Reasons You Need To Treat The Cause Not The Symptoms Of Separation Anxiety

This is episode 4 of the Fixing Separation Anxiety Podcast.

Hello and welcome to the Be Right Back Separation Anxiety Podcast.

Hi, I'm Julie Naismith, dog trainer, author, and full-on separation anxiety geek.

I've helped thousands of dogs overcome separation anxiety with my books,

my online programs, my trainer certification, and my Separation Anxiety Training App.

And this podcast is all about sharing my tips and tricks to help you

teach your dog how to be happy at home alone too.

Welcome to another episode of the Fixing Separation Anxiety Podcast.

I'm your host, Julie Naismith, and this week we're talking about tackling the cause,

not the symptoms of separation anxiety. Now, if you're like most owners who are going through

separation anxiety, I'm going to guess that you're at your wit's end, either because your dog's

barking or he's howling all day, maybe he's destroying everything in your house, or maybe

he's going around your home soiling and you're coming back to little presents everywhere.

Unless you've been through it, I don't think you can understand how tough separation anxiety is.

Separation anxiety is so tough on everyone. It's tough on you, it's tough on your dog,

and I think unless you've been through separation anxiety, sometimes it's really

hard to explain to people, isn't it, just how awful it can feel. You just want to scream,

somebody please, please make it stop. You want the destruction to end. You just want him to stop

barking, quit the howling, and don't you just want to look at him sometimes and say, I am coming

back. I always come back. Like I say, unless you've been through it, it can be really hard

to understand just how desperate it can feel to be dealing with separation anxiety.

And of course, usually your immediate concern as a pet parent is, I have to stop these behaviours

because this is affecting all of our lives. Maybe you've had neighbours complain, or maybe your

house is getting so destroyed you've almost given up repairing it because every time you do,

he destroys something else. Maybe you're just so sick of your carpets being covered.

Yeah, you do need to make it stop. But as you're probably finding out, the challenge with separation

anxiety is that the behaviours, all those unwanted things, unwanted behaviours that the dog does,

they are caused by your dog's panic. So he's not really intentional. He's not getting up one day

and saying, I'm going to bark all day because I'm having fun, or I do it for kicks. I do this

destruction because, hey, why not? Remember that he's freaking out. He's got a phobia to being left

and he's terrified. So he's not being bad. He's not being mad at you just because he destroyed

your carpet doesn't mean to say he's angry with you because you left. He's freaking out.

But we're usually looking for solutions to the symptoms, those symptoms that I described of

barking or destroying or soiling or whatever it might be. When we Google, when we ask trainers,

usually we're trying to find a solution to those symptoms. But let me give you an analogy,

a medical analogy. So imagine you've got occasional back pain. You might take a painkiller. If it was

bad enough and say you only got it once every few weeks or few months, you might take a painkiller

and the painkiller would work. But if you had severe back pain every single day, it was preventing

you from doing stuff. I'm going to guess that you would soon decide to get to the root of the problem

and not just take the painkillers. You'd take the painkillers too, but you'd say, no, this cannot

continue. I need to find out what's causing the back pain. And so it's the same with a behavior

condition like separation anxiety. You might be able to stop those symptoms, might, you might

in the short term. But in the long term, the stick a bandage on it, stick a bandage on it

approach doesn't work. If you've Googled, how can I stop my dog barking or destroying or whatever,

you'll have seen a range of solutions. And unfortunately, most of them don't work and

some can actually make the condition worse. So I want to focus on what does work. You'll always

hear me talk about that whenever I'm holding any of my mini training sessions or when I do my

challenges, I'm always talking about, let's focus on what works and ditch the stuff that doesn't.

Okay, so let's talk about barking. Again, if we Google the advice on barking, we're going to find

a ton of terrible information. The worst advice that I see, and I see it a lot is to use a bark

collar. These are designed to stop barking by giving your dog a shock. Now you will read that

the dogs only get a static shock, you know, just like when you put clothes on that kind of static

shock, but it's not true. That's just really slick marketing. Don't cross with yourself if

you've been drawn in by that because they are clever and the companies who manufacture these

things don't want you to think that your dog's being hurt. But unfortunately, that's what's

happening. These shock collars work by hurting your dog. They create pain and they then scare

your dog into stopping and they only work. They only change behavior because they hurt.

They don't hurt, they don't work. So you've got a dog who's barking at home, he's got a bark

collar on and he's getting electric shock every time he barks. Guess what he thinks about being

home alone now? He's going to think this is even worse than it was before. His fear of being alone

just got quadrupled because when he's home alone, not only is he petrified because you're not there,

he's now being shocked painfully. Might suppress the bark. You may see some short-term behavior

change. He might decide that the way to stop the shock is to stop the barking,

but he still wants to bark. He needs to bark. In his head, the panic that's caused by separation

anxiety makes him want to bark away. With a lot of dogs, they will bark through the pain,

which is a horrible thought. So now they're in a panic and they're creating this painful shock.

And when his collar is not on, he definitely will want to bark and he's more than likely going to

bark when his collar isn't on. So shock collars are just not going to work for this. And even

if they did work, we don't need to train dogs with pain and force and fear anymore because there

are far better ways. Shock collars are banned in many countries for a reason. Hopefully they'll

be banned in way more sooner rather than later. But we don't need them. We don't need them to

train. There's way better ways. Okay, so let's give shock collars a wide berth when it comes to barking.

With destruction, there's two big things, two solutions that I see that are inhumane and

unhelpful. First one is using anything that's bitter and that the dog really, really just finds

disgusting. So again, it's a bit like the shock collar. They only work because they're so unpleasant,

these sprays, that the dog will do what they can to try and avoid them. But I'm sorry, this is a

horrible analogy, so I hope you're not eating breakfast. But this is like, to a dog, this is

like you putting vomit on your food to lose weight. You just wouldn't do it, would you?

But yet we would do it to our dogs. And then the other horrible thing, just like with shock collars,

dogs can go through the disgust. They can go through the pain. They don't stop feeling it,

but they're so driven by their panic that they'll just keep going. So they'll keep tasting this

disgusting spray. They'll keep going despite the fact that it tastes disgusting because the panic

is driving them. In an indestructible crate is another response I see to destruction. And I

totally get it. If your house is being destroyed, what else are you going to do? You can't keep

coming back to walls that are disappearing, to carpets that are shredded. I totally get it. And

also your dog is getting harmed. Dogs who are in a panic can be extremely difficult to contain.

They are not thinking. They are pumped on adrenaline. They are desperate, desperate to

get closer to you. So those dogs who are destroying are desperately trying to get away from the panic

of being on their own and try and find you for comfort. So an indestructible crate doesn't take

away that panic. I talked about this in episode three. Dogs in a panic can be extremely difficult

to contain. They are pumped on adrenaline. They are doing everything they can to escape the

terrifying situation that they are in. They're not thinking. And so the things that happen as a

result, crates that you thought were indestructible get destroyed, or if the crate stays intact,

even worse. The dog's nails or teeth or the damage that can be done by indestructible crates is

really scary and saddening. If you're really struggling to stop the destruction, get your dog

out of a crate and try confinement space. That's a space that's bigger than the crate. You'd use

an X-pen or you'd use extended baby gates. See if he does better then. Or use a dog-proof room.

That means a room where there's no stuff really. You're not worried about anything in there that

he might destroy and you're not going to be worried about him destroying himself in there

either. So it's safe for him and it's stuff you're not worried about him destroying. Even things like

confinement spaces and dog-proof rooms, I'm still really hesitant to recommend them because they're

still just focused on symptoms. They're not looking at how to fix your dog's anxiety, which as we know

is the only way to stop him wanting to do these things. So what can you do? I've ruled out a ton

of things that don't work and things that I really advise you not to consider. So what can you do?

Well, there are two biggies. Number one, you're going to train him to be happy home alone. You're

going to do that by getting him used to being alone very gradually and safely. So we use a

process called desensitization. That's where we work out how long your dog can cope with on his

own without getting into a panic. Now, when you first set out, that could be seconds. But whatever

that is, we work with that duration and we gradually increase that but at a rate your dog is comfortable

with. So each time we go through the exercise, we're checking in on the dog. How's he doing? Is

he okay with this? Is there any sign of panic? And if there's no panic and there's no anxiety, we

progress to the next step. Desensitization is the training method that we use to gradually get your

dog comfortable on his own. But while you're doing that, so the second thing that you do is you have

to find a way not to leave him. This can be one of the most difficult things that most owners ever

have to do. It just seems nonsensical. If your dog's got separation anxiety, it wouldn't be an

issue. It wouldn't be a problem condition if you didn't need to leave him at times. So when you

first set out with separation anxiety training, it just seems ridiculous that anybody would ask you

not to leave your dog. But do give it a shot. Even just try leaving him a little bit less than you

currently do because you'll start to see the benefits. And training is so, so difficult,

if not impossible, if you don't suspend absences. Remember, the great thing about suspending

absences, about not leaving him anymore, is you just knock the anxiety on the head.

And so all those anxiety-driven problems immediately go away. So while it can seem

like a crazy, nonsensical, ridiculous solution, it will fix the distraction and the barking

immediately. Something to think about. If you still think that there's absolutely no way that

you can find someone to be with your dog or have your dog be with someone 24-7, then there's maybe

a couple more options you could try when you do have to leave your dog. First off, I'd suggest

you go to your vet. So go and speak to your vet about whether you can get some medications that

would be short-acting, so you give them to your dog when you did have to leave. And that would

help reduce your dog's anxiety in that moment and lessen the chance that they're going to hurt

themselves or bark or have a terrible experience. So medications, short-term medications, can be

really helpful for those times when you just can't figure out a way not to leave him. Slight caveat

here that doesn't work for all dogs. So some dogs will still be so panicked that it doesn't matter

what medication you put them on, they're still going to have a freak out. But do consider talking

to your vet about this as an option. It's worth a try. And we're not talking about you using this

every single day for eight hours a day. We're talking about medications that are situational.

So you have something you absolutely have to do on Saturday afternoon and you cannot find cover,

so you plan ahead and you use these short-acting medications. While you're at the vet, I would

strongly suggest you talk about putting your dog on daily anxiety medications. These are something

your dog would be on for the duration of his training. They help with his anxiety threshold.

They help him be a bit less anxious in situations where he would normally have just completely

freaked out. So they really can be game changers for separation anxiety. So if you haven't talked

to your vet about medications, I really recommend that you do it. I know it's not what everybody

wants to do for whatever reason. We think there's some stigma attached. We think that we shouldn't

be putting dogs on medication. We think we failed as owners. But let me tell you, medication saves

lives. It saves dogs lives because they really, really can be a massively powerful addition to

the training protocol. The other thing you could do if you're desperate and you just can't find

anybody to have your dog for an afternoon or whatever the thing is that you need to leave them

for, you could consider including a cue which would distinguish between when they're having

safe training absences. So you would need to be in training mode. You need to be training your dog

the rest of the time. So you're going to introduce a cue which says, this is training, this is safe,

and this is fine, and I'm really sorry but this is going to be scary and this is going to be horrible.

So that might be when you go out and you know it's going to be really bad. You just say,

I'm really sorry, this one's not going to be good, and you say the words every time you go out and

you know he's going to have a bad time. So that he starts to learn really quickly. There's times

when it's going to be bad and there's times when it's going to be safe. Training is going to be

safe because it's going to be short durations that he can handle. Sometimes you're going to

have to go out and leave him and it's going to be horrible. Now it doesn't work for all dogs,

but some dogs will be able to distinguish between safe absences that you do during training

and the scary ones where you have to leave him longer than he can cope with.

For those dogs where this distinction works, the training isn't affected by the scary absences.

The problem is you don't know until you try it and if you're training and you're trying to protect

your training progress and then you have to leave your dog, you won't know until you've done it

whether it's going to affect his training. Here it just comes back to do whatever you can not to

leave him because it's going to be in the long run, it will make your training go quicker and

it will tackle those symptoms way better than any of the short-term fixes that you might have found.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Be Right Back

Separation Anxiety podcast. If you want to find out more about how I can help you further,

head over to julienaysmith.com. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed listening today, I would love it if

you would head over to wherever you listen to your podcasts and consider rating my show.

Thanks so much, good luck with that training and bye for now.