Well, hello there and welcome to another episode of the Fixing Separation Anxiety Podcast.
I'm your host, Julie Naismith, and this week we're talking about moving house. So, whether
you have just moved house, whether you're thinking about moving house very soon, or
whether you will just move house at some point in your life, because hey, who doesn't, then
this episode is for you because I've got some tips about how to handle moving house when
your dog has separation anxiety.
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.
Moving house. Now, there's a bit of a running joke in our household that we are not allowed
to move house again. Why? Well, before Percy was the age of two, I think I counted that
we moved about six times. Not only did we move houses, we moved continents. So we moved
from London to Toronto in Canada, and then we moved from Toronto in Canada to Alberta
in Canada. So we moved and we moved and we moved. So there's a running joke that now
he's all settled, now he's fine, now we can leave him, we are not allowed to move again.
Is there a little bit of seriousness to that? Yeah, kind of, maybe. The thing is, Percy's
separation anxiety wasn't caused by moving house, but there's no doubt that moving so
often didn't help things. There is some evidence and some research as well that suggests one
of the big triggers, and we don't know too much about the causes of separation anxiety.
If you've heard me speak about this before, you'll know that the evidence is a bit inconclusive
about what causes separation anxiety, but it does seem like these big life changes can
trigger it. Maybe triggering a dog who was genetically predisposed to separation anxiety,
or maybe just bring it on in a dog that may not have got separation anxiety. What do we
mean by big life changes? It can be a change in the family, so maybe there's a divorce
or a split, or maybe when the kids leave home. It can also be going back to work after you've
taken a long time off, or even changing routines. But certainly moving house can be one of the
things that seems to unsettle some dogs with separation anxiety. But, as I always say to
everybody, what are you going to do? Are you going to never move house? Are you never going
to get married, get divorced, just because you don't want your dog to get separation
anxiety? No, so we have to be prepared for these big life events. Here's my five tips
for what you can do when you move house. First off, if you are already training, just wind
down the training now. So if you're moving in two months time, I would just back off
from the training for now, and I'll come on to why I think that's so important in a second.
But a big factor in why you should wind down your training now is concentrate on your move.
You see, there is a chance that your dog won't do as well in the new environment as they
are doing now. So you could train for two months and then lose that progress. I would
much rather you focus now on setting you and your dog up for success in the new home than
worry too much about training. So you have my permission, if you are currently training
and moving in a few weeks time, to wind down the training. If you haven't already started
the training, don't worry, don't start it now. Don't start training now when you're
about to move in six weeks time. Okay, so you have my permission, wind down the training.
Number two, before you go, research new daycare options in the new location. So before you
move, you've made the decision, you're moving. If you are moving to a different neighborhood,
whether that's just a couple of miles away, whether it's 200 miles away, whether it's
2,000 miles, like some crazy people like me did, research. Get the daycare sorted now.
The last thing I want is for you to get into a new house and be panicking about daycare
options. Don't leave it until you get there. If you can and you're not moving too far,
go visit the daycare, obviously, go and have a look. My tip for you when choosing a daycare
with your dog who has separation anxiety, ask them what they do. How do they deal with
dogs with separation anxiety? What you want to hear is, well, we make sure there's always
a person around, we don't crate them, we don't ever leave them alone. If we do, for
any period of time, we have a camera on them, but it will be for seconds, not for any longer.
All right, so look for those things when you're choosing a daycare. If you're moving
a long way away, you might not be able to go and visit, but there are so many daycares
now that have 24-7 cameras, and I would encourage you to pick one of those daycares anyway.
So you can definitely do your research now. And then think through the actual day of your
move, because it's going to be hectic. There's going to be a ton of stuff going on. If you
have people helping you move, that's lots of strange people around. If you're moving
on your own or with friends, that's a lot of work. So whatever's going on on that day,
think through now what you're going to do with your dog. That's why thinking ahead and
getting a daycare set up before you move could be ideal. So do think about, what am I going
to do with my dog on that day? What am I going to do? Where will you be? Where will you leave
him? Because you don't want to be even coming in and out of the house, moving stuff in and
leaving him inside at that stage, because I don't want you to start leaving your dog
in the new house just yet. Okay, so think through tip number three. Think through exactly
what you're going to do on the day. Tip number four, don't immediately jump into training.
Don't start ramping up training just because you've unpacked or even before you've unpacked.
I want you to get your dog to know that this is now home. Now, there's no rule as to how
long that's going to take. Some dogs will take to a new place quickly, certainly quicker
than most cats will, but some dogs will take longer. But you want your dog to know that
this is the place where you and he both come back to all the time. So give him some time
to settle. And that's good news, right? Because you're in a new house, you've got boxes up to
here, you want to settle in yourself. So give yourself a break, don't start training immediately.
How long should you leave it before you start thinking about testing out his anxiety in the
new house, if he's going to have it? I would say four weeks. That's what I would do with my dog.
You could start at two. Dogs do get used to new places more quickly than other cats. But I would
give it four, just so that he knows this is it now. This isn't holidays, not vacation. This is
where we're going to stay. What's going to happen in that time is he'll get used to different sounds,
he'll be less alert to them. You know what it's like when they're in a new place. Their ears go
up and they hear the floorboards creak or they hear the microwave might sound different, whatever.
You want a few weeks, a couple of weeks for him to habituate to the difference.
And one of the things that you might notice when you take him out on a walk, if you do leash walks,
how do you know that he knows it's home? There's a good chance he'll start turning his head towards
your house or towards your apartment block when you get there. So give him a chance to settle in,
give yourself a chance to settle in. If after four weeks it doesn't look like he knows it's home,
like he's walking past the front gate every time or walking past the apartment building, don't worry,
plenty of time. Now is the time when you can say, okay, let's see how he's doing in the new place.
So number five, I want you to start after about four weeks with really, really easy exercises.
So forget whatever your dog was doing now. If your dog was doing 30 minutes before,
your dog was doing two hours or three hours, I want you to start really, really, really easily.
I want you to gently get your dog used to being left in the new location. Here's the thing,
if your dog was being left for three hours in the old location and by some miracle in the new home,
he can do three hours like that, you doing short absences to start off with is not going to delay
you getting to the longer ones. So play it, be really cautious, start really low. Start with
door desensitization if you don't know what that is. Dive into my Facebook group, we've got videos
on that. It's essentially trying to teach the dog that you going to the door, you going out of the
door is an irrelevant thing and it has no bearing on him. So we teach them that, we reduce their
anxiety about you going to the door, then add some duration on the other side of the door.
Stick with your training plan, keep under threshold, you know how it goes. Again,
if you want more advice on this, jump into the Facebook group, tons and tons of information
on that. Also, we've got a five-day challenge coming up in September, September the 23rd,
where you can learn firsthand all about how to train. Okay, so start really easy,
don't jump into long absences, don't go out for an hour thinking it's going to be okay.
Make sure you have your camera set up when you are doing this. Not so much for the exercises
where you're just approaching the door and coming back, but if you are going to test out how we use
when you step out of the door. Have a camera set up, super, super important. Another reason why
you might not want to start training straight away because, you know, we're all bound. What
is it like when you move houses? It feels like, you know, you get it set up, it seems like it's
working, it's not working. So you definitely want all your tech sorted before you think about
training. But keep it easy. If he does transfer the confidence into the new house,
he'll fly through the training. If he needs a refresher, you're starting in the right place.
Okay, so those are my five things. Just to recap, wind down training now, number one. Number two,
research new daycare, but do it now. Do it before you move. Three, think about your plan for the
day. Really, really important. Let him settle, number four. Let him settle in before you think
about training again. And number five, take it super easy when you do start training.
Okay, so what can you expect? Well, we assume that our dogs are going to be much worse when
they move. And I'll be honest now, most dogs, when I see people move houses, move home, for the most
part, I do see dogs struggle. Why is that? Well, dogs are really, really lousy at generalising
confidence. They're very good at generalising fear. So, for example, if you've ever had a dog
who doesn't like men, it can quite often, or maybe men with beards, dogs can then go from
not liking a man with a beard to not liking men, to not liking people, like that. So,
they can generalise fear quite quickly, but they're really bad at generalising confidence.
So, you might want to brace yourself for the fact that your dog isn't going to take the
newfound confidence of being alone that it had in the old house, that it might not bring that
with him. Okay, so be ready for that. But what we do know is that there seems to be a phenomenon
where, because training separation anxiety and getting dogs used to being home alone is learning,
the dogs seem to learn to learn. So, it might not take as long in your new house to get
uncomfortable as it did the first time. So, have a bit of hope that even if you go from three hours
to three seconds in the new home, it might, fingers crossed, not take you as long to get
back to that three hours as it did the first time. Okay, so don't be totally deflated, just brace
yourself. But here's something interesting. Some dogs actually do better in a new home.
And why is that? Here's me saying they don't generalise confidence. So, why do some dogs do
better? Well, as far as we know, we assume that what's going on, because dogs are learned by
association and fear can be associative. So, if I, you know, take an example of dogs going to the
vets, the dog might be frightened of the vet room, the exam room, but they start to associate
the drive to the vets, you know the theme there, the drive to the vets, the reception area,
the car park of the vets even, with fear, with the frightening things about to happen. However,
because they have an associative way of learning, sometimes if we change the association,
we can also change the anticipation of something scary. So, if we change homes,
sometimes dogs will go, oh, I don't, I've never been left here. Okay, it was scary when I used
to be left in that old place, but no experience of being left here, so maybe it's okay. So,
what's happening is basically a clean slate. The dog has no memory of being left in your new home,
so you've got a clean slate. And actually, this applies whether your dog does freak out,
whether your dog thinks it's fine in the new home. Be really precious about not leaving your dog for
longer than it can handle in the new home because you've got this blank slate, you've got this fresh
start. So, for some dogs, that can be enough to make them feel more comfortable because they have
no memory of being left in this place to be scared. So, really, really be protective about
not leaving them. So, it might be that they're a lot worse, it might be that they're a bit worse,
it might be that they're a bit better, but whatever you do, assess it, make sure you don't
just go out for three hours on the first day, do your training, start really slow, and if they're
going to be fine, you'll fly through the training. Other than that, enjoy your new home, make sure
that you're not so obsessed about your dog's separation anxiety, you don't get a chance to
enjoy your new neighborhood, and I wish you the very best of luck with your move.
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 julienaysmith.com. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed listening today, I would love it if you
would head over to wherever you listen to your podcasts and consider rating my show.
Thanks so much, good luck with that training, and bye for now.