Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of the fixing
separation anxiety podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
I'm your host,
Julie Naismith.
And today we're going to be talking about the difference between
training and real life.
Welcome to the fixing separation anxiety podcast,
right? It's all about healing your dog,
regaining your freedom and getting your life back on track.
And now here's your host,
Julie Naismith.
I don't know how many times I've heard that the problem
is my dog thinks it's all training.
He can tell the difference between training and real life.
I'm never going to be able to leave him for real.
And I get that.
You think it's never ever going to be okay in real
life. And it can seem like it's the case.
But in today's episode,
I'm going to explain to you why,
what exactly is going on with training versus real life.
I'm going to show you why it's not really problem.
Plus I'll give you some tips for how you can get
out of the door for real.
Back to that statement of he thinks it's training or he's
so smart I know he knows that this isn't real.
That's unpack that.
You've got to remember that we don't know what dogs are
thinking. We don't know whether he thinks something.
We don't know whether he knows something and modern dog training,
unlike old fashioned dog training methods,
modern dog training doesn't revolve around assuming what dogs know and
think. We don't say things like,
Oh, he wants to be leader,
that's why he has to go out to the door ahead
of you.
Or he thinks he's the boss that's why he goes on
the sofa,
because we can't look inside our dog's heads.
And so statements like he thinks just don't make any sense.
Modern dog training is all about going on what we observe.
We can observe what happens.
We can see behaviors,
we can see outcomes.
And we can also attempt to read our dog's body language.
Although we have to be careful with that one,
because even though I said,
we don't know what's going on inside our dog's head,
we do sometimes use body language to give us pointers as
to what might be going on.
In fancy terms,
we would say that body language gives us an idea of
the dog's emotional state.
However, we're still not saying we know what our dog thinks.
All we know what our dog knows is really important.
So modern dog training is all about outcomes.
It's about evidence and it's about observation.
So when someone says to me,
I think my dog knows it's training.
He's not going to be able to do these absences in
real life.
What I hear is that actually the desired outcome,
In other words,
you leaving that being the desired outcome,
hasn't been proofed in every situation.
So your dog can handle it sometimes,
but he can't handle it every single time.
And so when you make those statements,
I hear he's still learning.
He needs to learn more,
but that's actually a really good thing,
Isn't it?
So he's saying to us that he's learned to be okay
in training,
but he's saying also he's still struggling with this real life
thing. So we just need to teach him that you going
out under conditions that you define as real life that that's
going to be okay.
And right now,
if what you're saying is he falls apart when you do
that, he just,
hasn't learned to be okay in that situation.
Ah, but you say my dog is super smart.
He definitely a hundred percent.
He definitely knows it's training.
I know.
I agree with you.
I have three of the smartest dogs that the world has
ever seen.
Don't we all?
I know,
I know our dogs are smart.
So I am going to agree with you on this one.
Dogs are amazing at working out what's going on in their
world, in a way that we could only dream of,
they spot things that we never ever see.
So they do learn what trainers call a training set up.
And that's just where they've worked out either by the process
we use or how we organize ourselves before we train,
or just a lift of things that we do when we're
getting ready for a training session.
They've worked out that there's something different about this setup.
Do they call it training?
Well, I said,
I can't go inside their head,
but I'm pretty sure they don't call it training.
I'm pretty sure that they see it's different and I'm pretty
sure they don't call it training.
They're just using their quite astonishing skills as a connection making
machines to say,
Oh, when you do all of those things,
it feels different and when you go out in that situation,
I feel okay.
That's why they start to distinguish or why they can distinguish
between training and our definition of real life.
But like I said,
I doubt if what they're thinking there I go saying that
I know what they're thinking,
but Hey,
if I could go inside their head,
this would be my best guess.
They are not saying that training is happening.
Training is our concept.
So if we were to be able to have the luxury
and the great privilege of knowing what's going on inside their
head, we might hear them say,
Oh, so when she goes in and out of the door
several times,
and then she goes for one long session,
that it's fine.
I don't get scared when she does that.
Oh, wait a minute.
But if she goes out suddenly and it's morning and I've
had a really quick walk and she's just brushed her teeth
and I've just had my breakfast.
Oh no,
I know it's going to be bad.
I hate it when she does that,
I'm going to freak because that means she's going to leave
me for a long time.
It's always what she's done.
And Oh no,
I hate it.
So that's your dog joining the dots,
making connections and saying sometimes it's okay when you leave me
and sometimes it's not.
So when this happens,
I get really encouraged.
I know this just sound crazy.
What it says to me is the training is actually working.
So you're fretting about the training,
not working.
I'm looking at it going,
wait a minute,
your dog is okay sometimes,
so the training is working.
He is learning that you leaving can be okay,
but other times he's not okay.
All right.
So we need to teach him those times are okay.
Those other times are okay.
He's basically working out that some absences aren't scary.
And so our training has changed how we feel about you
coming and going.
Isn't that great news?And
the cue for him is whatever you do in that training
session is prompting and tipping him off that these absences are
not going to be like the old ones.
That the reason why he's falling apart when you do the
real life ones for real your terms not here is I'm
pretty sure,
even though I don't know what he's thinking,
I'm pretty sure he's not saying,
Oh, this is real.
The reason he falls apart,
when you do those,
is that those real life absences are more like the absences
you used to do.
There's something about them.
There's some cues in there.
There's some triggers,
which say,
Oh, okay.
When she does this,
when she gets up and goes,
it's going to be bad.
It's going to be bad guys.
Cause the only safe absences are the ones she doesn't training.
This is like the ones where I used to feel really
scared, not handling it.
So real life absences are basically the way he used to
be left.
So like I say,
when you tell me this works in training doesn't work in
real life,
I get excited because your dog is differentiating.
And I want him to differentiate.
I want him to say there is a new way of
being left and it feels fine.
I want that.
We want him to start differentiating between scary absences that used
to happen and good ones.
And your training is in some way,
making him feel okay,
but just not in every context yet.
Oh, wait a minute.
Okay. You desperately want to work those so-called real absences.
I get that.
You want to leave for real so badly because it feels
like a massive compromise that we can't,
it doesn't it?
Everybody else can just get up and go with their normal
dogs. Why can't we?
And I do get that.
Let me just tell you or share with you,
that there's kind of a weird thing about separation anxiety.
Another aspect of separation anxiety training it gets excited.
For that some people think is a crazy thing to get,
even remotely.
I'm excited about when you do separation anxiety training,
you are 100% in control of the thing that scares your
dog. The thing that scares your dog?
Being alone.
No, I know it doesn't feel like it.
And it probably feels like a burden.
But remember,
if you do,
if you arrange your environment,
if you change your schedule,
if you dig deep and find the money for dog daycare
and dog walkers,
you can control the thing that scares your dog 100%.
If you've got friends whose dog is frightened of people or
is frightened of strollers or skateboards,
they will tell you,
it is almost impossible to control the environment 100%.
You can tell your stranger danger dog out at 5:00 AM
in the morning because you want to avoid meeting people because
you know,
that sends your dog over threshold and boom,
somebody walks around the corner at 5:10.
It happens.
So people with dogs who are fearful of things in the
outside world will tell you you cannot control the thing that
scares your dog 100% of the time unless you never let
your dog out.
But we can with separation anxiety.
That's why I get excited.
Despite the fact that you will think that a burden.
I used to think it was a burden too,
but now I see it actually as a huge bonus to
separation anxiety training,
we're in control.
We can control his fear and we can also choose to
make training or absences as training like,
or is real lifelike.
Has we pawned?
How cool is that?
So go back to that scenario walking around the corner at
5:00 AM in the morning with a stranger danger dog,
you've done tons and tons and tons of training.
You've used tons of friends,
of friends,
of friends who were strangers,
and you're getting your dog more comfortable with strange people and
boom, you meet a stranger,
but we,
you can arrange departures so that they are as safe as
we need them to be.
And I think that's really cool.
However, I,
let me get back to this point about how can you
translate the training into real life.
Well, first of all,
define what you mean by real life.
And by that,
by define,
I mean,
write it down,
write down exactly what you want to be able to do.
Is it,
I just want to be able to go out every morning
for work,
pick up my bag,
pick up my coffee,
get into the car and go,
is that real life?
You're going to write down everything you do.
And you're going to write that and what your dog's struggles
with still struggles with.
If it's go out at five o'clock to a class,
you want to go to your yoga class at 5:00 PM
every day,
you want to be able to pick up your yoga mat,
go out the door,
write that down.
Because you're going to need to work on getting your dog
comfortable If they can't currently handle that.
And that's how you're going to start translating training into real
life. But while you're doing that,
because it's going to be a big step up from training
to suddenly jump to random walking out of the door as
when you place departure.
So while you're doing that,
why not keep managing the training setup?
Why not keep managing the environment?
Let's go back to an example of a dog who's frightened
of things in the outside world.
Say your dog has a fear of small dogs and you
have a small dog that lives three doors down.
Now you can choose to walk past that dog every day
and your dog gets upset,
or you could choose to train your dog to be comfortable
with small dog,
small dogs behind fences until your dog is fine with that.
Or you could do what most people would do,
which is you would cross the road or you'd go a
different direction around the block.
You just would,
right? So that's what I mean.
When I say manage the training set up,
manage the environment.
If you need to put your keys in your pocket an
hour before you go,
but that gives you two hours of duration.
Wouldn't you do that?
Isn't that like crossing the road when you see the small
dog behind the fence,
or what if you put your bag in the car the
night before you go to work,
but that meant that your dog was okay for four hours
the next morning.
Wouldn't you do that?
You might do that forever,
but you'd certainly do that for a reasonable amount of time
because it's helping you progress.
But I still want to work out how to do these
real life departures.
I know you need to let me spill the beans on
how you're going to do it.
So I tease you a little bit with it.
You're going to write down exactly what you mean by real
life. And you're going to work out which of those aspects
of your dog is most comfortable in this comfortable with.
And then you're going to need to help him learn that
real life doesn't mean it's going to be scary like it
used to be.
So more training and more of those scenarios.
And we need to add in what dog trainers what we
call cold trials.
Sounds fancy.
All it means is a bit more around them because real
life is random,
right? It's not usually if we don't normally do for four
warmups before we go out for dinner,
although some people will do.
And I have clients who will do this for some time,
because guess what?
That might buy them some time that might buy them a
really good duration.
And they are happy to go out of the door a
couple of times,
if it means they can go out to dinner,
all right.
But what you might want to do is these cold trials,
which are random.
Now this is PhD separation anxiety stuff though.
So you need to graduate to it.
This is why I think people think that their dog is
falling apart or will never be able to do it in
real life.
Because we jumped too quickly from training sessions that are repeated
and what we call warm to cold trials,
where they're very random and where exercises and training is spaced.
So you need to progress in increments.
How do you get cold trials?
Like I said,
it's random.
If you look at the way I construct exercises with my
clients, I usually encourage people to have gaps of between 30
and 60 seconds between each step in an exercise to make
those steps,
colder and colder.
The training step gets the more real life like it becomes.
I ask people to increase the duration from seconds to minutes
until ultimately it's hours.
And then it's just whenever,
so it can be done,
but you've got two parts to it.
You need to make sure that all of those triggers from
the old way of leaving your dog is desensitized to those.
And you need to increase the duration between the exercises,
the training steps so that it gets those steps get colder.
And if he struggles as you push on any of those
factors, if you increase the difficulty on the cues or you
increase the difficulty on the gap between the steps,
if he struggles,
he's just telling you I need more practice.
So don't expect him to jump in one big leap,
build up as you've been doing to get this far.
So to get to this point so far.
And what's the worst case?
Well, if you,
if it takes you a long time to get to real
life leaving,
what is the worst case?
Is it going to kill you to have to take the
rubbish out each morning when you leave for work?
Because for whatever reason,
he's decided that you've taken the rubbish out is a sign
that everything's going to be okay.
If that meant you could go to work for four hours
before the dog Walker came at lunchtime,
wouldn't you do that?
Wouldn't you have your bag of rubbish or garbage waiting for
you? I bet you would.
So I don't worry about this nearly,
nearly as much as you do,
because I know that it all works out and that we
can work through it.
So for now,
keep focusing on your training,
think about what real life means.
And when you get there,
just put in the work,
do the repetitions and you will get to a stage where
you can leave your dog for real.
All right.
I hope that helps.
I look forward to seeing you next week and the next
episode of the fixing separation anxiety podcast.
Bye for now.
Thanks for listening to the fixing separation anxiety podcast with Julie
Naismith. For more information,
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