Answered! Your Most Frequently Asked Questions (Part 1)

So, you've started the training, you're using gradual exposure to gently get your dog over

his fear of being left, and you're committed to it, you're taking action, but you've got

questions.

I get it, it's one of those processes that's kind of simple at a high level, but when it

comes down to it there's lots of little nuances and everybody's always got very specific questions

about, well, how does this work, and what do I do here?

And that's why in this week's episode I'm going to be covering the most frequently asked

questions that you have about doing training.

In fact, there are so many of them that I'm going to do this in two episodes, so you'll

get some this week and some in the next episode.

All right, let's dive in.

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.

Okay, first question then.

When I'm doing the desensitization training, how long do I leave between each step?

So quick refresher if you're not sure what we mean by desensitization training, you're

basically exposing your dog to a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of alone time.

Enough alone time that your dog is okay with, but not so much that it stresses your dog

out and causes your dog to get anxious.

Now for lots of dogs, you might be starting on seconds, like literally a handful of seconds,

a few seconds, and that's a really common place to start.

And the way you build up a training plan is you'll have a number of repeated steps where

you'll go out of the door for a few seconds and come back, and that's where the majority

of dogs start, on just a few seconds of going out and going back.

If you want more info on how to build a training plan, don't forget all of this stuff is available

in my Be Right Back books, but I'm not going to dive into that here.

I'm going to assume that you're already working on the training and you just want to know,

well, how does this work and what do I do with that?

So a question that comes up all the time is this one.

How long do I leave between each of those steps?

You want to think about leaving between about 30 to 60 seconds to start off with.

So if your training plan has 10 steps in it, step one, you'll go out.

Maybe it says three seconds, maybe you've developed a training plan that says step one

is three seconds.

And by the way, side note, always train with a training plan.

Always know what you're going to do at the start of a session.

So step one, you're going to go out of the door for three seconds.

And then when you come back, that's when you're going to wait, that 30 to 60 seconds.

You can vary it, it can be different.

You can switch it up between each step, maybe one step you just do 30 seconds.

Between step two and three, you might do 40 seconds, whatever.

Just mix it up a little bit.

Don't overthink this one.

Give yourself that amount of time.

Okay, so what do I do in between the steps?

So question number two, what do I do in between the steps?

This is very dog dependent.

So you come back between step two and three, you say you're going to hang out for about

40 seconds.

Some dogs do much better with the training session overall if you come right back in.

And by that, I mean maybe go back to the living room or the kitchen.

Some dogs do much better when you do that.

And in fact, some dogs really like it if you come back in and you sit down.

Some dogs really don't like that.

For some dogs, that seems to stress them out that you come right back in, into the living

room and you sit down.

So you need to test this one out, what to do between the steps.

You can come back in, come and sit down on the sofa, check your emails.

You could do that.

You could also try coming back in and kind of just posturing about, wandering around,

doing stuff.

Maybe, you know, tidying or quickly putting the kettle on.

So test out what you do when you come back.

Some dogs really hate it if you come right back in.

So with those dogs, you want to spend more time kind of hanging out by the door.

So back to your training plan, say you've got those 10 steps.

Step one, you might go out for whatever it says in your training plan that you devised

and you come back in and then those are your three options.

You come right back in and you sit down.

You come right back in but you do stuff or you just hang out by the door until it's time

for step two.

And then you go out again, come back in, work out for your dog, which option works best

for your dog.

Come back in, sit down, come back in, wander around.

Don't come back in.

Well, do come back in but hang by the door.

All right, question number three.

How long should a training session be?

Look, Separation Anxiety Training, let's be honest, is not the most fun activity in the

world, is it?

Hands up.

Let's be honest.

And if you're telling me that you love nothing more than to do Separation Anxiety Training,

I'm not going to believe you.

Well, maybe it makes you feel good because you know that you're doing the thing that's

going to give your dog the most chance of feeling happy when you leave.

I mean, even in the scheme of dog training stuff, it's not fun, is it?

It's probably more fun to work on loose leash walking where we can get the treats out and

have loads of fun with repeat rewards.

Agility is way more fun.

Fly ball is way more fun.

Even going to like skills classes, that's way more fun, isn't it, than Separation Anxiety

Training?

So when people ask me how long a training session should be, I'm always trying to balance

how much training we need to get under our belt in order to help these dogs get over

their fear of being left with the fact that you've got a life, the fact that you probably

aren't getting up in the morning and saying, yippee, I can't wait to do Separation Anxiety

Training today.

So a good number to start with is around 30 minutes.

Now if you're just starting out, your exercise, your 10 steps, 8 steps or whatever it is you've

got in your training plan, the training plan that you've written, will probably take you

less than 30 minutes.

And so if that's you, you could then do double exercises.

If your exercises are only taking you 10 minutes in total and your dog's doing really, really

well, it's fine to then do a new exercise and just push on a little bit if your dog's

doing really well.

Now as your target duration increases, you're going to spend more time on a single exercise.

And it won't take you very long to get up to that 30 minutes, you know, by the time

you've set up and hanging out in between each of those steps.

So 30 minutes is a really good guideline.

When you get to target durations that start to get quite lengthy, hashtag nice problem

to have, you're going to struggle to fit training sessions in.

And when it gets to the point where your training sessions are taking you 45 minutes or an hour

or even longer, well then obviously you're going to spend more than 30 minutes because

your target duration is more than 30 minutes.

Or even if your target duration is 20 minutes or 25 minutes, chances are your total exercise

is going to take you more than 30 minutes.

So don't worry about the 30 minute limit then.

It's not hard and fast.

It really is just a guideline.

Question number three then.

How often should I train?

Well again, let's go back to fitting stuff in.

I would much rather you were realistic with how often you could train every week than

you set yourself a really ambitious goal every Monday and say, I am going to train every

single day.

I'm going to smash it.

I mean for a start you don't need to train every single day.

And in fact, days off are really important because it gives everybody a rest and it gives

your dog's brain a rest.

So four or five times a week, that's a really, really good number to be aiming for.

But it is quite an ambitious goal.

For a lot of people it's hard to fit in four or five training sessions a week.

So if that's you, then start Monday by saying, I will train for, and here's what you're going

to do.

You're going to say a number of times that you absolutely know you can get.

So make it really, really easy.

Make the goal for the number of times you're going to train in a week super, super easy.

And then if you get more than that, you'll feel great.

And that's a bonus.

The problem with big ambitious goals is that we can do what we call achieve or quit.

So you say, I'm going to train five times this week and you get to Wednesday and you

haven't trained once.

All of a sudden you're feeling that pressure, when am I going to fit the five times in?

So what do you say?

I'm not going to do five times this week.

I tell you what, I'll start again next week, I'll reset and I'll start next Monday with

a goal of five times.

So you kind of give up because it was so hard to get your five sessions in that you did

none.

A way better approach to this, and this is proven in behavioural science by the way,

is to set an easier goal, achieve it, and then you'll feel great, you'll get a big dopamine

hit and that feeling of achievement will make you want to train more.

Sneaky, huh?

But good sneaky.

So on that Monday, when you're thinking about how often you're going to train this week,

say something like once or twice.

Honestly, I would rather you train once or twice and if that's all you did, that's fantastic.

But I'd rather you did that than say I'm going to train five times and feel so overwhelmed

that you end up training zero.

So never post a zero.

Always aim for an easy goal and anything else is a bonus.

Four or five times would be amazing.

If you can only do once, no problem.

But maybe next week you come back and say I'll start with one and then I will really

try to do a bit more.

All right, this links to question number four, what if I don't have time to train?

So this is going to be you if you, you know, like most people, have a very, very busy life.

You're working, you're tired when you come home.

This question also comes up with people who, as I mentioned before, get to those longer

durations.

So let's just start with I literally just don't have time to train.

I am overwhelmed this week.

Do something tiny.

Don't think I've got to find five sessions of 30 minutes this week, otherwise I'm doomed.

You know, I might as well do nothing.

Don't think like that.

Instead, say can I just find five minutes this week?

If you can find five minutes during your seven days to do separation anxiety training,

you're doing way more than the vast majority of people who don't work on their dog's separation

anxiety.

So that's something to feel good about.

But honestly, if you've got one of those weeks where you just feel completely slammed, just

say to yourself, I'm going to find five minutes, maybe 10 minutes.

And if that's all the time you've got, then that's fine.

Just do half an exercise or just do door as a ball.

But don't do nothing because you feel like you can't even find five minutes.

I bet you can find five minutes.

I bet you can.

And here's the sneaky thing.

See, I like these little sneaky habit type things.

Sometimes when we say I'm just going to train for five minutes, that's all I'm going to

do.

Sometimes that five minutes can become 10, it can become 15.

And before you know it, you've done a full training exercise.

If you don't have time to train, just dial it right back and say, I'm just going to find

five minutes and that's what I'm going to do.

If you're on really long durations, finding time to train is a really legitimate issue.

How do you fit into our training sessions five times a week?

Again, as I said earlier, hashtag nice problem to have.

Well, if this is you and what you're going to do is think about maybe doing one or two

long sessions a week, but the rest of the time you can dial down the duration.

You don't have to train for your long target durations all the time if you're one of those

lucky people that's training for an hour.

You don't have to do five sessions of one hour or so target duration every week.

Do a couple of those if you've got time to do a couple.

And then for the rest of the week, do two or three where you do very short duration

or short compared to your current target duration or do door is a ball.

So when you get to those lofty durations, it's just about keeping in the game with repetition

so you can dial it right back and do shorter exercises on days when you don't have time.

OK, final question for this week.

What should I do when I return?

First off, you don't need to give your dog a treat, a food reward, because you are the

reward.

There is nothing, nothing more rewarding to a dog who doesn't like being alone than their

owner coming back into the house.

So you're already rewarding your dog massively when you come back and adding treats to the

mix just is another thing to think about.

I love rewards based training.

I love it for every other type of dog training.

It just doesn't work in separation anxiety.

We don't need it.

And sometimes it just makes things way more complicated.

So when you come back, you are the treat.

You are the reward.

And how should you greet your dog when you come back?

Just be normal.

Just be natural.

Just be neutral.

There's no evidence that ignoring your dog is going to help your dog feel better when

being left.

And in fact, if your dog's worried about being on its own and it needs you in its life, it

needs you around to feel better, then ignoring him is punishing.

It's just going to make him feel worse.

You know, we used to do this with kids and we now know that ignoring kids when they need

us is a really bad idea.

It's not good parenting.

Same with dogs.

If they need us, we mustn't ignore them.

So when you come back, interact.

It's fine.

Maybe don't come back and play a massive game of tug or throw the ball in the hallway or

anything like that.

You know, nothing super, super exciting.

But don't ignore your dog.

Come back.

Give him an ear ruffle.

And if you've got a dog who does what we call excessive greeting, you should check my podcast

on that because that's a whole other thing we need to think about if we've got those

dogs that are just so bouncy, bouncy, bouncy that they can't calm down when we get back.

And by the way, that's not necessarily an indication that a dog is super, super stressed

because lots of dogs continue to be exuberant greeters well after they've got over their

fear of being left.

Anyway, when you return, come back.

Just be normal.

Don't overthink this one.

But definitely don't ignore your dog.

All right, that's it for this set of questions.

But tune in for the next episode.

We're going to be talking about food.

We're going to be talking about what if your dog follows and we'll be looking at whether

you should train and when you should train if your dog is a bit sleepy.

All right.

That's it from me for now.

Thank you so much for tuning in.

I look forward to catching 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 podcast and consider rating my show.

Thanks so much.

Good luck with that training and bye for now.