act when they're left alone.

And when we look at their physiology,

there's something that it certainly looks like that they feel as

if they're facing a life or death threat.

If you've ever looked at a video of a dog that's

really panicking when it's home alone,

it certainly doesn't look like a dog that's just worried about

what it's having for dinner.

Looks like a dog who is really sensing,

like I say,

a life or death threat.

And I often wonder,

do they think that the world is about to end?

I mean,

they look that panicked.

I don't know what's going on in their head.

And as far as we know,

maybe, maybe that's what they think.

Maybe they think as soon as you go out of the

door, that is it.

They are done for,

maybe they are just constantly panicking at some imminent danger that

they think is going to occur because you've left or even

that you're in some danger.

And like I said,

it certainly looks that grave when you check out their body

language. And when we go back to what Karen overall said,

she said,

there's two reasons why we need to stop them thinking that

the sky is falling on their heads,

which they might well be doing.

So they might well be thinking that.

And certainly whether they're thinking it's the sky about to fall

on their head or their world's about to end.

They think something pretty serious as a full,

So we need to stop that feeling for two big reasons.

And I hope whole heartedly agree with both of these.

The first one is welfare,

the dog's welfare.

And the second one is training effectiveness.

Okay? So I'm going to unpack both of those and let's

start with welfare.

So when our dogs panic at home alone,

they really don't have much choice about that situation.

One of the reasons why so many dogs seem like they're

trying to escape is because they really don't have any choice.

They feel stuck in a situation that is causing them extreme

panic. We've never given dogs the option of choosing that situation.

And I'm really grateful to one of my clients,

Jill Oliver for first saying to me,

and she said about her dog,

Robin. She said he didn't choose to come and live with

me. And if living with me is causing him to panic

when I go out,

then I owe it to him to change that situation.

I owe it to him not to let him feel that

panic. I thought that was lovely.

And I totally echo that.

They don't choose to come in there with us.

They all out of their minds with panic when we leave

them, our separation anxiety dogs.

And it does feel like a massive welfare issue If we

continue to leave them in a state of morbid fear every

time we go out.

And I think as a dog owner,

and remember I used to have a dog with separation anxiety.

I wasn't always a trainer.

I was once exactly in your shoes.

And I certainly remember that once I realized once I got

my head around the fact that this isn't a dog who's

playing out,

this isn't a dog who's being bad.

This is a dog who is out of his mind with

fear every time I leave.

I think once that got processed in my head,

it just became impossible to leave him at home alone.

And I see this time and time again with my owners,

that once they realize exactly what's going on with a heavy

heart, they realize how awful it must be for their dog.

And it becomes so difficult to continue to leave them.

And I know that it can be incredibly difficult to change

things. I know that you don't leave your dog thinking that

your dog is going to be okay.

I know that for many of you,

you go out despite not knowing your dog is okay,

and that's incredibly hard.

It breaks your heart,

even just thinking about it.

But like I say,

I think we owe it to our dogs to let them

live a life free of fear.

I, 100% believe that we need to do everything we can

to remove fear from their life.

It's not right that we should bring dogs into our lives,

into our home's,

into our world,

and then knowingly expose them to things that our dogs are

frightened of.

Its not always possible.

We can't always get Coon than 100% of the time,

but I do believe we need to try.

We need to wherever possible do what we can to stop

them thinking that the sky is about to fall on their

heads. Because can you imagine living a life where every day,

every minute you thought the worst was about to happen.

So setting aside the welfare concerns of having a dog who

panics when we leave them and we're not doing anything about

that, there's also the second concern about a second reason why

we need to stop them thinking that the sky is falling

on their heads is that we really can't implement separation anxiety

training when our dogs are in that state.

Just as a reminder about what we're trying to do with

separation anxiety training.

We're trying to change how they feel about being home alone.

And when we change how a dog feels about something that

is frightened of,

we need to give them lots and lots and lots of

new positive non-scary experiences that are going to outweigh the previous

scary experiences that the dog has had.

And with separation anxiety training,

what that's going to mean is we're going to give our

dog lots of new experience of you going out,

but not leaving him for longer than he can cope with.

In other words,

he has lots and lots of non-scary absences.

He stays at home over and over again,

but for durations that don't induce panic.

And for most dogs that we work with,

the start of training in particular,

at the start of training in particular,

those absences can be tiny.

They seem ridiculously short.

You know,

they can be seconds.

Sometimes we can't even get out the door without them panicking,

and we need to take a different approach.

But we need to do that,

we need to start with durations that your dog is going

to be really comfortable with because we have to send a

message to our dogs,

that there is a new way of doing things as a

new non-scary way of being left.

Maybe in the past,

when you left,

it was scary for your dog,

but we're saying to him,

now it's different.

Now, when you go out and you do those short,

safe practice absences.

Now when you go out,

you're saying to your dog,

everything's okay.

And your dog starts to learn because it's having lots of

non scary experiences.

So we are trying to convince him that everything is fine,

even if it was awful in the past.

And I often talk about a bank account of experiences for

the dog.

So on one side of the balance,

we've got a ton of the historic previously scary experiences of

being left alone,

which is essentially the dog's life up to the point at

which you realize it's separation anxiety training up to the point

where you realize it's separation anxiety,

sorry, and you stop leaving them.

So in the past,

leaving was scary,

then you work out with separation anxiety.

You stop leaving them,

hopefully, or you start training and things start to feel different.

So you start separation anxiety training when you do so,

what you're then doing is you're adding some positives to the

other side of the bank balance.

So we're starting to balance things out.

You're starting to add lots and lots of safe absences,

but here's the kicker.

In order to balance the books you need to put in

a lot into the positive balance,

you really need to fill the positive side of things with

a ton,

a huge amount,

an incredible number of non scary experiences to balance the book.

Why is that?

Well, as far as we know dogs like us,

most likely have a negativity bias.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I read somewhere the other day about criticism that a

thousand positive reviews,

it was talking about somebody who listed their book on Amazon

and a thousand positive reviews.

Plus one critical review equals one critical review.

In other words,

we far out way,

we, we put a huge weight on negative experiences and there's

some evolutionary reasons for that.

It's better in the wild to assume that something is going

to kill you,

even if it's not,

than assume it's not going to kill you.

Because if you assume the lion is going to kill you,

you're going to run away.

If you assume the lion isn't going to kill you,

that the lion isn't threatening,

that the lion isn't scary,

if you're a zebra,

you're going to get eaten up.

So it helps negativity bias can help,

but it's not helpful when it comes to changing emotion.

And the same is true with dogs as far as we

know, and it certainly looks like we have to give them

a ton of positive non-scary experiences in order to balance the

books to make a change.

And so you can hopefully start to see why it's so

tricky, if not impossible,

to have true success with desensitization training if we have a

dog who we are still forced to leave alone.

And I know that's many of you,

so don't switch off.

Don't shout at the wherever your pet playing this podcast.

Don't shout at me.

I just want to tell you the truth.

I know I can't sugar coat it.

I hate this bit.

I hate being the person to tell you that in order

to get your dog over separation anxiety,

you have to stop leaving your dog.

Because that also sounds a bit crazy.

If you didn't have to leave your dog,

then separation anxiety wouldn't be a problem with it.

If you didn't have to go to work,

if you didn't have a social life,

it wouldn't matter.

You could be with your dog all the time.

And the separation anxiety wouldn't be an issue.

But the reason I am such a broken record on this

topic, I know I am,

is it's tough love.

I want you and I want your dog both to overcome

separation anxiety.

So I need to be upfront about what it's going to

take. If I tell you,

you can start training and you can keep leaving your dog.

You're just going to get so frustrated because training's not going

to work.

And here's the thing.

Is there a really good chance that your dog's going to

get worse.

So that's why it's tough love.

I just want what's right for you and your dog.

Alright. All well and good.

I'm living in fantasy land here on-site because how on earth

are you going to make this happen?

How are you going to stop your dog's world or stop

the sky falling on your dog's head?

How do you do that?

When you've got work to go to,

when you've got bills to pay,

when you've got family commitments when you've just got stuff going

on. I do know it can be tough and I don't

just say that glibly.

Remember, I have been in your shoes,

and I remember the first time I realized that we couldn't

leave our dog and it was a bombshell.

And what I do know though,

is even though it starts out feeling impossible and ridiculous,

and it just seems like you just no way you can

do it.

You find a way,

you do find a way of doing it because you want

the best for your dog.

I know you want the best for your dog anyway,

even if you're still having to leave your dog right now,

I know you want the best for your dog.

But not only do you want the best for your dog,

the reason why you find a way not to leave your

dog is because you want your dog to get over separation

anxiety. You want your life back.

And so as that realization creeps up on you,

I've noticed happened to me I started off thinking,

we could never find a way not to leave him,

and we did.

I see it with the owners that I work with.

They start off thinking that's crazy.

And gradually over time,

they find ways to do it,

so it can be done.

And I say over and over again.

So even if it feels hopeless and crazy and ridiculous now,

do you know that you can do it?

Don't forget.

I've got a group of people just like you over in

Facebook, a group for supporting separation anxiety dog owners.

And if you are not in that group,

definitely join it because you'll find a ton of threads about

this exact topic,

about how can I find a way not to leave my

dog tips,

ideas, and people sharing what they've done,

which hopefully can be inspirational for you.

So if you're not already in that group,

do head over there.

If you go to subthresholdtraining.com/group,

you can find the link to the Facebook group.

And I'll also post the link in the show notes.

Subthresholdtraining.com/14, but in addition to my group,

I've also now started up a brand new network.

So completely off Facebook.

The problem with Facebook,

there's a few problems with Facebook.

I love Facebook.

It's very helpful to our support group,

but there are some problems we all know,

and we all associate with Facebook.

And one of them of course,

is privacy.

We're all very concerned about what we share on Facebook.

So I've always wanted to connect owners to find a way

of connecting.

The 7,000

owners are in my Facebook group.

It grows by a thousand every month.

So you know,

who knows?

It'll send you at 10,000,

maybe by the time you're listening to this podcast.

I've always had this dream of connecting people because there's got

to be certainly in big cities in the U S and

Canada and in the UK.

They're got to be a ton of owners with separation anxiety

dogs, who would gladly just swap dogses.

Now, of course you can go and find pet sitters.

You can go and find pet-sitting services.

But one thing I hear consistently from people who do use

those services or who do hire dog sitters is that,

you just can't get across to people that not leaving your

dog, that the reason you're hiring them,

the reason you're taking them on is that you want them

not to leave your dog.

And I think some people don't quite get that.

They don't quite believe that that can be the case.

Surely it's okay if I go out for half an hour,

have you had that?

Where you've had a dog sitter and they come back and

they said he was gray.

I had to pop out for an hour,

but he was a bit excited when I got back,

but he seemed fine.

And you're just horrified because you hired them to be with

your dogs for four hours,

not just pop out.

It's like what part of do not leave my dog alone

is constitutes you going out for now.

Sorry off soap box,

but we've all been there,

right? So I just thought there's got to be a way

of connecting people in this group or connecting people outside of

my Facebook group to support one another.

You know,

imagine having someone come and sit your dog who actually understands

what it's like to have a separation anxiety dog.

How amazing would that be about to why Facebook is problematic

for that?

Well, it,

we don't want to share stuff.

We were all a bit reluctant to share information about ourselves

and Facebook doesn't have a really good way of sharing location

other than you listing on your profile.

So I'm starting a net,working

group is going to be a networking group,

just for people whose dogs have separation anxiety,

and who are looking to find somebody to sit their dog

and who are willing to trade a sip.

So if you find somebody who lives in your town,

in your neighborhood,

and you're willing to sit their dog for a few hours

a week and you're willing to swap for them doing it,

then this is the place for you.

The great thing about the system that I'm using is without

revealing any information about yourself or without seeing information on anybody

else, you can just click a button that shows who in

the network is nearby.

How cool is that?

And then you can send them a direct message.

So it's all very private.

It's all very protected.

And I'm hopeful that if we get enough people in there,

it's going to be amazing.

So we starting,

we're starting small obviously this time of year,

year ago,

I only had a hundred people in my Facebook group.

Now you get 7,000,

but I'd love you to join this network.

And I'm going to link to it in the show notes,

because the more people that join the better it gets,

the better it gets,

the more people that join.

So why don't you jump in and be one of the

founders it's totally free.

If you're a founder member,

you will not pay anything to join the service.

So why not?

What have you got to lose?

Like I say,

I'll link to it in the show notes because yeah,

let's get sharing and working together because they say it takes

a village to fix separation anxiety.

I think it does.

And we need to stop the sky falling on our dog's

head. So I just hope this is one more way that

we can help to do that.

That's it for me this week.

Thanks again for listening.

If you like my podcasts and want to subscribe,

head over to iTunes and subscribe that,

and I would be so grateful if you are enjoying listening

to the podcast,

I'd be so grateful if you could leave me a review

again over on iTunes,

and you can find the links in the show notes.

Anyway, I hope you have a great week and I look

forward to talking to you all next week.

Bye for now.

Thanks for listening to the fixing separation anxiety podcast with Julie

Naismith. For more information,

visit the website at www.subthresholdtraining.com.

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