4 Reasons Force-Free is the Only Choice for Separation Anxiety Training

When we work with dogs we should always remember that they're sentient beings, they have feelings,

they feel pain, they have emotions and they get anxious.

And I'm 100%, more than 100% committed to training dogs without fear, without pain and

without intimidation.

I think whatever training we're doing we should always be taking a force-free approach.

We shouldn't be coercing them, we shouldn't be punishing them, but I'm especially passionate

that we should take this approach when we work with separation anxiety.

And that's why in this podcast episode I'm going to go into the four reasons why I think

it's absolutely critical that we should always take a force-free approach with our separation

anxiety dogs.

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 whether it's separation anxiety training or another form of training, we really need

to treat dogs with kindness and without cruelty.

And that means using training that doesn't coerce them, compulse them and doesn't use

anything that the dog finds aversive.

Research studies consistently show that we can train dogs effectively without the need

to resort to punishment.

So if we've got a choice between harsh methods that are unpleasant and aversive to a dog

versus methods that the dog finds either delightful or at least is fine with, then why don't we

choose the latter?

And with separation anxiety for a long time there are trainers and websites that recommend

that we use processes and methods that dogs will find unkind and harsh, but we don't need

to do that.

And in fact the best way of getting a dog over separation anxiety is by using a gradual

exposure technique.

And gradual exposure takes something that a dog is scared of, and we can use gradual

exposure with any brain, but let's talk about a dog.

It takes something that the dog is scared of and it dials that thing, the scary thing,

the intensity of the scary thing, right down to a level that no longer scares the dog.

With home alone training that's time home alone.

So we dial down the intensity of the home alone time by starting at seconds or maybe

by starting with just desensitizing the dog to the door.

And the key rule as we go through the training is, is the dog okay with it?

Now admittedly we're not using food rewards or toys or fun stuff with desensitization.

What we're doing is actually we're kind of boring a dog, boring a dog into going oh do

you know what I'm just going to go over here and sleep it out.

But we're equipping a dog with a critical skill, the skill to be home alone without

being scared.

And we do it gently and we go at the dog's pace and we never go too far too fast and

we don't push a dog into a fearful state.

In fact if we do that then we're doing the training all wrong.

So it's force free all the way, all the way for separation anxiety training.

So what do we mean by force free?

Well force free means that I am not going to compel a dog, I am not going to use something

the dog inherently dislikes, something the dog finds disgusting, painful, scary, uncomfortable

or punishing.

Force exists all around us, it's true.

When I put a leash on a dog I'm using some oppositional force to stop a dog from running

into the road.

When I close the door on the dog I'm using the force of the door between the dog and

the outside world to stop the dog from door dashing, it's true.

And when I put the loaf of bread high up on a shelf out of the way of Tex who has an uncanny

ability to stretch for any food that I leave on the counter, when I put the loaf out of

the way I'm relying on the force of gravity to stop him from being able to jump up that

high because even with all his might he can't jump that high because gravity is going to

stop him.

So yeah there is force all the time but the difference between those kind of forces and

the force of using a shock collar that hurts or using harsh words with the dog or using

a prong collar, these are completely different things.

Those types of forces intend to create an uncomfortable, a scared, an intimidated response

from the dog.

So force free training is that we don't do any of that.

Am I forcing a dog to be home alone?

Well that's a good argument because by choice very few dogs, practically no dog would vote

to be home alone.

However what I'm doing isn't forcing a scared dog to stay at home by knocking the door on

him and then going away, going out, or even worse locking him in a crate.

What I'm doing is I'm helping him cope.

So yes he's not going to sign up for being home alone but he can tolerate it.

He can get to a state where he finds it just a neutral thing so it's not aversive.

With a dog who's got separation anxiety being home alone is aversive so actually what we're

doing is changing something that's aversive for the dog into something that the dog finds

meh, doesn't care about because it has no consequence in the dog's life.

It becomes neutral and that's what gradual exposure does.

It takes something that the dog finds scary and aversive and it changes it into something

that the dog just goes huh about.

And that's why, that's why we need to keep thinking about force free when it comes to

separation anxiety training and all training but for the purpose of this podcast episode

separation anxiety training here are the four big reasons why we take a force free approach

for the training that we do.

Reason number one, you can't treat fear with fear.

I mean doesn't that sound really obvious?

When you say that, when I say that I just think oh well that sounds ridiculous of course

nobody would think about treating fear with fear.

Well yeah except there are approaches and there are methods that are designed to get

a dog quote comfortable with alone time by first scaring them and that method is called

flooding and what that does is it exposes a dog to the maximum intensity of the thing

that it's scared of and it keeps that intensity up until the dog kind of gives up and just

goes oh okay.

Now the thing about flooding is that it is sometimes still used in human therapy but

it's often not opted for because it is so horrendous.

So think about it, think about if there's anything in the world that you're scared of

think about being exposed to it at maximum intensity turning that fear right up and with

a human patient we can ask, we can say are you okay with this method it's going to be

deeply unpleasant and very uncomfortable oh and by the way risky too because it might

mean that you aren't okay in fact you could be worse but with a dog we can't get their

consent we can't explain to them that what we're going to do is just leave you home alone

crying and howling for as many hours or as many days or as many weeks as it takes until

you just accept being home alone. Sign here if you're okay with that process. Well we

don't ask them, we can't ask them and the problem is that with a human patient when

they come to the end of an exposure that's at the highest intensity so a flooding session

they can talk to their therapist, their therapist can say so how did that feel you obviously

came out the other side and you're still okay right but we can't have that reasoned

discussion with the dog oh yes you were at home alone for eight hours but look the worst

thing that happened was you felt a bit scared but the world is still turning and the sky

didn't fall on your head it's fine isn't it so no wonder flooding risks making dogs worse

it's deeply unpleasant it's deeply petrifying for the dog it's unethical and it's inhumane

and that's why we use gradual exposure we don't flood we gently expose the dog to home

alone time. Reason number two you can't punish out anxiety again when I make that statement

I think well doesn't everybody think that because it's so obvious right well sadly no

some people think that you can punish fearful dogs and expect a different outcome a better

outcome but remember if your anxious dog is chewing or destroying or defecating when you

leave their behavior is being driven by their emotion their behavior is being driven by fear

however some trainers advocate that you put a bark collar on your dog and what's a bark collar

it's a shock collar let's just call it what it is it's a shock collar it's a shock collar that's

activated by your dog barking so your scared dog barks barks because presumably he is calling for

help or he wants to escape or it just makes him feel a bit better during his terrifying ordeal

so he barks but now he's got a shock collar on him so when he barks the shock collar goes off

it creates pain and your dog thinks oh okay so oh what do I do now so the dogs doing something

really natural but it's had the addition of an electric shock for doing something that he thought

was really natural he doesn't feel any better about being left he's now just trying to work

out why he's getting this painful shock going through his neck and another tool that's often

recommended for dogs at home alone is a citronella collar also used for barking and citronella

sounds so lovely doesn't it it's lemons and lemons make us think of summer and puddings and ice

drinks but to dogs the smell of lemon is disgusting disgusting smell and taste of lemon to a dog is

about as disgusting as it gets and that's why citronella collars are a thing because they

release an odour that the dog finds disgusting and of course the dog wants to avoid that happening

again so it will try to work out hmm why did that happen but remember your dog's doing something that

he or she thinks is natural the destroying or the chewing she thinks it's normal to bark when she's

alone and she's still scared she's now just dealing with this disgusting smell and trigger alert think

about it think about having vomit sprayed into your face I'm sorry I told you it would be triggering

vomit sprayed into your face every time you did something that you thought was normal but that

somebody else had judged as being wrong wouldn't that be horrible wouldn't it be confusing that's

all that's happening with the citronella collar so it's as harsh and as horrible as a shot collar

and punishing trying to punish that barking doesn't change a dog's underlying motivation

no dog is still scared same with crates all a crate will do at best is contain the behavior

I mean a crate won't stop a dog barking but it might stop a dog from chewing or destroying provided

that the dog doesn't escape and then okay you might say well what about indestructible crates

yeah the problem with indestructible crates is often they're not and even if they are they're

harming the dog's brain by imprisoning a dog in its fear so crates citronella collars bark collars

they're all designed to at best punish behavior but they don't work on the underlying motivation

for that behavior the fear that your dog feels when your dog is home alone number three reason

number three your dog isn't being bad I know you know this I hope you know this and I totally get

I hundred percent get it is devastating devastating to have a dog who barks all day to have a dog who

destroys your things and I have so been there it's life-altering isn't it isn't it when you

have a dog who barks so loud and so long that you're in danger of getting kicked out of your

apartment or where you can't have anything nice or even vaguely nice because your dog just destroys

it but when your dog is scared and is barking at home on his own because he's scared or he's

destroying because the destruction either helps him think he's going to escape or it just feels

better because he's scared he's not being bad he's doing it because of his fear he's not coping and

those behaviors are just something that he needs to do and that's why we shouldn't be suppressing

those behaviors with forceful methods with punishment because the way to stop those behaviors

the way to stop the destruction or the barking or the howling is to help your dog feel better about

being left so the force-free kind and gentle alternative to punishing away those responses

is to gradually get him used to being alone help him feel better about being left so if somebody's

giving you advice about here's how you fix the barking or oh look I've got a really good idea

that's going to stop your dog from chewing you're going to put this spray all over the furniture

legs and by the way bitter apple spray it works a bit like Dijonella not quite the same way but

it's a horrible disgusting taste to your dog so it works in an aversive way it works because it's

disgusting to your dog a much better way to stop your dog from doing those things is to focus on

the behavior so if somebody is telling you here's how you stop barking here's how you stop chewing

and they aren't talking about getting to your dogs underlying fear then what they're doing is

they're going to be punishing your dog for their behaviors and you know it your dogs not being bad

your dog is just responding in a way that is normal for a dog who's scared reason number four

aversives can actually make fear worse right so you've been told to use a bark collar I'm gonna

stop calling a bark collar a shot collar you've been told to use a shot collar or a citronella

collar you've been told to use an indestructible crate which the dog finds highly aversive because

it locks him in his panic it contains him with his panic you've been told to put lemon or spray

bitter apple spray everywhere and now what we've got is a situation where when your dog is home

alone not only is he petrified of being alone but really bad things happen too so he goes into his

indestructible crate and you only put him in there when you go out or when you want him to stay in

there despite his protestations so he knows that going in there is bad news because it means he

has to stay there no matter how badly he feels about being in there or the shot collar the shot

collar that only goes off when he's home alone because you use it when he barks and he barks

when he's home alone so now he's thinking oh my goodness when you go out not only is it really

really really horrible because I get so frightened but I don't know what happens could this thing I

get this pain in my neck and it just seems to happen when you go out so please don't go out

because it's so awful when you go out so can you see what we've done we've taken a fearful dog

we've tried to address the fearful behaviors by punishing them away all we've done is made the

dog even more fearful we've compounded the fear by adding something that the dog is scared of that

the dog hates that the dog finds unpleasant disgusting or aversive and we do that to them

when we go out so now they dread you going out even more and the thing about fear is you are

no doubt finding if you're working through separation anxiety training is it's hard to

change so once the dog's brain has imprinted with fear it's not impossible to change not at all

because brains are plastic at any age a brain can change but fear is the hardest response to

change is the hardest thing for a dog to lose and so adding fear into the mix for a fearful dog not

only is that unethical and unkind but we've just made everything harder for everyone involved so

what's the force-free alternative we're going to ditch the crate protect your stuff rather than

your crate so put things around the things that are precious to you keep your dog under threshold

so that he doesn't want to bark in the first place do the training using a camera always say

when you're doing separation anxiety training you're going to use a camera and the great

advantage of using a camera well the reason I recommend it is so that you can spot any signs

of rising anxiety in your dog but on top of that if you miss those subtle signs of anxiety and

you suddenly see your dog start to go for the doorframe and looking like he's going to rip

it apart well you come straight back in so your stuff isn't going to get ruined you come in if

your dog is even so much thinking about barking so your neighbors are going to be happy and on

top of all that because you're doing gentle kind gradual exposure the ethical and effective way to

train you're not adding to your dog's fear you're doing exactly the opposite you're addressing the

cause of his anxiety driven behaviors so can you see why then now I've gone through all those four

reasons it's just a non-negotiable we don't train fearful dogs with things they find aversive as I

say we shouldn't train any dog with aversive when it comes to separation anxiety think about it

think about what would happen if you did train with aversive and take them off the table I promise

you that you won't just be doing something that's ethical kind and humane but you'll be doing

something that makes life better for your dog and for you thank you so much for listening I

appreciate you taking the time to listen to my podcast I know you've got lots of choices but I

look forward to you joining me on the next one bye for now 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

you