Did you ever wonder whether what you're doing might be making things worse so the training that you're using is that
Making your dog worse. Do you find that the more you train the more your dog is stuck to you like glue
Do you find that the more you go in and out of the door and try to do absences?
The more alert your dog is to keep going. Well, here's the thing
Sometimes that can happen. Sometimes when we do separation anxiety training
There can be some quirks that cause the training to not go as we planned and rather than making our dogs better
We actually risk making them worse
That's why in today's episode. I'm going to explain to you how that can happen
But also I'm going to explain to you how to avoid it happening
And what you can do if you think that training has been making your dog worse
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
Specification 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
Okay, so you're training away
You're doing everything you can you're following the rules
but you don't even ever seem to make any progress or if you do it's really spotty and
What you're noticing is
the more you train
The clingier your dog gets which is completely the opposite of what we expect to happen
So you might be scratching your head thinking what on earth is this?
My dog feels worse than when I even started. So what's going on?
Well, let me first explain what?
The training that I teach does what's the standard approach to getting a dog over separation anxiety
And let me explain how that works. It's a process that's called
desensitization and it's based on the
empirical principles of how any brain human or dog
Adjusts and recovers from something that it's frightened of
It's a technique that's known in the human world the human world of psychology as
exposure therapy and
it consists of
Taking the thing that causes the fear and then exposing the subject to that fear
So if you're frightened of cats, you've got a phobia of cats
What we would do is ask you
What's the smallest or safest?
Aspect of being with a cat that you can handle. Can you be in a room with a cat but not touch it?
Or is that too scary?
Could you be in a room looking out of the window to the garden at a cat? Would that be okay?
we're trying to find an
intensity of the thing that scares you
That's an intensity
That's not scary. Do you feel what I mean?
So the cat next to you if you're frightened of cats might be way too much
but if you were frightened of cats and I said to you, okay, but what version of
Having a cat around could you cope with what's the lowest intensity?
That we can find how can we turn that down so that you now feel comfortable with a cat around and
If you are frightened of cats or other animals or something else you might say with the cat example
You might say I couldn't be in the room with a cat and I couldn't look out the window at cat
But I could probably look at a photo of a cat on a computer. So yeah, I could do that
So that's where we might start. We basically turn the intensity right down on the scary thing the cat the fear of the cat
But we're still exposing the subject the sufferer the phobia sufferer to the cat
It's just a dialed down
lower intensity version of cats. It's a photo of a cat and
Then as the subject becomes more comfortable with the cat with the photo we might then say okay
What would be the next step you could cope with and they might respond that it could be a video of a cat
Maybe with some meowing thrown in and
we continue to expose the subject to different levels of the scary thing, but
We're dialing it down each time. So each time at each step in what's called the hierarchy of fear
The thing isn't scary. The intensity is so low at each of those steps that the subject isn't scared
They're exposed to the thing. They're exposed to the thing that typically induces fear
But at such a level that they're not scared and you can see what happens you you have a subject who's frightened of something
They're facing that something facing that fear
But aren't scared they start to learn their brain starts to say. Oh, wait a minute
It's okay that thing that I'm scared of I actually can handle that
So of course with dogs, it's alone time. That's the scary thing and
When we get a dog comfortable with being home alone
We are dialing rule that intensity of home alone time right down and we do that
By reducing the amount of time that the dog is alone
So we take a tiny tiny amount of alone time to start with for most dogs. That is second
For lots of dogs. It's not even going out the door. It's you working on the door
So we've dialed down the intensity we've reduced the fear-inducing stimulus to such a small amount
That it's no longer scary to the dog. So it handles that alone time because it's so tiny and so dialed down
So how on earth if we do this, how on earth are we making the dog worse?
How could you possibly be making your dog worse if what you're doing is sticking to the rules
Exposing your dog to a tiny tiny intensity of scary alone time
So low such a low intensity so short, but it's not actually scary. So how is that going to make your dog worse? Well
Think about what we're doing
We're using an approach that is basically face your fear. In fact, some people call it a face your fear approach
So we have to expose the subject the learner to the thing that it's scared of
And that for the dog is home alone time
So we are exposing our dogs to home alone time in order to help them get over their fear of home alone time
So where it can go wrong is if we get that intensity wrong
If we muck things up and expose our dogs to too much alone time. It's too long. It's too intense
It's more than the dog can cope with
Then the opposite of what we're trying to achieve
Happen and in fact, that's usually how fear gets on board
If a dog a subject a human whatever is scared of something the fear can grow
When they're exposed to more and more and more of that scary thing
So back to the person who's frightened of cats if they were locked in a room with 50 cats
It would most likely kind of depends but more often than not they'll come out feeling way worse
about cats and
That process is called
sensitization
We've got desensitization which is face your fear the gradual exposure to the thing that you're scared of
gradual exposure of the dog to alone time in the case of separation anxiety training
desensitization facing your fears exposure therapy
Sensitization
Increasing fear subject becomes more and more fearful of the thing that it was scared of in the first place
And it can be in lots of instances. It can be a fine line
We can on the one hand be making great progress
The dog is getting exposed to tiny amounts of alone time and it's going well, okay, that was fine. I could handle that
That's not like it used to be
Yeah, you went out, but you came back and
The bit in between that was fine. I was okay could have been two seconds
But we build on those two seconds. We build on it. We build on it. So
That's that's the process working. That's the sensitization that fine line is
If the dog your dog is a dog can't handle the time that it's exposed to
We are going to see some
Sensitization and the challenge of course is how much is too much how long is
Too much for the dog to cope with
And it's not always easy to tell how can we tell what they can't tell us
So we've only got body language to go with and as you know
You might have one of those dogs where it's actually really difficult to read them. They're not exploding
They're not barking howling whining
They are showing more subtle signs of anxiety or fear and those ones can often be tough
There's a general rule though
if you find when you're doing this training where you're gradually exposing your dog to increasing amounts of alone time and
They are getting more and more agitated about you leaving
They're starting to follow you around the house more. They're more vigilant. They're kind of on guard
They're alert to everything you do if you find that's happening
Even if when you're doing the training, you're not seeing your dog upset. You're not seeing your dog explode or cry or scratch
if you think or if you observe that your dog seems to be getting more tense and
More on edge about you leaving the chances are that you've just crossed over that line and you are
unwittingly
Pushing your dog a bit too far
so if that's happening to you if you're in this place right now, and you're finding that it's
Completely the opposite to what you want to achieve
What can you do?
You dial it back
You take it much easier. So if you're on a duration, let's say of 30 seconds
You're going to stop trying those 30 seconds absences
You're going to go right back and I would always suggest going right back if you're seeing sensitization
We want to nip that in the bud really early and get back to giving your dog some easy wins
So you go and you come back and it's easy and there's no issue and no worry and no stress
So the first thing you can do then is you're going to dial back the duration that you're on number one if you're not on
Absences at the moment if you're still working on the door using my game the door as a ball game
then
go back and
Work on the previous step or the previous step to that
So wherever you are, whether you're on duration or whether you're on door as a ball you go back you go back a step
so going back is
Going to be immensely helpful and it always feels crushing when you go back because it feels like you are
Never going to get there. Oh my goodness
If I keep going back all the time, how am I ever going to make progress?
Will you make progress when your dog has an experience of being home alone?
That is good. But every time your dog has a good experience of alone time that's in the bank
If it has a bad experience or a kind of holding it together hanging in there experience
We don't want that. So going back actually is
Helpful for the cause because you get back to having more positive experiences
You're banking them so that you can progress forward again and with separation anxiety training
You really have to go slow to go fast. You cannot rush this rushing it is
one of the big causes of sensitization because we are so desperate to move on and
Especially when you're starting out and you're on really low durations. It can seem like if you did the math, you know
It's taking you two months to get this three seconds and like well, hang on a minute this isn't going to work
It's gonna be ten years before we get there, but it doesn't work like that
You're in those early stages where you're going out for really short durations. You're you're working on the foundation
It's tiny tiny changes that you probably can't see in your dog that ultimately add up to progress
So no, you're not going to go up a second a month
That's not how it works
But at the start you will spend a lot of time on really really really short durations over and over and over
Okay, so the first thing you need to do you're going to dial things back
If you think your dog is being sensitized by the training
So you go back a step in door as a ball or you reduce the target duration
Second thing you're going to do
Try training less if you're one of those crazy a types and I know a lot of you are
That's why you listen to this podcast. That's why you're desperately working so hard to get your dog over this
You can do too much. You can do train too often. You cannot give yourself or your dog a rest
So second thing you can do is just have a little bit of a break
If you normally take the weekend off take three or four days off
If you normally take one day off take two or three days off
So however long you normally break for between training sessions take a bit longer
So that's the second thing you're going to take a break
The third thing you're going to do is actually look at how you carry out the exercises
So you might want to give more time between the steps
Some dogs do way better when you increase the amount of time between the steps
Although interestingly some dogs do worse with more time
You're going to have to play around with that with your dog
But play around with how you structure the exercise if you need more time between steps
You can also split the exercise up
So if you're working on a short duration and you're following the training plans in my book
You might be on say eight steps or ten steps. You can chunk those up. You could do three steps together
Take a break go and have a cuppa come back half an hour later and do the next few steps
So you can break up the exercises if that's helpful
So looking at the structure, looking at how you train is the third thing that you're going to do
And the final thing you're going to do is don't panic
It's okay the fact that you are asking yourself is your dog doing worse
Is really really good because it means you're on it, it means you are observant
It means you are really noticing how your dog responds to training and that is absolutely priceless
I always say you don't need to be an expert in separation anxiety to get your dog over this
But you do need to be an expert in your own dog
And if you're noticing these subtle changes you are absolutely on top of this
Alright so my four tips for you there
Please don't worry, this isn't terminal, you can turn this around
You can get back to progressing ahead again
You can stop your dog from sensitising if you think that's what's happening
It's all good
Just follow these four tips and take it from there
Alright thank you so much for tuning in today
I really appreciate you taking the time to listen because I know you've got a ton of choices when it comes to podcasts
If you like what you've listened to today I'd love it if you could rate and review the podcast
Remember that when you rate the podcast that's going to show it to more owners of dogs with separation anxiety
And it will help more owners of dogs with separation anxiety because they find the podcast
So you'll be doing them a huge favour and it would be great for me to know what you think about the podcast too
Okay I'll leave it there and hopefully I will catch you 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 julienaysmith.com
Meanwhile if you enjoyed listening today I would love it if you would head over to wherever you listen to your podcast
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Thanks so much, good luck with that training and bye for now
Be Right Back