It Happens to Trainers Too!

I often hear people say that they feel like their dog separation anxiety is somehow connected

to their, I don't know, adequacy as an owner, as a guardian, and that somehow it feels like

they're obviously just not doing a good job of being an owner, of being a guardian, because

their dogs ended up with separation anxiety.

Well, that's why in this week's episode, I am talking to two of my certified SA Pro

trainers, Beth Bacobian and Joe Sellers.

Now, both Beth and Joe have been through what you're going through.

They've both had dogs with separation anxiety, and they've both experienced what it's like

to live and train a dog with this condition.

And the reason I want to talk to them is because Beth and Joe are not alone.

There are plenty of dog professionals.

I come across dog professionals all the time, whether that be sports dogs trainers, whether

that be pet dog trainers.

I come across so many dog professionals who have experienced having a dog of their own

have this condition, and I want you to hear what they have to say about it, what Beth

and Joe have to say about it, so that you know it has nothing to do with you or your

competence as a dog owner.

So Joe and Beth are going to chat with me today about their dogs, about their experience

of going through separation anxiety, and I've asked them to share their tips for you to

help you navigate your way through this.

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 Beth, tell us about your dog, the one that's in a struggle with separation anxiety.

Dive in and tell us.

Sure.

So I have a young dog, his name is Edmund.

He is now 11 months.

He's a Llewellyn Fieldbred English Setter that I got from a very reputable breeder,

and he came to me at 9 weeks of age, and surprise, surprise, the young man had confinement anxiety.

Wow.

Okay.

Okay.

Almost from the off, Beth, did you notice that immediately?

Yeah, the first day was pretty wicked.

We tried to crate him just for a few minutes to let him have some puppy downtime, and he

began hyperventilating, shrieking, drooling, spinning, clawing.

It was pretty intense, so I immediately popped him out.

But then the first night was pretty intense as well.

He had it right from the jump.

Oh, poor baby.

And to be clear, you've worked with a lot of dogs, and you've had a few dogs yourself,

so you know what you're dealing with, and you know when you see something that's not right.

Yes, correct.

This was not my first puppy and not my first setter, and this is my second setter with

separation anxiety.

My first one went through a window, she had separation anxiety so bad, and had since been

resolved.

So I knew what I was dealing with, and I knew kind of how to get there with him, but it

was stunning being a professional and getting this brand new baby puppy, who everybody was

like, puppies are great right out of the jump, and they have no issues.

And it's so wrong.

So true.

And you know, the thing is, and I'm sure Josie will speak to this as well, for so long, we've

in a way kind of, yeah, made it not a legitimate concern.

We've said to people with puppies, we've said to owners and guardians, no, no, no, don't

be silly.

No, it's a puppy.

It's just being puppy.

And we've completely downplayed their concerns, and they're actually, in the end, for a lot

of them, they're a really good observation that this wasn't normal puppy stuff, which

is certainly what sounds like you saw with your youngster.

Yeah, absolutely.

It wasn't just a little whining or a little like, oh, I'm sad you've walked away from

the crate.

It was intense, and it was pure panic.

And we, when we can get into this a little later, but I tried for eight months to get

him to crate, and we just could never get it conditioned.

Now, is that your clock in the background?

Are we keeping it real with your clock?

Yes, I apologize.

No, it's great.

Just to prove we are recording this live.

But didn't you love that?

I love that sound of Beth's clock chiming in the background.

It sure beats doorbells.

Beth, thanks.

We're going to come back onto, we're going to do way more of your story in a second,

and I'm just going to dive in and ask Jo the same question.

So Jo, tell us all about Reba and her story.

Yeah, Reba, she's a Cocker Bichon.

She's just had her sixth birthday recently.

And I got her as a eight-week-old puppy.

So I went to what was a Kennel Club Assured Breeder, although it wasn't for this particular

breed mix.

It wasn't a puppy farm by any stretch, but it was definitely a business because there

were a few different litters there.

So obviously, she had quite a busy household that she came from.

And yeah, the first, oh gosh, from the first day to the first night, she's my first dog.

She's my first dog, my first puppy.

And I just knew, well, the first few nights were going to be a challenge, but I didn't

expect what I had.

Tried to put her into the crate during the day.

I've actually, the only photo I've got of her in a crate with the door open was literally

on her first afternoon with me.

Right.

And after that, she just drooled, panicked, knocked the water over.

It was horrific.

And was at my wit's end.

It was so upsetting because I just knew this wasn't right, but I just didn't know where

to go at the time.

And I'm hoping, and one of the reasons for doing this today is for listeners to realize

that sometimes when you know, you just know.

And these are two trainers here who are saying that they both have puppies and they both

recognize that, no, no, no, this isn't just the normal puppy stuff that people will tell

you that's what your puppy's doing.

But sometimes you just know, and I personally, I was there as well.

I was like, no, no, no, this isn't normal.

It really isn't.

And you were describing the panic, Jo, just without, I don't want to, I don't want to

make people feel really upset, but it is helpful, I think, to understand what panic looks like.

So what did you see River doing that wasn't just a fussy puppy?

Literally when I went to close the door of the crate, because I had a big open plan room,

so it wasn't really safe to give her the whole access, but she was just trying to get out.

I had like a little waterfall on a little ring, so it just held off the ground, but

that used to go flying.

At one point she had her head through the ring, she managed to get it off the crate,

but the clip failed and it was actually over her head.

The whole bottom of the crate was just wet and even that was without the water, that

was just drooling, howling, panting.

Yeah.

Just, you can just see the panic.

She did not even attempt to settle and it just didn't stop.

Yeah.

You knew something was very wrong there.

The couple of things you mentioned there was they're not stopping.

So, you know, you both know this.

We often, when we talk to clients now and they tell us a bit of the history, one of

the things that really jumps out is that these dogs are really persistent in the behavior

because they're in a panic and that panic makes them do whatever they need to do over

and over again.

And so you see these very persistent behaviors that you just described.

And then that thing about, you know, that is way beyond a puppy who just feels like

they're missing out on the action or they'd way rather be on the sofa than in the crate.

This is a much more fundamental emotion coming out in them, isn't it?

Totally.

Yeah.

It's more than just a tantrum because I was going to be with her, touching her the whole

time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And to be clear, I mean, there are some puppies who are, puppies in particular, are very good

at expressing their frustration because they haven't learned any impulse control.

They don't come programmed with impulse control.

So we do need puppies that just would much rather be in on the action and having fun

than being in their crate.

But if you're listening to this and thinking, my puppy sounds like Joe's, my puppy sounds

like Beth's, then it may well be that your puppy is anxious and it may well be that all

those people that are telling you that your puppy is just being a normal puppy, they don't

really know what they're talking about.

Anyway, so Joe, thank you.

We're going to come back and talk about rerent a bit more.

But back to Beth.

So Beth, you discovered that gorgeous Edmund is now panicking in his crate.

So what did you do?

What are your next steps?

So I did something really unconventional, which a bunch of my colleagues looked at me

sideways and certainly a bunch of pet parents did too.

I got him out of his crate.

As a nine-week-old puppy, I went, well, that's not worth it to me for you to sit there in

a blind panic.

It would be the same if you put me in a room with a thousand spiders, I would be in a blind

panic.

And so there's no sense just creating that distrust for him in humans that we're just

going to lock him away and not care about his emotional state.

So I got him out of the crate.

He couldn't even be in an X-Pen, so that was even a little more challenging.

I created a safe space for him down in our foyer, which I just lined the foyer with X-Pens

so that he couldn't chew the wall.

And I left him with my senior setter, who is now resolved for Seth Inks.

And that worked to be able to leave him alone if we had to for short periods of time.

But he could not be crated.

And I stepped all the way back to the very beginning, making positive associations.

I tried and tried and tried and tried.

We tried every minute to crate him.

He would make it about 30 minutes and then start whimpering and whining, which if you

didn't immediately respond to him, which a couple of my colleagues said, oh, he's just

learned that when he whines and whimpers, you get him out.

And I'm like, yeah, maybe.

But if I leave him, he escalates.

And he doesn't just escalate to the point of I'm barking out of getting your attention.

I am barking out of a sheer emotion and I'm panicking and he's drooling.

And then he would soil himself.

So we gave up at five months the crating at night.

And the first night, my husband's like, we're going to lose everything.

We're going to lose the walls.

We're going to lose wires.

I will honestly tell you, we've never lost a single thing.

And the very first night, five months in, was the first night we all slept completely

through the night.

He curled up on a dog bed on the floor and went right to sleep.

I continued to try to crate train and it's just not something he's willing to do.

I think he may be a dog that's claustrophobic and that's fine.

So the only thing we're working on now that he has some issues with is he does not like

to be left in a car.

So if you leave him in a car and try to walk away, he panics.

So we're working on some habituation and desensitization there.

But again, it's a very slow process.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it often can be, right?

We know that.

We know that.

And it's sometimes, it is easier when it's not your own dog.

It is way more stressful.

You've got all the tensions, you've got the family tensions.

And there's also a little bit of you that thinks, I mean, I certainly did, you know,

well, shouldn't I know better?

Why is this happening to me?

But I wanted to come back on a couple of things that you said.

So you started off by saying, I did some things that you might find surprising.

I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what is Beth going to say?

What's she going to tell me that we haven't talked about?

And you talked about not crating.

And now from where I am and where Joe is and the further kind of east we go into parts

of Europe, crating isn't a thing.

I mean, it's become more normal in the UK now, Joe, hasn't it?

That we crate puppies in order to help with house training and chewing.

But there are lots of countries in the world, lots of countries in Europe in particular,

where crates aren't used to house train.

They're not used to chew train.

I didn't do it with either of my two younger dogs, older dogs now.

It just didn't occur to me.

You know, I did what lots of people do.

I created a smaller space that we would be in together, watch them like a hawk.

And yeah, we lost a few things.

I'm not going to lie.

We lost a few, you know, backs of the heels of shoes and, you know,

a couple of chair legs had chomps in them.

But it was not something that I think in the UK at that time you felt compelled to do.

So it wouldn't seem like you were failing if you didn't crate.

But I do come across lots of guardians and owners in this part of the world,

in North America now, who feel like they're failing if they don't crate.

But there are many, many ways to house train and chew train a puppy

without having to use a crate.

Having said that, I love crates for reasons if we can get the puppy to love a crate.

So I'm kind of mixed on that.

And then there was something else you said,

and it completely gone out of my head, but we will come back to it.

But Jo, I want to ask you about crating,

because obviously now you work with lots of clients.

What's the stance in the UK on crates at the moment?

It's still very typical, you know.

You get told the dog needs a safe area, a pen, a den.

All dogs love a den.

That's why crates put a blanket over the top.

And I think for the house training, it's probably 99% of clients do crate training.

Right. OK, that's interesting.

Because that's not the case if you went somewhere like Sweden, for example.

In Scandinavian countries, they train house trained dogs.

But I'm making a broad generalisation here,

which a listener might pick me up on.

But they don't tend to be as 100% crate focused, I don't think.

Yeah, I think we need to be a bit more open.

But then maybe people are very precious about the houses and the floors

and the dirt the dog might bring in.

And the last thing they want is the pee and poo accident.

Which are going to happen anyway with the puppy.

Because even if you try and watch them 24-7,

you sometimes lose your concentration for a minute.

And that's the one minute where they're going to have an accident.

So, yeah, I think there's definitely...

crates do not suit every dog.

And I wish I'd known that at the time.

Yeah. Yeah. And you can...

It's like pushing water uphill with a dog who doesn't want to love a crate.

We've got, you know, lovely incremental crate training plans

that are designed to get dogs to love crates.

But there's just something with some dogs,

it seems like door closes, it seems like you can never get past that step.

Or the other step where I find that these dogs really struggle on

is as soon as you go out of sight and they're in a crate.

But it's great to hear both of you talk about alternatives

that, yes, you can house train and shoe train a puppy

even if you don't have a crate.

So you obviously gave up on the crating then as well, Jo.

Yeah, so I think we know where to turn

when I realised I obviously had a problem.

And my vets, very, very good vets,

but this obviously wasn't a specialist topic.

And I got sent away with some Google printouts about

leave her to quiet out, don't come back when they're crying,

keep her in a crate, at least go out every day

for at least 20 minutes leaving her.

So this was my first foray into separation training

which obviously didn't work.

We had probably about eight months of no sleep.

I don't think she slept either.

And in the end, as soon as I knew that

Reba was toilet trained and was going to be safe,

she was given the run of the room downstairs.

I still was trying to keep her downstairs

because my bedroom is my sanctuary.

I used to have a cat and I was allergic to cats

that's why I put more pets in my bedroom

because it was my safe zone.

She used to sleep on the little chair in the kitchen.

She was absolutely really good for about a week.

So I think there were some foxes in the garden

and then she's now upstairs in my bedroom

on her own dog bed and I have to kick her awake

in the morning, well not literally kick her

but you know, I have to wake her up.

She sleeps so well now.

It's lovely when they get to that stage

that one of the things that they definitely

see a change in dogs who get over separation anxiety

is that they start to settle much better

because they're not on high alert all the time

that we're about to walk out of the door

and this guy's about to fall on their heads.

I was just going to go back to what you said

earlier about the advice you were given.

It wasn't awful, it wasn't for the most part

and she'll get over it.

It was practice separation, go out for a certain amount of time

but the way that we all work now is very different to that

because it's much more precise and usually

it's much smaller chunks of time

because we're fine with these panicky dogs

and a minute is a long time for them, right?

I was initially told you've got to leave it for at least

20 minutes to half an hour every day.

My vet was saying no, you shouldn't be at home with her all the time

just leave her, she'll stop crying eventually

she'll get used to it.

So it was quite harsh and I could hear her from outside the house

and I was crying in my car.

It made her worse to what she was

and then my persistent crate training

made her worse.

She's still phobic about going in crates

and going behind the door to get a toy

so I still have issues there

but I started introducing her to absences

but starting at 20 minutes

I would never encourage that now.

It was too big a chunk of time

but I didn't know better at the time and I trusted my vets

and I trust them on medical issues now.

The 20 minutes is interesting because we do hear it a lot

15, 20 or I'll hear you leave them for 1

and then it's 5 and then it's 10

and honestly we just don't see dogs like that

if they panic they panic and they usually panic very quickly

when we first start working with them don't they?

Something you just said there just reminded me of something

that Beth said that I wanted to come back to

so Beth, one of the things you said

was that you were, maybe a couple of people have said to you

when he's in his crate and he whines and you let him out

he's just learning that when he whines he gets out

and you said maybe but the thing is

and I would come back on whoever said that to you

and say but if he's whining

because he's about to go into a panic

then yeah we need to let him out

so whether he's learning that whining gets him out or not

if he learns that whining gets him out

then fair enough him letting us know

he's about to go into a panic right?

Yeah absolutely, why if I know

that snake 4 yards in front of me

is going to come into a panic why would I keep walking forward towards that snake

I'm not going to

so it's interesting that there is a school of thought

that we should disregard emotion

and that pet parents often think that the dog

is just being stubborn or the dog is

oh it's not used to being in the crate so it's making noise

no, if you've ever seen a dog that's comfortable

in a crate they go in, they curl up, they lie down

maybe they'll give a little whimper here and there but they're not going to shriek

and Edmund was pure on shrieking

like it would raise the hair on the back of your neck

to listen if they can scream

and it was not worth it

I think that my husband and I had a little bit of

disagreement in the beginning

for the 5 months that we tried to get him to sleep in his crate

which I will tell you we did not sleep for 5 months

through the night so we were very sleep deprived

he wanted to keep going and I kept saying

no we need to let him out in my professional opinion

and then I had him talk to a couple of my colleagues

that specialize in separation anxiety too

and I'm like I swear I didn't

we need to get the dog out because it's not helping him

it's not changing his opinion about the crate

just keeping him in there

just like keeping me in the room with a snake isn't going to change my opinion about it

so let's get him out and let's see if that makes it better

and let's see if then he sleeps through the night

and then we can work on conditioning it

if you're insistent that we need to have a crate

if there's a fire you need crates

if there's whatever, a vet's office

and I'm like in all honesty if I have to send my dog to a vet

for an emergency, sedate him

I have no problem with it, if he's there for an emergency already

just sedate him because that's going to make it easier on everybody

and all of these reasons why we have to crate train

and I'm not against crate training

no none of us are

my dog sleeps in my house about 6 at the last count

but that's for different dogs for different reasons

I completely agree

it's just that feeling that every dog should crate train

you have to crate train

it is an absolute necessity

and for Edmund and with that emotion

it made it so much better

as soon as we took him out he was fine

he would not be in a crate

and why continue to push that water up the hill

that was not working

and it was making him miserable

and he wouldn't come into our bedroom after a while

he'd be like nope that's where the crate is

and I'm not going in there because that's where that devil box is

and I'm uncomfortable in there and yet you put me in there every single night

and we would do it with chicken

sorry a bit of a ramble there

no really interesting stuff to unpack there as well

because it's true crates can be incredibly useful

I feel like we're just having a conversation about crates now

maybe we should do a whole other episode just on crates

but it's equally

if it's that difficult there's always different ways around it

I totally agree

if a dog is that stressed out at the groomers or the vets

let's sedate them anyway

the point about dogs who can now be behind gates

that's certainly the case in our house

Percy can happily sit behind a gate or behind a closed door now

just crating was just that much harder

great points you're making

there are other ways of doing this

and if it becomes so difficult

you were losing sleep for how many months

5 months

we were sleep deprived

I'm a behavior consultant

I work about 50 clients a week

I was exhausted

I was short tempered

I was ill tempered with my husband

Tim and I were not getting along

there were points where we wanted to squash him like a bug

he knows what a puppy is like with not enough sleep

it was awful

he was hyper aroused

he was over threshold all the time

in all aspects of his life

and as soon as I stopped that his entire personality changed

he was able to get an off switch

and I was doing all the right things outside of the crating

enrichment, exercise, mental games

but it wasn't enough because he couldn't sleep

so important for everybody

everybody in the house

so Jo, you get Reba out of the crate

the problems didn't stop there

we also got separation issues

which you mentioned and started work on

when did you think this stuff is not working

I need to find another way of doing this

I remember my first year with Reba

I was like a zombie

my vet was more worried about me than the dog

it took a while, probably about a year

it took a while

I was training to be a trainer

I was dog walking at the time

I was very flexible with being out of the house

and not being out of the house very often

I just gradually built up the time

but like I say it was very chunky

it was quite haphazard

there was no system to it

I didn't make a record of what I was doing

it just went with my gut feeling

I had a camera on her

I could see she was a little bit upset

but I wasn't rushing back

5 minutes is better than crying for the whole time

I wasn't leaving very much

I was very much housebound

but that was the commitment I was prepared to make

but then it suited because my business was literally

just starting up

I wasn't that busy at the time anyway

I was doing a lot of study which I could do at home

but she's also very hyper attached

but for me it worked

I wish I'd known earlier

how to do it a bit more systematically

and a bit more slowly

Just train with a plan

track your progress

It's an interesting one

we ask everybody to find a way

for someone to be with their dog

because when they have dog separation anxiety

Beth was talking about the exposure to the snake

we want to stop the exposure to the scary thing

and you make a really good point

we ask people to do that

but then they end up spending more time with their dog

depending on what care structure they've implemented

does that make it worse

there is a risk

but the alternative

of just leave this dog to panic

and the impact that can have on a dog's brain

short term and long term

that's a way bigger risk

and a way bigger potential harm

because we can work on hyper attachment

that resolves quicker in most dogs

than does the pure isolation distress

a dog will go ok fine

mom's home all the time

as soon as you go anywhere

they can't be with anybody else

Edmund is hyper attached

he spent a lot more time with my husband

especially the first week that we got him

I was in a client's house

doing a board and train

now as we've been doing training

Richard's been taking a lead on it

because I can get very tired

wanting to come home and train my own dogs

after a day of training everyone else's dogs

Richard's been doing a lot of the training

and a lot of the work on Edmund

and when we do reactive dog programs

he's our neutral dog and Richard handles him

what that created is his inability

to be away from Richard

we've made some really nice progress

it was to the point where

if I took Richard from Edmund

or maybe it wasn't

if I took Richard from Edmund

even when we were out at the session

and I tried to walk away from Richard

he would do a smooth flip

he would scream, he would hyperventilate

he would claw at me, he would pull at my shirt

he would leap at me

and he would just spin back to try to get back to Richard

because Richard was his person

and if Richard left the house

I have a video of him on my TikTok

of his just pure panic with Richard leaving the house

and he just lost it

and so we had to build really slowly

shifting Richard away from all the care

and me doing more of the work with him

and building more of a bond with him

and then what we also did

because then sometimes what can happen

and what happened with him

is then he was like, oh I'm hyperattached to you now

and do some work with Edmund

and have them alleviate us during the week

and take him for walks and go to daycare

and stuff like that

because Edmund was just shifting too quickly

like he'd shift to me and then he'd shift back to Richard

so he's a very interesting character this guy

well what's fascinating there

is you showed that the process works

when a dog isn't just struggling with being alone

but they're struggling being apart from a person

in Edmund's case it was one person

we call it hyperattachment

it's just kind of an unhealthy attachment

unhealthy because it impacts the dog

and it can impact the guardian or the owner

but the way that we work on that

is we get other people in the dog's life

so the attachment that they formed with us

in the first place is to a degree unnatural

so we can transfer that but a great example from Beth there

that sometimes dogs just seem to be serial attachers

don't they? I love you so much

but great job of getting other people involved

to really spread that love

I just want to finish off

we've got a few more minutes

we've got you giving some advice to our listeners

and the first thing I'd love to hear from you

is thinking back to all that you've been through

the challenges that you've faced with your dogs

what's the number one feeling or experience

that you'd like to share with them

that maybe they've been going through the same experience too

I think for me

I felt like I was the only one

because I didn't know where to turn

and I didn't know what it was

and it was quite daunting

so I think the one key thing

is to let owners know

that you're not alone

there is the right support out there

and actually this affects way more dogs

than anyone ever realises

and one of the scary numbers

is how many dogs actually have separation anxiety

and probably half the owners either don't realise

or can't be bothered to deal with it

so if you are, that's a massive step in the right direction

but it's a long haul

I'm 6 years down the line

I can leave my girl home alone

3-4 hours comfortably now

I can go to the toilet in my mums house

even though we go there once a month

but she has got a best dog friend

with one of my ex-dog walking clients

that Reba and Byron love each other

and she will spend overnight there

Byron is down the utility room

but Reba is up in their bed

on the bed

and she's quite easily distracted

by Byron's toys

so it's a long journey

it's not just over in a couple of months

it probably would have been a quicker journey

had I known what I was doing sooner

but for us it worked, it built up slowly

it's a long journey but you're not on your own

but it can be very isolating

Do you have a separation anxiety dog?

It feels like the isolation gets layered on

because you do feel like

even now in this day and age

where we're all connected online

I hear it time and time again

people feeling like they're the only person

that's got a dog like this

and then they suddenly discover

I really thought I was the only one

and Jo you made such a good point

there are way more dogs out there with this

there are some people who don't know that

about their dog or they don't want to admit it

and so the ones that do know

and the ones that are working on it

can feel isolated because they've got people

in their immediate circle

you then feel emotionally isolated

because you think I'm the only person dealing with this

which is kind of the reason why I started doing this

in the first place 10 years ago

we cannot be the only people going through this

you also talked about how Reba

hasn't taken her newfound confidence on the road

and we know that's pretty standard

that these dogs don't generalise their confidence

but they tend to have to learn

their confidence, whether it's being home alone

or whether it's confidence around people they don't know

they tend to have to learn them in different setups

in different contexts

so that's really common isn't it

Reba not being able to be left anywhere else yet

is quite typical for these dogs

absolutely, but for me the most important thing

I needed to go out, I needed to go and see clients

I sat up a training class and needed to be able to go out

so the most important thing for me

was for me to be able to leave her home alone

and for her to be left in other places

was lower down the list

it wasn't as important

being able to have a friend that can take her

they've taken her up to two nights

but that for me is ok

that's fine, I can relax, I know she's enjoying herself

but to be honest, my days of probably long holidays

may be over for a bit

but that's just the way I'm quite happy to accept this

and you know

I've had some fantastic long holidays

a couple of months long holidays in the past

so for me this is just my new normal

spending the time with her but knowing that I can go out

seeing clients, running my business

that for me was the most important priority

I like that you say that because often we are

trying to get people to prioritise

because the training takes time

it takes a lot of invested time but it can also take a lot of elapsed time

the period of time that it takes to get these dogs to recover

so we're often saying aren't we

is it your priority to be able to leave your dog in any hotel room you go to

or would you like to get your dog to be comfortable for four hours

in your own home so you can go and do your stuff

and most people will say yes, you know what, home is fine

so it's great that you highlighted the fact that we do ask people to prioritise

Jo, thank you

Beth, same question to you

what feeling or experience do you think you could share

with us of your time with Edmund

your experience with Edmund that you think people would resonate with

yeah, I think the very first thing is

you didn't do anything wrong

your puppy came this way

I can remember our third night

and me sitting on the floor in front of the crate

I had gone home and tried to relieve my husband for a few hours

and I sat in front of the crate crying

and thought what did I do to create this

and how did I do that in three days

most people think a puppy can't be

broken or that there's nothing wrong

with a puppy coming straight from the mom

but genetics play such a big part in what

we get with our dogs and come to find out

that the Grand Dam of Edmund

has separation related behaviours

and is a very anxious dog and they could never crate her

of the 11 puppies Edmund is the only one

with separation related behaviours

but just because they skipped a generation

and skipped 10 other puppies doesn't mean that I created this

it means that he had a predisposition

to having something in his genetics that said

this isn't for me and don't give up

there were days when I wanted to squash him like a bug

or send him back to his breeder

by the way can we just be clear

Beth is 100% force free trainer

she's honest about her feelings

they push our buttons, it's like with kids

people love their kids to bits

these things that we adore

they push our buttons in a way that we can never imagine

if you don't ever say that you want to squash your puppy

like a bug you're lying

and then you don't do it

you can see there's proof of life all over my Instagram

he's fine, he's a lovely dude

and I am thankful for him every day

and also very thankful that I caught him

because it made me build some empathy for my own clients

because I hadn't raised a puppy in 16 years

and so when I got my first puppy

in 16 years and he was maladaptive

I was like oh goodness I can't imagine

what someone who's very first puppy they're getting

and it's like this is putting them through

so it built a bunch more empathy in me

and made me realize how

if I'm struggling this much so are my clients

and my clients don't have the knowledge that I have

and I was to the point that I didn't know what to do

so I even called in a pro

to help me set out a plan for him

because I needed more clear eyes on it

so more than anything he's not a professional

and it's okay to tell your professional that you're frustrated

and you hate your puppy

because there are days that I resented him

because I was exhausted

I didn't have the normal lovely kid that I thought I was going to get

and it is okay to feel that way

all of us are in this for the long run

it's also okay to

in a way kind of grieve the puppy or dog

that you imagined you would get and you didn't have

and that's just being human

that's just being normal isn't it

yes absolutely 100% normal

and I think so many people are so afraid to talk about that part of it

they don't want to be like oh I'm a monster

it's like you know

we often hear parents say this

I love my kids but some days I hate being a parent

I love my puppy to bits but some days I hate being guardian or pet parent

because today it's really tough

I love him but today it is really tough

and that's just normal

it would be weird if we didn't feel like that at times

anybody got any final words of wisdom

if you could only do one thing

if you could only give people one piece of advice

what would that be

just one thing

don't let them try it out

I'm glad you said that Joey

if we could only change that one thing

in the life of the puppy

we might all end up seeing far fewer cases

I think that could be a big game changer

if only people would just stop that horrible method

Liz and both of you thank you so much

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience

but also to make it real

and make people realise that it's not just them

and for you to share your wisdom

about how people can move forward with this

so appreciate your time so much

I will find you via my find the trainer site

so thank you Beth, thank you Jo

keep us all posted on that puppy journey Beth

I will for sure, thank you for having me Julie

thanks Jo

thank you Julie

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

go to julienaysmith.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