Using Food in Separation Anxiety Training? Here's Why That's Not Working

Food is totally amazing. It's a brilliant, brilliant tool in dog training. It is the best

tool that we have and, you know, I like my research. There's a lot of research that tells

us that too. So that's, I mean, that's great news. Not only do dogs love working for food,

but guess what? It's a better form of training than the outdated methods that hurt and scare dogs.

So everybody wins. We get better results. The dogs are happier and we don't have to feel awful

about giving nasty things to our dogs. But if food is so totally wonderful,

why do I say don't use food for separation anxiety training?

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

is all about sharing my tips and tricks to help you teach your dog how to be happy at home alone

too. Let's talk about using food for your separation anxiety training. If you've done

your research, and I know that lots of you do do your research into how to tackle separation

anxiety, then you will have at some point come across a recommendation to use food, to use food

for separation anxiety training. In fact, I suspect you've come across that recommendation

and that advice more than once, many, many times, most likely. Here's typically what you are told

to do in those articles that you read. It usually involves something like a Kong or another puzzle

feeder. And what you do is you stuff that puzzle feeder with something amazing, something that your

dog absolutely loves, but also something that your dog can work on for a reasonable amount of time.

And you leave the Kong for your dog, or whatever puzzle feeder you choose, and you exit the house.

So that's pretty much in a nutshell what you get advice to do by all those articles telling

you to use food. Those same articles, or sometimes different ones, will also tell you not only should

you leave food for your dog when you go, but when you come back, you should give your dog a reward,

so a treat. And then I've also seen other people advise that you leave a Kong, but you leave a

treat, you give your dog a treat as you head out the door, and you give the dog a treat when you

come back. So all of that going on. But here's the thing, and I've now worked with hundreds of dogs,

so I can say this quite categorically that food and separation anxiety training are a really

tricky mix. I know that seems surprising given how much advice there is about using food for

separation anxiety, but it just doesn't work. And that's why I don't recommend food for separation

training. Before I explain why not, why doesn't food work, let me just set my soul out and tell

you that I am very, very pro the use of food in dog training. Let me explain how trainers,

me included, will use food in dog training. Separation anxiety training apart, put that to

one side, there are two main ways that we use food in all other types of dog training.

The first one is we use food to change how a dog feels. And here's how that works. So when a dog

is scared of something, when a dog has been frightened by something in the past and now is

really, really worried when it encounters that scary thing, we can use food to change how that

dog feels from, I'm scared of that thing, to, ooh, I actually quite like that thing because whenever

I see it, I get food. Let's take an example of a dog who gets really, really scared when it sees

men with hats walking down the street. The dog currently feels whenever it sees a man with a

hat, it feels scared, it feels frightened. So we can use a technique called counter conditioning

where when the dog sees the man with the hat, we immediately then produce, after the dog's seen the

man with the hat, it's really important the dog must see the man with the hat first, we then

produce some amazing goodies, the best amazing food imaginable. If you're going to try and do

this, things like boiled chicken really work, anything like liver treats, because most dogs

go nuts for that, but has to be kind of really high value for this changing emotion technique

to work. So dog sees man with hat, you become a chicken dispensing machine. And the dog over time,

if we do that over and over, we do it often enough, eventually the dog starts to work out

that, oh, wait a minute, men with hats, they predict chicken. I love seeing men with hats.

So we can use this technique in all sorts of situations. We can use it for dogs who don't

like having their nails trimmed. We can use it for dogs who don't like going to the vet,

or dogs who don't like going in the car. There's any number of applications. When a dog is frightened,

we can use food to change the way it feels about the thing it used to be scared of.

Now, let's just park the notion of separation anxiety training, because you're probably

shouting at me right now, wait a minute, my dog is frightened of being home alone.

You just said I could use food to change how my dog feels about something it's frightened of.

So why can't I use food for home alone training? Okay, let's just park that. I'm going to come on

to it shortly. So the second way that trainers like me use food in training is to reward a

behavior that we like. If we're teaching a puppy to sit, we crack open the treats, and we give the

puppy a treat every time the puppy sits. If we want a dog to walk nicely next to us and not pull

on the leash, we can reward the dog for being by our side and not pulling on the leash. Again, any

number of applications. We can use food to show a dog, yeah that was the thing, that's what we wanted,

well done, here's your reward. So those are the two ways in which we typically use food

in dog training, to change the way the dog feels and to reward a behavior that we like,

a behavior that we are training and that we've asked the dog for. What I love about seeing

people working on their own dogs now is that food has revolutionized the way we all train.

Many years ago, and this still happens, it still happens extensively, we were told that the way to

get a dog to do what we wanted it to do was to hurt it or scare it or make it even, yeah, even

create pain. So the great thing about food, there's no more of that. We don't have to hurt or scare

dogs to get dogs to do what we'd like them to do. Instead, we have a much, much, much, much more

modern interaction. They go to work, the thing that we want is work to them because usually

the reason we're training that behavior is the dog doesn't do it naturally. You know, the dog that

sees something really exciting at the park sees a person they desperately want to jump up.

Training a dog to sit when they see a person they really want to jump up at,

well, that sit is quite hard work for the dog. So it's not natural. So when we want a dog to

do something that isn't natural, it's work to them. They go to work, we pay them for their work.

Totally modern. And by the way, no, that is not a bribe. You might hear that said,

oh, you've got to bribe your dog to do that. Food rewards in training are no more a bribe

than your salary is. Imagine if you went to work and your boss expected you to work

completely for free. And not only that, but if you didn't do your work or you messed up,

you've got a really good beating. I mean, how would that play out? So wages,

getting paid wages or getting paid a salary are actually a much better idea, aren't they?

It's much better to go to work because we get paid than to go to work because we're too frightened

not to. And working with food with dogs is no different to that. It's just paying them

for work that we want them to do. OK, let me spill the beans. There are two main reasons.

First of all, reason number one, we're not rewarding behavior. And number two, even though

we are changing emotions, and I mentioned just now how we can use food to change the way a dog

feels, even though with separation anxiety training, we are changing emotions, food

gets tricky in the very specific context of separation anxiety training, of the absence

training. Let's talk about number one, the fact that we're not rewarding behavior. When you work

through absence training, you are looking for your dog to be anxiety free. That is it. That is

all you're looking for. And if you don't know what absence training means, have a look at some

other podcasts where I explain more about what separation anxiety training looks like. But

essentially, you work with your dog. You expose your dog to tiny amounts of alone time, like

seconds, minutes, whatever your dog can handle, a time that's not scary. And you repeatedly go

out the door and you gradually increase time as you progress. So that's separation anxiety

training in about 20 seconds. There's way more to it. You can obviously check my book as well. Be

right back if you want more information on that. I'm not going into that in this podcast. But just

know that when we work on separation anxiety training, we are not expecting the dog to do

anything. In fact, we don't care what the dog is doing. It doesn't matter what the dog does.

It can sit at the door. It can lie on the back of the sofa. It can sprawl out on the carpet. It

doesn't matter. All we're looking for is an absence of anxiety. So that's why we don't

need food because we are not trying to reward a behavior. And on top of that, even if we did want

to reward the behavior, and you'll often hear people say, you should reward your dog for being

quiet when you do this training. If you go out and your dog is quiet and calm, you should reward

your dog when you come back. Okay, I'm gonna let you do that. You know how you can do that? Walk

through the door. That's it. Simple as that. If you have a dog with separation anxiety, you walking

through that door, coming home is the biggest reward you could ever, ever give your dog. Boiled

chicken, grilled steak, hot sausages, none of that would come close to you walking through the door.

So not only do we not need it, but heck, if you really want to reward your dog for whatever it

was doing when you came back, you've just done it because you walked through the door.

So reason number two, the second reason why we're not using food for separation anxiety training,

is that we are changing emotions, but it's problematic to use food in a very specific

technique we have for separation anxiety training. Let's rewind. A few minutes ago, I was telling you

how when a dog sees a man with a hat, if it's scared of the man with a hat, and we present food,

every time the dog sees the man, give the chicken. See the man, give the chicken. Over time,

the dog starts to think, oh, wait a minute. I see a man, I get chicken. So the man with

the scary hat becomes a tip-off that something amazing is about to happen.

But let's think about that in separation anxiety training, the very specific steps that we take.

We walk out of the door, close the door, and we wait. That is our absence training in a nutshell,

but we do that repeatedly. So we need the thing that the dog is scared of, which is alone time,

to predict food. And it has to be in that order. Scary thing first, then food. Scary thing, food.

Scary thing, food. It cannot be the other way around. It cannot be food. Scary thing. Because

what happens when you do it in that order is your dog starts to go, oh, she's getting the Kong out.

She's getting that special food puzzle out that she only ever gets when she's going out to leave me,

and it's scary. So what happens is absolutely the reverse of what we'd like to happen.

Instead of the absence, you going out, predicting food, the food now predicts the scary thing.

And so all your attempts to change how your dog feels about you leaving with food have just been

undone. Because instead of getting excited about you leaving because the Kong's coming out,

the dog sees you getting the Kong out and goes into a panic. This may have happened to you

already. It's extremely common. I see comments about it all the time in my Facebook group,

where when the topic of food comes up, it's amazing how many people jump in and say,

oh, yeah, didn't work for my dog. And all that happened was when we got the food puzzle out,

she would just lose it. It's all to do with timing. It's just really difficult to do

in the context of separation anxiety training. So even if we said, okay, so we can't use food

to be something that changes the dog's emotion. So we understand that absence can't predict food.

Food could predict absence because it's easy to get our timing wrong. But what about all the advice

of, well, leave the Kong anyway and let your dog just work on it? Because then it's going to start

to feel much happier about being alone. Well, here's what I see. And I see it over and over

and over again. If you want to read about it, jump into my free Facebook group and type Kong

or type food, type Kong, because food will probably present you with 225,000 posts or

something like that. So type Kong and have a look at what people say. The general theme,

and there's a really clear pattern here, is that when people go out and they leave food,

a lot of dogs don't touch the food. But the ones that will touch food will work on the food for a

certain amount of time. They'll work on the food until it runs out, until the Kong is empty or the

chew has been chewed, and then the dog will fall apart. It's almost like the dog sees the food

as a crutch. It can do absences as long as there's food. But once the food is gone,

it's scary absence time and they melt down. Even with the most creative and best puzzle feeder

stuffing in the world, and there are lots of menus and recipes and ideas for stuffing puzzle

feeders, but even if you get brilliant at it, chances are you won't get a puzzle feeder lasting

much more than half an hour, maybe an hour if you get lucky. But I'm suspecting that your

ultimate goal is to be able to leave your dog for a bit more than 30 minutes. And so we see it time

and time again, people get into the routine, they leave food and their dog just loses it.

What's happening is your dog isn't learning to be alone, it's just being distracted by the food.

So that's why I just say let's start the training without the food and build up from there. Because

using food just creates a problem down the line. It creates a problem at 30 minutes or 40 minutes

whenever your dog just panics because the food has gone. It's way better to start over. And again,

if you jump into my group and search the post, you will hear people say this,

they gave up on the food, they started over, and that's when they started to get the results.

Now one last thing to say about food, because there is a time and a place for food in separation

anxiety training. I know I said there wasn't, there is. But it's not really for training the

dog to be alone, it's for managing an absence. So food can help you manage an absence. So remember

that when we do this training, we have to find a way not to leave our dogs.

And I know that's tricky. But if you have a dog who will happily work on a Kong for 30 minutes

and then fall apart. Okay, so if you leave that Kong for 30 minutes, your dog isn't learning the

new home alone is safe thing. But it's doing okay for 30 minutes. If your dog will work on that Kong

for 30 minutes or 40 minutes or an hour, you've got a window of time that you can use to do

something with. But you have to know that your dog can do that consistently. You have to know

every single time I leave a Kong, my dog can do 30 minutes and he doesn't get stressed.

If that's you, if that's your dog, you can use that time to go and do something.

Go and grab some groceries, go and fill up the car. You've got time because your dog's okay

working on that Kong. However, if your dog is sometimes okay with the food, and sometimes not,

or if your dog eats the food but is still anxious, then this little hack isn't going to

help you. If your dog's really inconsistent, and he's doing five minutes of the Kong or 30,

what if you go and get groceries, and you're looking at your phone, and you've left the Kong,

you thought he was going to be okay. But five minutes in, he's falling apart. Now, you're

dashing back and not getting your groceries. Equally, if your dog, and some dogs will do this

is working on the food, but it's freaking out, then he's having a really panicky absence,

which is exactly what we can't allow them to have. But if your dog will work on a Kong,

consistently and isn't getting upset, you can use food as a management tool to grab whatever time

you can while he works away. He's not learning, he's distracted, but it's a tiny bit of freedom

for you. So I know that this probably all seems weird. We're so used these days to using food in

training. But I'm hoping that I've shown you how it is better. In fact, it's essential that we do

separate anxiety without food. And if you're somebody who's been trying it with food, and it's

not been working, I hope this episode has shown you why. Thank you so much for listening. I really

appreciate you taking the time to listen to my podcast because I know you've got a ton of

listening options. If you like my podcast, I would love it if you could rate and review it either on

iTunes or Spotify. Every time you review it, it helps other people find information that might

be useful for them. So it would be great if you could head over and do that. Alright, that's it

from me for now. I'll see you on the next episode. 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.