What's Really Going On in Your Dog's Brain When Training Wobbles

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.

Now one of the most maddening things about separation anxiety training, aside from the

fact that it's hard work, it takes time, it takes effort, and it's not the most rewarding

thing you're ever going to do, but perhaps the most maddening thing is when your dog

seems to be doing so well, like really well, cruising along, hitting ace time after ace

time, doing better and better, maybe even getting to the lofty heights of, I don't

know, 30 minutes, an hour, longer, but then all of a sudden, your dog falls apart.

What happened?

What happened?

You want to scream.

You were doing an hour and it was fine and we did that, you know, session after session

and now today you can only do two minutes and you just want to cry.

Oh, you want to cry, you want to rant, you want to scream, and oh, by the way, if you

do, that is okay by me, because I've been there, I've been there with my dog Percy.

He was very variable, like he'd have some days where he could, yeah, absolutely do two

hours and I'm talking after we've been doing some training with him, not just kind of randomly

at the start when, you know, we might go out not knowing what was going on and then find

out he was okay for an hour, but then barked after a minute the next day.

You know, I'm talking about when you've been training, when you've been doing the work,

when you've been doing the right things, but we still had lots of ups and downs with him

and you know, it, yeah, you want to cry, you want to just scream and just feel like giving

up sometimes as well, let's be honest.

And with him, what would happen?

We got lucky, I think, or maybe I just got really good at reading him, but we could tell

whether it was a day where we could go out and do the two hours or whether it was just

like a non-starter.

And he had so many tells, he would signpost it, like he'd taken out a billboard in Times

Square, it's like, no, today is not the day, which is great, so if you know beforehand,

that's way better than you set out, not knowing that your dog who was previously okay at two

hours consistently is going to have a bad day and do two minutes.

Maybe it messes up your plans because we'd have the situation where we just knew, we

might be going out to dinner, we might be meeting friends, but we'd just be looking

at him going, it's not going to happen, is it?

And that is better.

That is better than the alternative, which is you go out thinking he's going to be okay,

and then you get an alert on your camera and it's a disaster.

And again, I'm talking about way down the line when we got to the stage where we pretty

much got a dog where we could leave, but we still had those occasional wobbles, not today

by the way.

So there's definitely, definitely a big shiny light at the end of this tunnel.

Anyway, I want you to know that there's some good news in all of this because there is

a really good reason why this happens.

There's a really good explanation for it.

And I think once you understand what's going on, it doesn't make it any less frustrating

or disappointing that you can't stick to your plans because, you know, it just seems like

your dog has forgotten everything, but I think it softens the blow a little bit.

And it also helps you do the right thing to get back on track.

So it is not bad news at all.

Before we dive in and I explain what is going on when your dog does have those wobbles,

let's talk about how separation anxiety training works, a really quick refresher.

What we're doing when we teach a dog to be home alone is we're changing your dog's association

of being left.

So if you've followed anything I do, if you've read my books or listened to podcasts before,

you'll know I talk about that we're not focused on changing our dog's behavior when left.

We're focused on changing the emotion that drives the behavior.

So if your dog is an incessant barker when you leave because it's upset, because he's

freaking out, we work on making him feel safe and okay when you leave so that the barking

stops.

If your dog is one of those that chews and destroys everything when you go out and that

chewing and destroying is caused by your dog's anxiety, again, we don't try to stop the destroying

or the chewing.

We work on the emotion, the anxiety and the fear that drives that.

So we change your dog's association of being left from, oh no, being left is so scary,

to oh yeah, being left, no big deal.

We change the association.

All right, so coming back to what's going on when your dog wobbles and whether that's

a wobble, your dog wobbled because it was on five minutes and now it can only do two

seconds or your dog was doing an hour and now it can only do five minutes.

What's good news in all of this?

Well, we have to think about something called neuroplasticity.

I can't even say it.

Let me try and say that again.

Neuroplasticity.

Yeah, there we go.

I nailed it.

Remember the saying, you can't teach old dogs new tricks?

Well, heck yes, you can.

You can teach old dogs new tricks.

You can teach young dogs new tricks, even if the old trick is really, really well honed

and you can definitely do it with our brains too.

So everything I'm going to talk to you about today applies to how we learn as well as how

dogs learn because our brains are very, very similar.

Yeah, but the thing about this neuroplasticity concept is that we used to think that except

for very early on with a dog's brain, with our brains, so very early in life, except

for a period of very early in life, we used to think that brains are pretty much fixed.

But now we know, and that's what this concept's all about, now we know that brains are capable

of changing at any point, at any point in life, right up to the very end.

So really old dogs can learn new tricks.

Our brains, our dog's brains, any brain can change at any point in life, which is great

news and it's all about the ability of the brain to change its physical structure and

its function and there's a ton, ton of new and emerging evidence to support this.

So it's great news and I often get asked the question actually, is it too late for my dog?

You know, he's five and he's had separation anxiety all his life or I got him at two and

he'd been left consistently by his previous owners, is it too late, has he had too much

exposure to being alone and being scared?

No, because we know now that brains can change at any point in life.

So I told you, this is not all bad news at all.

So we know brains can change and we know that it's about this neuroplasticity thing.

And when your dog, when your dog's brain learns a new skill or a new behaviour or in

our case with separation anxiety, a new association, what happens in the brain, let me get slightly

techie now, is that something called a neural pathway is created, a new neural pathway is

formed when your dog starts to create a new association.

And just think about a neural pathway as being a connection in the brain, just a connection

between two points in the brain.

And the more that our dog repeats the new association, that association that home alone

isn't scary, the more they repeat that new association, the more connections are created

within a particular neural pathway.

So that neural pathway gets stronger and it gets stronger and stronger every single time

your dog has that new association, every single time your dog repeats that new association.

So every single time you step out of the door successfully, you've just helped to strengthen

that new neural pathway.

Brilliant news, right?

And here's something really neat.

When we think about the brain, when certain brain cells communicate frequently enough,

that connection, like I said, gets stronger and it gets stronger and it gets stronger.

And so what happens is the messages that travel along that pathway in the brain over

and over again, start to transmit faster and faster and faster.

So that new pathway becomes really smooth.

And it's with repetition over time, repeat, repeat, repeat.

That's why I'm so, I tell everybody who works with me, you are going to do a lot of training,

you are going to do a lot of repetitions because it's through those repetitions over and over

that these new associations, which start out as feeling kind of really odd to the

brain, become automatic and they become immediate and they become fast.

And that's what we want.

We want our dog, when it's going through separation anxiety training, we want our dog's brain

to every time it's home alone, quickly pick up the association in its brain of, oh, being

home alone is fine.

So we want access to that new association to be really quick, really automatic and immediate.

That's when we get a dog who starts to be comfortable with increasing amounts of time.

And I keep saying, you know, our brain, our dog's brain, because this concept applies

everything that we do and everything our dogs do.

So whether we're learning something new, whether we're trying to get over an emotion or a fear,

the same thing's happening.

And every time our dogs are learning a new behavior, like sit, or maybe they're learning

to get their heads around a new puzzle feeder and solve that, or they're learning that actually

men with beards aren't scary at all and actually are quite nice.

The repetition of the new association that we want, in the case of a dog who doesn't

like men with hats, we prove to him that men with hats are fine and we do it very gradually

and gently, just like we do with separation anxiety, but that repetition is creating

that new neural pathway.

So just keep thinking about that.

That's why you repeat this thing over and over and over.

You're creating a new connection in your dog's brain.

And I think a really helpful way to visualize this pathway is to play on that term, that

pathway.

Think about the pathway that's created through learning and through association as a road

in your brain, a road in your dog's brain when we're doing separation anxiety training.

And the pathway that the dog's brain uses all the time, so an old pathway, an old pathway

that's always been there, they're so automatic that what happens is they just, they become

like a super, super smooth highway.

It gets the dog's brain from A to B quickly and efficiently with, you know, no bumps in

the road.

So it's smooth, it's efficient.

And why wouldn't you take the highway if you could?

And the thing with our dogs with separation anxiety, that existing highway, the one that's

easy, the one that they associate, they, they tend to fall back on when they're home alone

is, is the super highway that's signposted, being alone is scary, right?

That's, that's the fallback for them.

That's the super highway in their brains that their associations fall into.

Okay?

So that's the neural pathway that their brain always defaults to.

It's a great, super smooth highway and it makes total sense for them always to take

that.

But we don't want them to keep taking that highway because that highway just makes them

feel awful.

We want to say to them, no, when you're home alone, it's all good.

So the training that we do helps them form a new association, a new neural pathway.

But when we start out, when the dog's brain first starts learning this new association,

that new neural pathway, it's like taking a muddy track through a thick forest.

You know, it hasn't been cleared, it's hard work, it's a trudge to get through.

And you know, frankly, it would just be easier to keep taking the superhighway even if it's

labelled being home alone is scary.

It takes way more effort to go on the muddy path through the forest, doesn't it?

It's way more challenging.

And it's challenging for your dog's brain because your dog is having to do the work

as it goes along.

It's having to learn the new association as it goes along.

It's having to clear the forested path as it goes along.

But I keep saying there's good news in all of this because here's the other nugget of

good news.

The more we keep doing this, the clearer that pathway gets and the stronger the new

association becomes.

So the new association, even if it starts out as a really difficult path to go along,

becomes the new normal.

So repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.

That's how we clear that pathway and make it the desired pathway for your dog's brain.

But you know, it's not all good news.

There are a couple of things.

There's a big catch here.

That's that by default, brains are hardwired for efficiency.

Any organ in a body is hardwired for efficiency.

You know, that's just biology.

You don't do difficult things when there's an easier option.

The path of least resistance really is a thing.

And heck, traveling along a highway, it takes way less effort than cutting through a forest

that is full of mud that bogs you down.

And so when a dog starts out with separation anxiety training, when we're creating that

new association, the neural pathway is brand new, it doesn't take very much at all for

the dog's brain to go back to that tried and tested neural pathway, that old association,

that super fast highway.

It's so much easier for your dog to do that, for the dog's brain to do that.

Why wouldn't it?

And you'll see very early on in training, lots of variability.

And I often come across comments in my Facebook group, in my Separation Anxiety Heroes Private

Membership Club, where people will say, oh, you know, we were going so well, we were at

seven minutes, we'd been, you know, chugging along so nicely, and now we just can't seem

to get out of the door.

And that, in the early stages of training, is just normal variability.

Because remember, think about it, in the early stages, that alternative path is even harder

to go along, it's really forested, and it's really muddy.

So when you start out, you'll see a lot more variability.

Accept it, and just know that that's going to happen.

Now later on, when you get to those longer times, there's a risk that we can start to

think, yes, nailed it, we are, you know, we are there.

But that pathway is still not a super highway, it takes a lot, even when you're, you're smashing

an hour, or even two hours, or even three hours, you know, that, that pathway is still

newer, and still a little bit muddy in places, and it's still a bit forested.

So that's what happens on those days when your dog just suddenly decides that, whoa,

no, no, no, no, I've decided actually, you going out is way too hard, no, no, no, you're

not going out.

It's not forgotten, that learning hasn't gone away, that new association is still there,

it's just the dog's brain that morning has gone, whoa, no, no, no, let's go, let's

take the old route, it was so much easier.

That's what's happening when you have wobbles, whether it's a five minute to two second wobble,

or a three hour to 30 minutes wobble, that's what's happening.

The more we repeat, though, how many times have I repeated the word repeat in this podcast,

but it's important, repetition is so important, the more we repeat, the less likely we are

to see those wobbles.

Keep telling yourself that muddy path is still there.

My dog isn't suddenly a different dog who is always going to be scared of being alone,

he's just, you know, for whatever reason, taking the easier route, and that often can

be triggered by stress as well.

Brains do like to take the most efficient route, and they especially like to take the

most efficient route when there's been some other stressor in their life.

So it's always worth doing a double check to say, has anything changed?

Go and check back in your data, just see, is there anything different that might have

prompted my dog to have this wobble?

Sometimes we can see it, sometimes it's just because dog, because your dog's brain has

decided it's going to take the easy route for now.

And when your dog is cruising, when your dog's brain is cruising on the highway for a few

sessions, what can you do about it?

How can you get your dog's brain back to where you want it to be, which is plugging away

at the muddy forested path?

How can we turn that muddy forested path into actually what we want, which is a new, shinier,

better highway?

Even better than the old one.

Well, when you find yourself stuck like this, either very early on or when you're reaching

those longer durations, the first thing you need to do is you need to make it really easy

for your dog's brain to go back to that quite difficult path.

So we've got to make it easy for the lazy brain.

Don't put any obstacles in the brain's way.

So if you get really stuck on a particular duration, don't keep trying it.

Do it twice maximum.

And if you fail twice at any duration, five minutes, two hours, whatever, you must follow

the rule of going back to a time that you know your dog will ace.

Make it super easy.

Do not keep pushing or plugging away.

Even repeating a time that your dog is finding difficult isn't good.

So if you do two minutes and you don't think your dog did really well at two minutes, you

can try two minutes once more.

But at that point, you've got to go back to a time that your dog can ace.

How do you know that?

You look at your data.

You're also going to have a sense of that.

So give your dog an easy route back to clearing that forested path.

Make it easy.

Don't keep pushing and pushing because they will just hate the new pathway so much you'll

never get them back there.

So make it easy.

Take it back to a duration that they really can do.

And take this approach whether you are on those early seconds and minutes in training

or on the much longer ones.

It doesn't matter that the principle is the same.

Don't plug away at a time that your dog is struggling with.

Always take it back to a time that your dog can do.

Get them back.

Get them back onto that muddy overgrown path and do it in a way that doesn't require the

lazy brain to put too much effort in.

And then we get back into repeating and repeating.

As long as you're on that muddy pathway, it almost doesn't matter what time you're at.

The key thing is to keep on that muddy pathway.

I should have put my Wellington boots into the studio for this.

Are you there?

I'm thinking like hunter boots and I'm thinking raincoats.

I am on that muddy path.

But here's the thing.

The more that we use that neural pathway, the more we keep the dog on that neural pathway,

the more it's going to turn or the more quickly it's going to turn into a polished, smooth,

new highway.

And, and this is perhaps the best news of all in this podcast episode, the less use

that that original highway got.

You know, the highway that's labeled being alone is scary.

Signposted being alone is scary.

The less use that that highway gets, the more overgrown it will get.

It's not getting any traffic on it.

And so we start to grow up.

We start to press up through the road surface.

It starts to crumble and it starts to become actually much harder to go along.

It doesn't disappear.

It's still on the map.

But Google no longer sends you there because the new neural pathway is way better and way

more efficient.

And that's where you're going to get to.

Ultimately, you will get to a stage where the old highway is being forgotten and it's

removed from Google's maps, even though you might be able to see a faint trace of it.

Google isn't sending you there.

Just know that between today and then your dog's brain will regularly try to take the

easier old route.

And that's normal and it will happen.

And it's all part of learning.

And when it happens, you make it easy for your dog and you get back on that pathway

and you keep your dog on that new pathway.

All right, so keep me posted on how your training is going, either in my free Dog

Separation Anxiety Support Group or via my private membership.

And just keep at it.

If there's one takeaway from this episode, I hope it's that you understand that repetition

is the key.

Thanks for listening today.

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 julienasmith.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.