When Myths Become Truths

Some things that really annoy me include running out of oat milk, especially running out of

oat milk first thing in the morning when I'm just wanting to pour it on to my muesli.

I'm not mentioning any names here but you know who you are when you get the oat milk

before me.

Another thing that drives me a bit bonkers, off leash dogs that charge.

On leash dogs.

Hands up if you've got a dog who when he's on leash, when he or she's on leash doesn't

love it when an off leash dog who apparently is friendly comes charging at them.

The third thing that really, really gets to me, and actually I don't get, and it sounds

like I'm a really angry, annoyed person, I don't, I don't get that angry but there are

some things that really rile me.

And the third thing that really gets to me, it's the myths that surround separation anxiety

and I seem to spend so much of my time having to deal with statements that people make believing

that they're factual when it comes to separation anxiety but are actually just not.

They're so far from the truth, they're made up, they're nonsense and it's clear I'm always

going to have to keep talking about the myths in separation anxiety, they're never going

to go away.

So here I am again today talking once again about separation anxiety myths but I'm going

to do something slightly different today because I want to dive into why do myths get formed

in the first place?

Why do we have this need to create myths when for the most part we can find information

that's based on facts or truth?

So that's what this episode is all about.

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.

So the other day I was scrolling through my free Facebook group and I saw a post, a really

quite common post, I hear this statement a lot and it went something like, I just don't

know what to do, I feel so confused, there's just so much conflicting information, it's

hard to know what I believe.

And I felt this person's pain, because I certainly remember that feeling ten years

ago when I first discovered my dog couldn't be left, it's like head scratching, there's

so much out there and so much that does seem to be at odds, you know, you read one piece

that says do one thing and then somebody else or something else will say do exactly the

opposite.

But here's the thing, there's a difference between conflicting information and conflicting

facts.

There is a ton of information out there about separation anxiety, there's plenty of advice

and lots of that advice is, it's true, it's conflicting.

But the reason that that advice is conflicting is that people are giving that advice based

on their opinion, based on something that they believe to be true but which actually,

if they took the time to dive into the research, to look at the evidence, it will become clear

is not a fact, it's actually a myth.

So how do we end up there?

How do we end up with separation anxiety, which is the most researched behavioural problem

in dogs, being swamped by so much misinformation?

Why do these myths ever take on the credence that they take on?

Well today I'm going to go through not just how separation anxiety myths develop but how

myths develop in general, why we need them and why we so often rely on myths to help

us find our way through information.

The first big reason that you'll see myths developing is that when a piece of information

is taken and then gets repeated over and over again without challenge, so you hear it so

often that it must be true because your brain subconsciously, you don't know you're doing

this but your brain subconsciously is going, well I hear this over and over and over, so

it must be true, everybody's saying it, it must be true.

A great example in dog training is the alpha myth, the leadership myth, if you don't know

what this is, well I'll tell you about it but just like, I'll tell you and then erase

it from your memory.

It's all about the fact that we need to, as humans, dominate, you can't see them, but

dominate dogs in order for dogs to understand what we want them to do.

So dogs are clueless and they're lost and they are determined, by the way, according

to the alpha myth and the leadership myth, to take over, to dominate us.

And that's, so this is how the leadership myth goes, that's why they develop behavioural

problems.

So what we need to do isn't train them, isn't undergo behavioural modification, we just

need to show them who's boss.

Well so many trainers and people in the dog world and people outside of the dog world

have talked about this for so long that there's an assumption that this is a thing, that dogs

are trying to dominate, that we have submissive dogs and we have dogs who want to dominate

us, that we have dogs who need to be top dog and who need to be top dog in a pack which

includes us.

But it's just not like that.

There isn't evidence to suggest that when your dog wants to sleep on your bed it's because

it wants to dominate you.

There's nothing, nothing that says when your dog wants to go out the door first it's because

it's trying to be your boss.

Your dog wants to go out of the door first because doors are really exciting and you're

being really slow.

And there's plenty, plenty that's been written debunking the alpha and leadership myth so

I am not going to go into it here.

If you want to research it, dive in and type debunk leadership myth in dog training or

debunk the alpha myth you'll find plenty of resources.

The point I'm making though is you might be listening to this thinking well I always thought

that was a thing and you wouldn't be alone because everybody says it.

So if everybody says it this myth starts to feel like a fact.

Now linked to that another reason why a piece of information that isn't true that is groundless

takes off as fact so myth turns into reality is when that information or that statement

gets repeated by people with credibility.

Maybe today I was reading something that was across all the newspaper about somebody

tweeting social media's got quite a lot to play in propagating myth because it allows

people to repeat information that might not be true and it allows people with credibility

quotes credibility to make statements widely so social media does have a lot to play in

this.

I digress but I was reading something today somebody had tweeted something about the coronavirus

vaccine and how it has affected somebody in her family and then she's had a number of

scientists speak out and say but that's not true but the thing is that information is

now out there.

It's getting repeated over and over without challenge because that information is getting

shared and it's getting repeated by people who have a large social media following which

in this day and age is akin to credibility.

The larger your following the more credible you are seen to be.

In separation anxiety training one of the things that I see get repeated by people with

credibility which is actually a myth is that we should use food in training and often it

would be I often hear vets say this I hear a lot of dog trainers say this that what we

need to do is leave a cone for a dog or give a dog a treat when we go out because that's

how we're going to get our dog to be okay with being alone.

If you've ever tried this you'll know it doesn't work there's a variety of reasons why it doesn't

work but you may well have experienced this yourself in fact a lot of people come to me

having tried this method and realize that at best what happens is you get a dog who's

okay for as long as the food lasts and then once the food is gone the dog melts down.

The dog isn't actually learning to be okay on its own it's being distracted by the food

but very credible sources will tell you that this is the solution not this is an aid not

this is something that might help but this is the solution to separation anxiety.

And so we believe it it's not a myth to us it's a truth why wouldn't it be a truth if

credible people say it over and over.

A third big reason why a myth takes on the life of a fact is if it's the first thing

that people hear so we just our brains just have a way of attributing weight to information

to data to learning that we come across for the first time we just do that you can probably

think of things all through your life where the first time you hear something it kind

of sticks and then we have to unlearn that.

Now in separation anxiety the classic example of this is that when your dog first started

struggling I bet one of the first pieces of information or first piece of advice you were

ever given is you need to let your dog cry it out for the vast majority of us it's probably

one of the first bits of training quote advice that we're given about getting our dogs over

separation anxiety so it kind of starts to feel sort of like it must be true and as well

as being one of the first things we hear it gets repeated over and over so parameter number

one gets met it gets repeated by people with credibility so that's number two and it's

the first thing we hear as well so we hear it it gets repeated over and over by friends

and family by trainers that we meet and it gets repeated by people with credibility trainers

possibly vets possibly so of course it seems like it must be true.

We don't challenge it because it just seems like it must be a fact.

The fourth reason why myths can take on a life of their own is because in itself it

just seems to be sensible there's something about it that seems reasonably plausible so

a statement is made and you hear it and you think oh yeah I kind of see that again in

the separation anxiety context the classic one here is well you need to crate your dog

when you go out your dog is upset so you need to put your dog in a crate because dogs like

to den.

Oh yeah and I can see that yeah because dogs then yeah it does seem like they need to snuggle

doesn't it and they do seem to like kind of really cozy spots yeah so if I put my dog

in a crate close the door I'm creating a safe space.

If you've tried this with a dog who's in a panic when you leave you'll know that their

results are horrendous I've seen all sorts of awful outcomes from dogs who've been imprisoned

let's let's tell it how it is imprisoned in their panic such distressing scenes as well

things like dogs who defecate everywhere because they're panicking dogs who try to escape dogs

who hurt themselves and by the way don't listen to anybody who says that so-called indestructible

anxiety crate is the solution all that does is it imprisons a dog even further in its

panic and even if this so-called indestructible crate stops the dog from physically harming

itself the mental damage done by imprisoning that panicking dog is huge but as an aside

lots of dogs still hurt themselves in indestructible crates but it seems to make sense dogs like

to snuggle so why wouldn't they seem better in a crate well because they feel trapped

think about it this way if you love your home it's your haven right so if you love your

home it's a nice feeling when you come home from work if there was a massive thunderstorm

on outside you'd probably feel better snuggling up on the sofa at home than being out in a

thunderstorm however if the house was on fire if your apartment set fire and somebody locked

the door on you how are you going to feel about your safe haven then would you feel

cozy would you feel like you want to be there or would you go into a blind panic desperate

to escape so massive difference thunderstorm outside you choose to be at home you choose

to be at home you choose to snuggle because it feels like that's where you want to be

and it feels safe and you feel protected a fire starts up in your home the last thing

you want to do is to be trapped in your home with the door locked not being able to escape

so yes create a cozy space for your dog when you go out that's absolutely fine but the

way to make sure that your dog doesn't panic in its crate when you go out aside from doing

separation anxiety training is to keep the door open just let your dog decide if they

feel better being in a crate when you go out then leave the door open so that they can

decide when they want to go in and they can decide when they want to go out don't imprison

them in their crate now I'm really pro crate for lots and lots of situations I teach all

of my separation anxiety heroes or I talk to my separation anxiety heroes about a crate

training plan which gradually gets a dog to love its crate so let's get dogs loving their

crate loving snuggling down in their crate but let's not make them prisoners in a crate

when they're panicking fundamentally different fundamentally different so massive huge myth

crating does not get a dog over separation anxiety for the most part it makes things

worse all right let's dig deeper into this myth thing another reason why myths take hold

is that they can be very broad generalizations that kind of have a nugget of truth so they're

not completely false statements in the separation anxiety context the one that I would highlight

here is getting a second dog you heard that one you thought about that one we've all heard

that one right you might have even tried it the vast majority of people who do try this

who do get a second dog to help their first dog separation anxiety will tell you it made

no difference whatsoever they got a second dog which is great they love having two dogs

but for the most part it did not solve their first dog's separation anxiety and it's an

incredibly risky undertaking too what if your second dog develops separation anxiety well

the way things are at the moment so many dogs seem to be developing separation anxiety that

could absolutely be something that could happen to you even if your second dog doesn't

develop separation anxiety what if they like to bark at noises outside that's not going

to be great for your dog with separation anxiety what if the two don't get on what if your

dog who doesn't have separation anxiety your second dog develops some other behavioral

problem that you now have to work on that you have to spend time you have to spend money

on that and the reason why I say this is one of those myths where a little nugget of

truth gets exploded to become a universal truth is that there are some situations where

a dog does help another dog get over separation anxiety and it's very dog dependent for the

vast majority of dogs it makes no difference but occasionally someone will get a second

dog with the intention of helping out their anxious dog their first dog and it works so

we hear that we amplify it we repeat it over and over and then before we know it it's become

another truth get a second dog get a second dog and you know this get a second dog myth

kind of also fits with the it makes sense criteria you know there is something about

it which seems to be yeah that's logical of course the dogs lonely so we'll get a second

dog but the reality is that most of these dogs with separation anxiety need another

need a human to stop them from having anxiety when left for most of them a dog doesn't cut

it what about if you want to get a second dog but if you really want to try it well

I'm not going to say don't get a second dog I've got three dogs how can I say that but

what I will say is think it through work out if you can truly afford it it's an expensive

undertaking workout it would be okay if your other dog developed behavioral problems that

you had to deal with and you know are you going to be okay with all of that if getting

a second dog that second dog makes no difference to your current dog's anxiety also the best

way to go about it if you are fixed on doing this is just foster what if you discover that

your dog does well with other dogs when left that would be great but you want to make sure

that it's not just that dog that helps your dog you want to make sure that the dog you're

adopting or the dog you're taking into your home is the one that's helping your dog so

foster to adopt if this is what you want to do that's going to give you your absolute

best data on whether your dog is going to be one of the few that gets over separation

anxiety because they've got a new doggy pal in the home okay one other reason why myths

take hold is they help explain to us something that's seemingly unexplainable because human

brains are just not designed for ambiguity we cannot cope with a void of information

we have to have answers we also have a bias which says there must be an answer there must

be a reason why and we need to find that why so when we can't find an answer in data

and in facts what fills the void myths and those myths especially when they seem to really

explain something complex that the facts aren't helping us with well all of a sudden that

myth is definitely a truth so for example in separation anxiety you causing your dog

separation anxiety is a myth that explains something we don't why did you don't get separation

anxiety that we don't actually have a concrete answer for in in data we don't have studies

which say this is why your dog got separation anxiety unfortunately we don't really know and

our human brains don't like that answer they don't like it when somebody tells us oh we don't

really know why I can't tell you exactly why your dog got separation anxiety I can tell you what

the contributing factors are and there are many of them but I can't tell you for certain why your

dog got separation anxiety and hence it's much easier to fill that void with a very strong

statement that it's your fault in truth why do dogs get separation anxiety well as I said we

don't really know but there are some factors that we know contribute including genetics what

happened to your puppy when it was born those very very very formative early weeks what happened to

your puppy before it came home what happened to your puppy even when it was being carried by its

mom and so all of those things aren't related to you now there are some things that we as especially

as brand new owners can do with a puppy when it first comes into the home to help stave off

separation anxiety for example if we do puppy home alone training which I set out in my puppy

separation anxiety book there's a chance that we can help a dog be comfortable with what's a really

alien situation being alone the problem is that we can do all those things in a dog might still

develop separation anxiety because all those early factors in its life before it even came to us have

set it on a course of separation anxiety so none of that is down to you now if I said to you the

reason dogs get separation anxiety is because we don't leave them as puppies you need to leave your

dog as a puppy and then you go off and completely ignore me then maybe maybe just maybe you might

have some culpability here but really that's not happening that's not why your dog got separation

anxiety it is not your fault even if you were with your dog the whole time your pandemic puppy

nobody was telling you that if you didn't step out of the door a couple of times a day there's a

chance that your puppy would get separation anxiety we were under stay-at-home orders we

were locked down so guilt has to be I knew what I was doing and I ignored the right thing to do so I

did the opposite of what I should have done so you must never feel guilty for your dog separation

anxiety and you must never think it's your fault that is just a myth that has been constructed to

fill that void because we hate the answer of we don't precisely know why your puppy got separation

anxiety however we do know what we could do to get your puppy over separation anxiety or your dog

okay another factor is when a myth is espoused by authority and here it's about who makes a

statement but also who we decide is authority who or what we decide is authority I mentioned

earlier that right now a viral post is seen as something that is authoritative something goes

viral on social then we often place a lot of weight on that post because heck if all those

people have liked it then surely it must have some truth to it so authority doesn't have to

be you know a scientist or a vet or a dog trainer or your family it can be something completely

impersonal like a viral post if we decide if we make the decisions that that to us is authoritative

and that is what's happening with a lot of myths that go viral you see them they've got so many

likes it must be true and going back to previous things we talked about it gets repeated because

it goes viral lots of these myths are making sense the ones we see in the viral tweets and

the viral postings but it doesn't make them true a million likes doesn't make a myth into a fact

it just makes it a popular myth so let's be really careful here when we particularly when

we see stuff online that popular doesn't mean factual another way we fall into the authority

trap is we assume that big companies must be authorities or companies with big marketing

spend so companies that are on Amazon selling CBD products they have a lot of money to invest

in that product but just because they look polished and they look pro and they've got

gazillion dollar marketing budget it doesn't mean that they are an authority on separation anxiety

it just means that they can persuade us to believe what they want us to believe so always check

the facts always check the data when you see ads for things there's no harm in diving in

to Google and asking the right questions and I'm going to come on to shortly in this podcast

how you can find out how you can test your sources and you know on that marketing spend piece think

about some of the really big name shop collar manufacturers or the indestructible crate

manufacturers they tell us that the shop collar will fix separation anxiety the crate manufacturers

tell us that an indestructible crate will calm our dog and they're so prominent and they seem

so professional that surely they must be telling the truth because they seem so authoritative

incredible no they've just got a really vested interest in selling a product that by the way

they have no requirement to prove is effective they can they can just say it but meanwhile

lesser-known experts can produce papers based on concrete data based on studies on actual dogs

that are packed with credibility but just do not get the airtime okay so what can we do how can we

avoid being taken in by all these myths as someone who was most definitely hoodwinked by a ton of

myths when it came to separation anxiety I want to share this with you in the hope that you don't

make the mistakes that I made when I first started out number one check your sources and that could

mean asking somebody directly so if you're not sure ask your trainer how they know what they know

also check your trainer's qualifications and just because they call themselves a behaviorist

that doesn't mean to say that they spent six years studying how dogs learn and how we apply

behavior modification techniques to dogs anybody can call themselves that they can do a half-day

course so checking your source can mean checking where the source of the information comes from but

also checking the credibility of the person now people often ask me where do I get my information

from where do I get my information from well for a start I trained at the hub of the dog trainers

Dean Donaldson's academy for dog training and honestly I could not have had a better education

and it was actually the best education I've ever had not just in dog training but I decided when

I started out as a dog trainer that I wanted to have the best education that I could have

so that I could be the best trainer that I could be and one of the things I learned as part of that

program was how to dive into science so that I could challenge topics I could challenge myths

I could challenge assumptions and that's a really important skill that I've learned and I'm really

pleased that I have so we need to ask people where they get the information how do you know that

it's just as important that they are also able to say we don't really know and you will hear me say

that if I know something because we've got research about it I'm going to tell you if I'm sharing an

opinion because it's an opinion I'm also going to tell you that and when I don't know you'll often

hear me say because dog what do I mean by that honestly we just don't know why dogs do some of

the things that they do we don't know why they develop some of the problems they develop just

because dog and that's as good as we're ever going to get in terms of an explanation so saying I don't

know is a really good indication oh sounds like I'm playing my own trumpet here I'm not I learned

to do this I learned that sometimes saying I don't know it's often not just sometimes often it's the

best thing to say let's not make stuff up let's say we don't know say we don't know because there

isn't the data to support that there isn't research it's not that there's contradicting data it's just

that the data isn't always there so ask people where how do you know that where did you get that

from okay the second thing you can do to avoid being taken in by separation anxiety myths is

don't mistake opinion for fact so going back to that post that I was telling you about and say

in my Facebook group there's so much conflicting information no there's so much confliction in

terms of opinions it's not information it's conflicting opinions opinions and information

and facts are different things and conflicting opinions there's nothing wrong with conflicting

opinions existing that's how knowledge is developed and knowledge grows because we have conflicting

opinions and we want to test them out but don't mistake people shouting loudly their opinion on

something with people who are basing that opinion in fact and that's where the conflict comes with

separation anxiety because it's people with an opinion that isn't based on anything giving you

advice the reality is that the vast majority of separation anxiety trainers people who truly focus

on separation anxiety actually give pretty consistent advice there might be differences

around the edges but there isn't that much difference so no there isn't a ton of conflicting

information there's a ton of conflicting opinions many of which are not based on anything other than

just that person's point of view the third thing you can do is stay skeptical now skepticism is

often seen as a negative trait oh you're so skeptical you're so negative but you know it's a healthy

trait it's a healthy way of thinking it just means i'm going to keep an open mind and be ready to be

persuaded by the science by the data by the facts it's not i'm automatically going to take up a

position here it means prove it to me and i will then agree i'll buy into it don't prove it to me

and i'm going to stay skeptical prove it to me and you're probably going to convince me to change

my mind that's what a good skeptic does a good skeptic isn't looking for data that supports their

disbelief they're actually truly open to data which changes their mind and that's very different from

somebody who has a fixed view of the world and no matter what you say to them no matter what facts

you throw at them they ain't budging so keep an open mind be ready to be persuaded by science and

by facts and be okay with changing your mind and putting your hand up and saying i used to think

this but now i know this actually that's a really good place to be and that's a great place to be

for your dog because stuff doesn't stay the same advice does change as we discover more and so it

should be let's not get stuck let's keep learning and keep applying new knowledge as it becomes

available to us so i don't think this is the last podcast i'm ever going to make about myths it's not

the last time i'm ever going to talk about alternative facts in separation anxiety but i

hope this podcast has at least given you some sort of a framework to be a bit more challenging

when it comes to some of the statements that people make about separation anxiety

that actually are in no way factual which aren't helpful and aren't good for either you

or your dog so good luck with that training and i'll see you online soon

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 julie naismith.com

meanwhile if you enjoyed listening today i would love it if you would head over

to wherever you listen to your podcast and consider rating

my show thanks so much good luck with that training and bye for now