Hello, and welcome to another episode of the fixing separation anxiety
podcast. And the topic for today is all about whether actually
your dog might have more frustration than it has fear.
I know we're talking about separation anxiety.
So how come we're talking about dogs who might not be
fearful after all?
Well, we're going to dive in and we're going to see.
Welcome to the fixing separation anxiety podcast,
where 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.
All right,
so we're talking about separation anxiety,
right? We are on a separation anxiety Facebook page,
we're on a separation anxiety dog group.
So why is the crazy lady asking whether your dog has
actually got fear or it's something else?
Well, here's the thing.
As many of you know,
the things that dogs get up to at home when they're
home alone on all caused by anxiety,
they're not all caused by fear.
And the challenge is that often those what we call separation
related behaviors.
So not separation anxiety,
but separation related behaviors.
One of the fancy term to throw into the mix,
those behaviors can not very similar to anxious behaviors.
The separation related behaviors can include barking,
chewing, destroying.
And of course we know that that's often what separations it
dogs do.
So those home alone behaviors,
those separation related behaviors,
we have to work out what's behind them,
what's the motivation.
Is our dog really upset or is our dog well,
frankly, killing time,
mad, disappointed,
a bit resigned that you went out.
Okay. So we need to work that out.
I was listening to something the other day and we've got
quite a few Brits on,
but there was something on radio 2.
I'm a radio 2 listener.
And I heard an interview,
you might've seen this article in the paper as well.
It was about a dog.
And I think it was in Cardiff.
If I think the owners lived in Cardiff and it was
about a Jack Russell dog who was barking for most of
the day and most of the night.
And the neighbors got to the point where they just had
enough. Now,
if you've ever had that situation where your neighbors have reached
breaking point,
just had enough with your separations anxiety dog,
you might have experienced that they don't always come to you
to tell you what's going on.
And that's exactly what happened with this Jack Russell terrier barking
for 23 hours a day in Cardiff.
The neighbors didn't go to the owner.
Instead, they went to the local council and said,
you really need to sort this.
And in fact,
the neighbors were so let's say obsessed.
I don't blame them.
Who wants dog barking all night?
I mean,
it's bad enough during the day,
but these dogs barking all night,
but they'd actually monitored the dogs barking to the extent that
they recorded the frequency of the barks.
And at peak,
they said,
this dog was barking,
this Jack Russell is barking every three seconds.
So that's pretty,
pretty hard to live with.
Anyway, the owners got fine 3000 pounds.
And what was really sad about this story?
I mean,
that's sad enough in itself that there's a dispute between neighbors,
but I just can't help feeling for the dog.
I'm thinking if that dog is barking that long,
what on earth must be going through its mind that it's
barking so frequently and so persistently and for so long.
So I obviously think,
Oh, poor dog.
What's going on there?
How could we help the dog?
The other thing that went through my mind was,
you know what?
That doesn't sound like a bored dog.
A dog that is barking constantly relentlessly navigates up hmm,
there's something more going on than just a dog who's bored.
But it was a really interesting discussion.
And the article I read about it too,
was fascinating because it just showed that people didn't necessarily understand
what was going on with dogs when they're left alone.
And then the other piece I read about this dog was
the, the guy from the council who impose the fine was
asked, do you think this dog should have been put down?
Could you,
the interviewer asked the counselor,
could you have put the dog down?
Fortunately, the guy from the council was just a bit horrified
and said,
well, by rights we could have done that,
but we would never consider doing that for adult like this.
I was thinking,
yes, thank goodness for that.
Can you imagine if you dog barks all day,
not only did you get fine 3000 pounds,
but the dog is taken from you by the council and
put to sleep.
Anyway, the reason for telling you that is because it showed
to me the lack of understanding there is about what goes
on with dogs when they're home alone.
And it was also a good indicator to me,
if something that I'm going to come on to in a
second. Okay.
So let's try and get to the bottom of this.
Is it fear?
Is it frustration?
Separation-related behaviors have lots of things that are in common.
Barking and chewing and destroying are the big three.
So how can you tell?
Well, here's my checklist and this is what I always run
through. So if I get a client that's come to me
and we're doing an assessment and the client explains to me,
I'm not quite sure.
Could it be frustration or fear?
I'm going to share with you my secret checklist.
This is what I used to determine which it is now.
It's never guaranteed that it's one or the other,
just asking these questions doesn't absolutely determine it.
It helps me point the dog and my clients arm me
in the right direction when it comes to training.
So I'm going to share with you my checklist.
First of all,
I do want to know about the age and the breed
of the dog.
Now there is no correlation between breeds and separation anxiety.
Okay. So some there has been a little bit of research.
There may be some brief,
slightly more prone,
but then you look at other research and it's not conclusive.
So the reason I'm asking about breed is not because I'm
trying to use the breed to tell me if it's separation
anxiety or not.
What I want to know is is this an active,
a high energy,
a drivee the dog.
So are we talking about a working line visla or a
field spaniel?
Oh, working German shorthaired pointer or a working voter colleague.
If so then,
first off,
I know I'm dealing with a dog with a ton of
ton of energy to burn off more than likely.
If I'm looking at say,
I don't know a dogs that we classically don't think have
tons of energy but can maybe a Frenchie,
some poodles,
but you know,
breed doesn't always help.
Sometimes some dogs are,
despite their breed can have way more energy than we expect,
but it's kind of an indication.
So I'm trying to get a sense of energy levels with
that question.
And the other question that helps me understand energy levels is
age. So age and breed.
All right.
But that's not going to tell me if it's frustration and
boredom versus separation anxiety,
but if it's important data.
Then I want to know,
is this new?
So there's barking at home alone,
this chewing,
this destroying,
is it new?
Is it a new phenomenon or is it something your dog's
been doing for some time now?
Right. So I want to know that and I'm going to
come on to why that matters in a second.
So just to recap,
my three,
three questions so far,
what's the breed number one,
what's the age number two.
Is this a new condition,
number three.
Okay. Number four.
And it's kind of linked to number three,
but have there been any life changes,
any recent life changes for this dog?
So did the separation anxiety start as a result of something
changing in the dog's life.
Examples of that would include a change in the household,
moving home and newly adopted dog,
a change in the dog's routine,
a change in your routine,
maybe even,
and this isn't as uncommon as some people say,
maybe even your dog losing an animal companion.
So maybe another dog in the household passed away or maybe
sometimes can even be a cat.
Okay. So has anything changed in that dog's world,
number four.
Then I want to know if you've been working on separation
anxiety training,
let's say you've been doing gradual desensitization,
which isn't most of you know,
is how we treat separation anxiety.
If you've been working on that,
how long have you been working on that for?
How different is your dog's separation related behavior when you do
different things beforehand?
Oh, so by that,
I mean,
if your dog barks and chews,
does your dog bark to destroy less,
if you've taken them on a one-hour highly energetic,
crazy off lead off leash spree with a bull or maybe
a Frisbee,
maybe some chasing squirrels.
Does that affect how your dog is?
Does your dog's home alone behavior respond to things like greater
enrichment? So more games,
more puzzle feeders.
Does that make any difference?
How responsive is it to that?
And then the final question I would want to know is
if you've medicated your dog,
how has that helped?
Have you tried short-term medication versus long-term medication and have those
made any difference?
Okay. And then an overarching question,
I guess,
that filters through everything.
So I suppose I just added one more question.
I didn't have it as a question before I had it
as a key principle,
but I'm going to add it as a question because you're
going to get checklists with this.
When your dog does these things,
the barking,
the chewing,
the whatever,
how persistent is your dog?
So think about the Jack Russell barking for 23 hours out
of 24 hours,
non stop.
That takes an awful lot of energy.
That is an extremely tiring thing to,
for a dog to be doing.
We know that dogs,
when they carry out a behavior,
when they do anything,
they do it for a reason.
Why is that?
Because if you're an animal and you go around doing stuff
and there's no payback,
then from an evolutionary perspective,
you ain't going to survive very long and you aren't going
to be around to pass on your genes.
Why is that?
Because you have to be efficient.
If your life is all about seeking food,
hunting for food scavenging for food,
conserving energy is really important.
So dogs,
if we go back a few thousand years,
dogs that conserved energy did better in the reproduction steaks.
Why? Because the dogs that didn't conserve their energy,
didn't get to pass on their genes.
They would end up too tired to hunt or too tired
to scavenge.
And they don't live as long.
And don't,
aren't able to pass on their genes.
So guess what?
The dogs that conserve their energy that did a sensible amount
of activity in return for awards were more likely to pass
on genes.
And that meant over time.
And with all animals,
behavior becomes efficient dogs do what works for dogs.
So a Jack Russell that's barking for 23 hours.
You've got to say,
what on earth is that dog getting pat for that?
Let's contrast that with an eight week old puppy who does
not have separation anxiety,
but it has a massive amount of frustration or FOMO.
That puppy is going to give up really quickly.
Why? Because the behavior isn't paying off,
23 hours of barking is not efficient.
Now there is a payoff for that dog.
Most likely the barking is soothing.
The barking is just responding to some need driven by their
anxiety, but it's not an efficient behavior.
So that's why I want to know how persistent is this.
If you left your dog for four hours in the past,
how long would they bark for more often than not separation
anxiety owners will say to me,
well, if I went out for four hours,
he would chew and destroy and bart for four hours.
So persistence and duration are really important when we're anxious,
when we're in flight or fight mode,
we're not doing that equation.
And certainly dogs aren't or is this efficient?
Is this worth the return?
And that's the difference in behavior between anxious behavior,
panic driven behavior,
and that kind of thinking behavior,
which says,
if I do X,
I'll get why it's worth the result.
Okay. So that's a ton of questions by going through those
though, I'm starting to get a profile and an understanding of
is this almost certainly separation anxiety,
or could it be something else?
So if I'm looking at an older dog,
who's had these behaviors for years,
who's not responding to,
you know,
treatments such as leaving food for them home alone,
doesn't seem to be doing any better or worse when there's
more exercise involved and doesn't respond to increases in enrichment.
I'm starting to think.
Yeah, probably separation anxiety.
And then I'm going to ask how persistent is the barking
when you leave,
or if it's a chewer,
cause remember dogs don't have to do all of these suite
of behaviors,
some separation anxiety dogs just bark,
some just chew,
some don't do either of those two.
But if I'm going to ask about chewing and destroying.
I want to know where is that chewing and destroying more
often than not with separation anxiety dogs by sign,
they tend to dig or chew,
or destroy close to windows and doors,
almost looking like they're trying to escape.
So if I've got a lower energy dog,
not always has to be.
It's not the case that all high energy dogs are frustrated
when you leave them and don't have anxiety,
but you can see how I go through all that data
to try and come up with an overall picture.
Just to recap,
are we dealing with a high energetic dog who feels like
they're missing out on stuff,
who responds well to home alone proper behaviors if you increase
exercise and enrichment and who,
when you start to do desensitization training actually seems to respond
really quickly.
Because we can increase the tolerance of a frustrated dog to
being home alone by doing the same training.
Okay. So it's complicated.
I get that.
It's not always the case.
It's going to be super obvious to you.
I just want you to make sure that when you are
working with separation anxiety dog,
you have ruled out that it's not just a dog who's
frustrated. And just one last thing to throw into the mix
because it came up in one of my group coaching sessions
today. Somebody was talking about a dog who does differently well
at different times of the day and sometimes different times of
the week.
Now that's very common with separation anxiety dogs.
But with a frustrated dogs,
one thing I really noticed is that if you try and
leave at 6:00 PM in the evening and that's walk time,
you don't stand a chance of going out.
Same is true,
actually with anxious dogs too.
It's a really hard time to train.
But with the frustrated dogs,
what I see is that their anxiety level can be different
or their sorry,
frustration, their behavior,
their problem behavior can be different if you go out at
two o'clock in the afternoon.
Because they're not expecting to go out,
they don't think you're supposed to be taking them with you.
The anxious dog is more likely going to be reasonably anxious
at all times.
Okay? So that was my little spiel on frustration versus fear.
More than likely you're in this group,
run this page,
your dog does have separation anxiety.
It is just worth ruling out that it's not pure frustration.
Now just to finish off and to complicate things even further,
dogs can have both.
Separation anxiety dogs can get frustrated too.
I gave you an example a couple of minutes ago,
a separation anxiety dog who,
when you're trying to do an exercise at 6:00 PM and
he hasn't had his walk,
actually it was violet in one of my groups who responded
in this way,
violet, the dog and Kinsey owner,
violet just said,
Oh no,
no, we are not training at 6:00 PM.
It's walk time,
home my walkies.
So anxious dogs get frustrated too.
It's not that there is this clear distinction all of the
time. So don't forget that anxious dogs get frustrated too.
Well. I hope this podcast has been helpful and that it's
given you some food for thought.
You want to do some sleuthing on your own dog,
then go to the show notes for this episode where you'll
find a link to download the checklist of questions that I
use to work out if it's fear or frustration,
that's it from me for this week.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
And I hope you'll join me on another episode of the
podcast next week.
And don't forget if you like my podcast,
please go to iTunes and rate it.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for listening to the fixing separation anxiety podcast with Julie
Naismith. For more information,
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