Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of the fixing
separation anxiety podcast.
This week,
we're talking all about puppies and who doesn't love talking about
puppies? Hasn't it got to be just one of the best
topics we could possibly cover?
Now, the topic of whether puppies get separation anxiety,
cause that's what I'm going to be talking about this week,
what that looks like and how to deal with it.
The topic is very,
very close to my heart because my gorgeous,
adorable boy,
Percy, to me,
there is no doubt came with separation anxiety,
came hardwired,
genetically predisposed,
and on the path to getting separation anxiety even before he
came home with me.
So it's a topic,
as I said,
that I'm really close to.
And today I want to share with you my tips for
how to deal with a dog who,
a puppy who has separation anxiety.
Also had to tell,
but also what to do,
even if you think your puppies just doing normal puppy stuff.
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.
So this comes up a lot.
I get asked a question all the time from new puppy
owners about does my puppy have separation anxiety?
Or do you think my is the stuff my puppy gets
up to when I'm gone,
do you think that's just normal?
Well, let me just start by telling you that we definitely
used to think that puppies couldn't get separation anxiety,
but now we know they do.
So this session is all about how to determine if it
is normal stuff over if it's separation anxiety and what you
can do about it in either case.
So hi everyone,
my name's Julie and I help dogs and owners get over
separation anxiety with my online programs and my book.
That's coming out in a few weeks time.
All right,
let's stop.
I've got three things I want to talk to you about.
So three top tips for helping your puppy to learn,
to be okay on its own,
whether your puppy is anxious or whether your puppy is just
being a puppy.
The first thing I want you to do.
So tip number one is I want you to treat,
I want you to prioritize home alone training in the way
that you would prioritize house training.
Now my third tip is going to be exactly what that
home alone training looks like.
But let me tell you why I think it's so critical
that you prioritize your home alone training.
The thing about when your puppy first comes into your home,
maybe eight weeks,
nine weeks,
because remember the thing is that your puppy has just been
plucked from everything it's ever known.
It's whole life short is eight weeks at night.
It's nine weeks.
It's been in a certain taste.
It's been with certain people.
It's been with its siblings,
with its dam,
with its mom,
maybe not filling the nine weeks.
Usually most pops become a bit more independent from their mom
at about six weeks,
mostly because their mom doesn't like them hanging around that time.
But you've got to remember when they come into your home,
it's completely strange and alien to them.
And they all and little baby.
Dogs are also very social animals.
They're social sleepers.
They like to hang out with other beings,
whether that's other dogs.
And we have selectively bred dogs to be like that.
We originally 15,000
to 30,000
years ago,
we originally encouraged them to come into our lives because we
liked them being around.
As we encourage the dogs who liked human company,
we wanted them around us.
We encourage their affiliation to us.
And so being on their own is not a natural state.
It's a state that they can learn.
And it's a state that might not cause panic,
but it's not natural and it's not normal.
All right.
So that's the first thing you need to prioritize home and
own training.
You need to assume that just like knowing not to go
in the house or knowing not to choose stuff or knowing
how to walk on leash,
you need to know that your puppy just doesn't instinctively know
how to be alone.
So prioritize it.
And I,
and if you're trying to watch it and you're working with
somebody with a puppy,
please, please,
please put home alone training up there with house training and
socialization and manners and all that good stuff.
Please encourage owners to prioritize home alone training.
And if it's you and you're bringing this new puppy into
your home,
please, please prioritize it up there with house training.
I'm on a mission.
I want every puppy from now on going into every home
to be given home and own training and incident ne new
dogs. So newly adopted dogs too.
I think they should be given home alone training.
My third tip,
I'm coming to it in a second will be,
what does that look like?
Okay. So the second thing,
and this is quite critical for puppies because we all assume
that puppies have to be crated.
If we're going to house train them.
Well, I say,
we all assume that in many countries in the world,
particularly in Europe,
you'll find that crates just aren't used and there are thousands
and thousands and thousands of puppies who are house trained without
a crate.
Now, why,
why does that matter?
Why am I concerned about the use of crates?
Well, I'm not,
I love crates.
Crates a great for all sorts of purposes.
They're fantastic at the vets.
They're wonderful that the groom is,
they're obviously brilliant for traveling.
But if a puppy has separation anxiety,
if a dog has separation anxiety,
usually we find they're much more uncomfortable in a crate.
So while you're going for the home alone training,
which we'll come on to,
I keep saying that,
but I am going to come onto it.
While we go through the home alone training,
if we also need to get an anxious puppy to love
it's crate,
it's extra work.
You can do it.
And I'll tell you how you can get puppy to love
it's crate,
but it's extra work.
And you need to be prepared to do that.
So how can you house train a puppy that you don't
crate? Well,
you just don't take your eyes off the puppy.
You really just fix onto that puppy.
And whenever in particular,
whenever the puppy hasn't just been out.
And if you follow a schedule for house training and you
know, when your puppy dog needs to go,
you are watching that puppy like a hawk.
Typically when they've eaten mornings after play sessions,
that kind of stuff.
But you're keeping a schedule.
You know,
when your puppy is likely to go,
you know,
when they're full,
you take them out.
They don't go.
They come back in and you watch them like a hawk.
So they only get free time when they get more reliable
or when you know that they are not going to go.
By free time,
I just,
I mean,
actually free time that's less supervised.
Other than that,
you're watching them.
You're watching them.
And it's doable.
I actually did that with my own puppies.
When we first had them,
you just watch them like a hawk and no accidents.
Make sure that they always go out to pee and poop
and reward them for it.
And what's the rest of the time.
Now a crate is also going to be really useful for
chewing. So crates are great for house training because if you
can't watch your dog,
you can't watch a puppy like a hawk.
If you can't monitor them the whole time,
then you put them in a crate.
There's less time if they're going to soil cause they don't
like soiling,
they're dead.
And crates can also be great of course,
for the chewish.
But again,
you can monitor a chewing puppy.
You can just be obsessive about it and make sure they
can't get to things in particular like electrical cords,
anything leathers seems to be fun and anything wood seems to
be fun.
So just monitor,
monitor. So you don't have to crate.
And if you're finding that your puppy is doing worse in
a crate when you try to leave either when you tried
to leave the room or leave the house and just pop
the idea of crating for now,
that would be my recommendation.
However, if you are absolutely determined and I know in North
America where I live,
I know that crating is very,
very popular and it seems weird that we wouldn't crate a
puppy. If you're determined and you need to get your puppy
to love it's crate.
Any puppy,
not just an anxious puppy.
How do you do that?
Make everything good happen in your puppies crate or as many
things as possible.
So feed in the crate,
have toys in the crate,
have chews in the crate drop treats in the crate randomly
during the day before you even begin to close it and
gradually, gradually get your puppy to love the crate.
It's cratet.
Don't just push your puppy into the crate towards the door
expect your puppy to be okay.
All puppies need to learn to love their crate.
Some will take to it quicker than others.
But remember if you're struggling,
your puppy hates this crate.
You can house train and you can manage chewing without a
crate. Okay.
So that was point 2.
Point 2,
you don't always need to crate.
Point 3,
how does this home alone training work then?
Okay, so we use something called gradual exposure training.
And it's the same training we use for any fear.
But we can also use it for a puppy who's just
sort of a bit uncomfortable or find something strange or just
needs to get used to something new.
So with a puppy home alone training,
when you bring your puppy home at the weekends,
usually the weekend,
isn't it?
We bring the puppy home,
I want you to focus and dedicate some time to gradually
increasing the time that your puppy's alone.
You can start by out of sight absences.
So, you know,
actually leaving the house,
you might just be stepping into another room.
Then you can gradually increase either the distance or the time.
So you might step outside the door and come back,
step outside,
stay outside for longer.
And you gradually gradually increase the time that your puppy is
left. If your puppy isn't anxious,
you will fly through this training probably in a weekend.
And you'll be finding you can leave your puppy home alone
for as long as your puppy can hold his bladder.
If the puppy is anxious,
it will take longer because what you're not going to do.
In fact,
don't do this with any puppy cause there's a good chance
you can spoil it's association of being home alone.
Don't need your puppy to bark and whine and cry it
out. I'm not saying the protest whine,
isn't going to happen,
but don't leave your puppy to cry and cry and cry.
It is not going to help them to associate being home
alone with being okay.
So you gradually increase the time that your puppy is home
alone. Now,
if you want more information on how that training works in
more detail,
you can head over to my website,
which is subthresholdtraining.com/podcast.
And have a look for my recent podcast episodes,
episode 23 and 24 talk about how we do separation anxiety
training. How you do gradual exposure training in detail.
But you're going to say that sounds like something you do
for an anxious dog.
No, let me go back.
I said at the start,
I said at the start of this point,
step number three,
this training works whether your puppy is anxious or not.
It's just that you're not anxious puppy will become happy home
alone really quickly.
Your anxious puppy is going to take longer.
Okay. So two more things to say.
So those are my three tips.
My first tip is to prioritize home-alone training up there with
house training.
Number two,
remember if your puppy struggling in a crate,
you don't have to crate.
Number three,
I want you to make sure that you use gradual exposure
to being alone for any new puppy.
It's just that non-anxious puppies will go through this quicker than
the anxious ones.
So a big question I get asked regularly,
as well as how do I train for home alone?
What happens is,
is it actually separations anxiety?
How can I tell?
Well, if you worked through number three and you do it
properly and your puppy is okay after a couple of days,
your puppy is okay being left after training for a couple
of days,
chances are it's not anxiety.
But if you're still plowing away,
days, weeks,
sometimes months after,
then, there's a really good chance it is separation anxiety.
And another way to tell I find is puppies will protest
when you eave them because you're the source of all things
fun. So lots of puppies will mind when you're not around,
whine when you disappear,
but what tends to happen with anxious dogs versus non-anxious dogs,
puppies versus non-anxious puppies is the anxious ones have much more
determination. There's much more perseverance because the brain isn't doing a,
an equation,
the sensible assessment of whether it's worth crying.
You know,
if you think about a time when you've been frightened during
a panic,
all logic goes out the window,
doesn't it?
And you will do whatever it takes to get out of
that situation that's causing you panic.
And the same is true with a panicking puppy.
If they're really,
really frightened of being home alone,
they will whine and whine and whine and whine.
The dog,
the puppy that's just bored or frustrated or a bit disappointed
that you've left.
And remember,
most dogs are going to be disappointed that we've gone cause
we are the source of all things fun.
Puppy like that will not keep going and going and going.
So here's what I suggest that you do rather than testing
it out by leaving your puppy to cry for eight hours.
Here's what I suggest you do.
I want you to seek to leave your puppy.
In fact,
the first day that you get your puppy,
the first absence that you do,
I want you to do it after your puppy has eaten,
after your puppy has played,
after your puppy has been out.
And when your puppy is really sleepy and ready for a
nap. Now a puppy that's had all its needs met.
So it doesn't need to go.
It's full,
it's tied.
It's played,
a puppy in that context.
May do some whining very briefly,
but more likely than not,
If they are okay at being left,
you will see them just go fine.
Okay? So the first time you leave your puppy to do
that short departure,
remember we're going to do it gradually.
I want you to do it after all needs met.
Then we know that the whining isn't because they want something
other than they would just like a bit more food or
a bit more play,
but we know all their needs are met.
So if we get a massive protests going on there,
chances are,
this is a puppy who's not comfortable with the alone time.
All right.
That's what I'd like you to do.
Okay. That to me starts to give me some data as
to whether this puppy is going to be able to handle
being alone or whether we're going to be working at it
more. All right.
So if you've already got a puppy like this,
that's what I want you to do.
Focus on gradual exposure.
If you're thinking about getting a puppy or another dog,
is there any way you can guarantee that your puppy won't
get separation anxiety?
That challenge is that as far as we know,
and we know increasingly more about this,
there's a good chance that separation anxiety is genetic.
So, if that is your puppy,
it's done.
You just need to work on getting uncomfortable.
If you're thinking about getting a puppy,
is there anything you can do?
You might not even know.
You could meet both the parents of the puppy and you
might not even know that separation anxiety was in the genes.
Also, maybe it was early life experiences.
Maybe it was because we know that's another cause of fear
in dogs and people what happens very early on.
So maybe something happened.
Maybe something happened to their mum when she was carrying,
because that can also affect their anxiety.
So it's really hard to tell,
even when you meet the puppy at seven weeks and you
fit them out and you think they're ideal,
it's very hard to guarantee that they're not going to get
separation anxiety.
So if you want the best chance you possibly can get
of having a dog that doesn't have separation anxiety,
and you need to get roughly a two to three year
old adult dog.
Why? Because by about that age,
most trainers will tell you they they're kind of molded.
By that time,
most of the things that they're going to be frightened of
or worried about,
most of the behavioral problems that they're going to have in
life have come out.
Well, not all because we do see some things like noise
phobia coming on later in life.
And certainly things that happen to dogs when they're much older,
when they're seniors,
obviously we don't see when two or three,
but a lot of the stuff that they are going to
have problems with will already be showing.
So if you can find a rescue where a dog has
been fostered and has been fine in that brand new foster
home with no separation anxiety,
that's probably your absolute best chance that the dog is going
to be okay.
So not a puppy even,
a full grown dog.
So, sorry.
I know you probably wanted me to say here's what you
do and you'll guarantee your puppy is never going to get
separation anxiety.
I wish I could tell you because the problem is you
can do all this good stuff with a brand new puppy
and gradually expose them to alone time and still risk having
a dog who can't be left.
That your three-year-old dog who's never shown any signs of separation
anxiety is probably your best bet.
Even if it's not guaranteed,
but it's probably your best bet.
Okay? So just to recap,
my three tips are,
make sure that your puppy doesn't get upset in a crate.
And if you don't need to use a crate,
don't use a crate for house training or chewing cause you
don't have to.
And then when you start to get them used to being
home alone,
use very,
very gradual exposure,
do those three things and that's giving your puppy the best
chance that it has to not develop separation anxiety.
Yeah. So go for it.
And I wish you the very best of luck and enjoy
puppyhood because there's nothing more delightful than having a brand new
puppy in a home.
Okay. That's it from me this week.
Thank you much for tuning in.
I know you've got a ton of options when it comes
to listening to podcasts.
So I really,
really do appreciate it.
And if you've liked what you've heard,
I'd love it If you could head over to iTunes and
it's that called Apple podcasts I think,
head over there and rate and review me.
I'd be so grateful if you could do that.
All right.
Have a great week and I'll see you next time.
Bye for now.
Thanks for listening to the fixing separation anxiety podcast with Julie
Naismith. For more information,
visit the website at www.sub-threshold
training.com. If you haven't yet,
go to Apple podcasts and subscribe,
rate, and review this podcast.
Thank you for joining us.
We'll see you again soon.