I often hear people say that they feel like their dog separation anxiety is somehow connected
to their, I don't know, adequacy as an owner, as a guardian, and that somehow it feels like
they're obviously just not doing a good job of being an owner, of being a guardian, because
their dogs ended up with separation anxiety.
Well, that's why in this week's episode, I am talking to two of my certified SA Pro
trainers, Beth Bacobian and Joe Sellers.
Now, both Beth and Joe have been through what you're going through.
They've both had dogs with separation anxiety, and they've both experienced what it's like
to live and train a dog with this condition.
And the reason I want to talk to them is because Beth and Joe are not alone.
There are plenty of dog professionals.
I come across dog professionals all the time, whether that be sports dogs trainers, whether
that be pet dog trainers.
I come across so many dog professionals who have experienced having a dog of their own
have this condition, and I want you to hear what they have to say about it, what Beth
and Joe have to say about it, so that you know it has nothing to do with you or your
competence as a dog owner.
So Joe and Beth are going to chat with me today about their dogs, about their experience
of going through separation anxiety, and I've asked them to share their tips for you to
help you navigate your way through this.
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.
So Beth, tell us about your dog, the one that's in a struggle with separation anxiety.
Dive in and tell us.
Sure.
So I have a young dog, his name is Edmund.
He is now 11 months.
He's a Llewellyn Fieldbred English Setter that I got from a very reputable breeder,
and he came to me at 9 weeks of age, and surprise, surprise, the young man had confinement anxiety.
Wow.
Okay.
Almost from the off, Beth, did you notice that immediately?
Yeah, the first day was pretty wicked.
We tried to crate him just for a few minutes to let him have some puppy downtime, and he
began hyperventilating, shrieking, drooling, spinning, clawing.
It was pretty intense, so I immediately popped him out.
But then the first night was pretty intense as well.
He had it right from the jump.
Oh, poor baby.
And to be clear, you've worked with a lot of dogs, and you've had a few dogs yourself,
so you know what you're dealing with, and you know when you see something that's not right.
Yes, correct.
This was not my first puppy and not my first setter, and this is my second setter with
separation anxiety.
My first one went through a window, she had separation anxiety so bad, and had since been
resolved.
So I knew what I was dealing with, and I knew kind of how to get there with him, but it
was stunning being a professional and getting this brand new baby puppy, who everybody was
like, puppies are great right out of the jump, and they have no issues.
And it's so wrong.
So true.
And you know, the thing is, and I'm sure Josie will speak to this as well, for so long, we've
in a way kind of, yeah, made it not a legitimate concern.
We've said to people with puppies, we've said to owners and guardians, no, no, no, don't
be silly.
No, it's a puppy.
It's just being puppy.
And we've completely downplayed their concerns, and they're actually, in the end, for a lot
of them, they're a really good observation that this wasn't normal puppy stuff, which
is certainly what sounds like you saw with your youngster.
Yeah, absolutely.
It wasn't just a little whining or a little like, oh, I'm sad you've walked away from
the crate.
It was intense, and it was pure panic.
And we, when we can get into this a little later, but I tried for eight months to get
him to crate, and we just could never get it conditioned.
Now, is that your clock in the background?
Are we keeping it real with your clock?
Yes, I apologize.
No, it's great.
Just to prove we are recording this live.
But didn't you love that?
I love that sound of Beth's clock chiming in the background.
It sure beats doorbells.
Beth, thanks.
We're going to come back onto, we're going to do way more of your story in a second,
and I'm just going to dive in and ask Jo the same question.
So Jo, tell us all about Reba and her story.
Yeah, Reba, she's a Cocker Bichon.
She's just had her sixth birthday recently.
And I got her as a eight-week-old puppy.
So I went to what was a Kennel Club Assured Breeder, although it wasn't for this particular
breed mix.
It wasn't a puppy farm by any stretch, but it was definitely a business because there
were a few different litters there.
So obviously, she had quite a busy household that she came from.
And yeah, the first, oh gosh, from the first day to the first night, she's my first dog.
She's my first dog, my first puppy.
And I just knew, well, the first few nights were going to be a challenge, but I didn't
expect what I had.
Tried to put her into the crate during the day.
I've actually, the only photo I've got of her in a crate with the door open was literally
on her first afternoon with me.
Right.
And after that, she just drooled, panicked, knocked the water over.
It was horrific.
And was at my wit's end.
It was so upsetting because I just knew this wasn't right, but I just didn't know where
to go at the time.
And I'm hoping, and one of the reasons for doing this today is for listeners to realize
that sometimes when you know, you just know.
And these are two trainers here who are saying that they both have puppies and they both
recognize that, no, no, no, this isn't just the normal puppy stuff that people will tell
you that's what your puppy's doing.
But sometimes you just know, and I personally, I was there as well.
I was like, no, no, no, this isn't normal.
It really isn't.
And you were describing the panic, Jo, just without, I don't want to, I don't want to
make people feel really upset, but it is helpful, I think, to understand what panic looks like.
So what did you see River doing that wasn't just a fussy puppy?
Literally when I went to close the door of the crate, because I had a big open plan room,
so it wasn't really safe to give her the whole access, but she was just trying to get out.
I had like a little waterfall on a little ring, so it just held off the ground, but
that used to go flying.
At one point she had her head through the ring, she managed to get it off the crate,
but the clip failed and it was actually over her head.
The whole bottom of the crate was just wet and even that was without the water, that
was just drooling, howling, panting.
Yeah.
Just, you can just see the panic.
She did not even attempt to settle and it just didn't stop.
Yeah.
You knew something was very wrong there.
The couple of things you mentioned there was they're not stopping.
So, you know, you both know this.
We often, when we talk to clients now and they tell us a bit of the history, one of
the things that really jumps out is that these dogs are really persistent in the behavior
because they're in a panic and that panic makes them do whatever they need to do over
and over again.
And so you see these very persistent behaviors that you just described.
And then that thing about, you know, that is way beyond a puppy who just feels like
they're missing out on the action or they'd way rather be on the sofa than in the crate.
This is a much more fundamental emotion coming out in them, isn't it?
Totally.
Yeah.
It's more than just a tantrum because I was going to be with her, touching her the whole
time.
Yeah.
And to be clear, I mean, there are some puppies who are, puppies in particular, are very good
at expressing their frustration because they haven't learned any impulse control.
They don't come programmed with impulse control.
So we do need puppies that just would much rather be in on the action and having fun
than being in their crate.
But if you're listening to this and thinking, my puppy sounds like Joe's, my puppy sounds
like Beth's, then it may well be that your puppy is anxious and it may well be that all
those people that are telling you that your puppy is just being a normal puppy, they don't
really know what they're talking about.
Anyway, so Joe, thank you.
We're going to come back and talk about rerent a bit more.
But back to Beth.
So Beth, you discovered that gorgeous Edmund is now panicking in his crate.
So what did you do?
What are your next steps?
So I did something really unconventional, which a bunch of my colleagues looked at me
sideways and certainly a bunch of pet parents did too.
I got him out of his crate.
As a nine-week-old puppy, I went, well, that's not worth it to me for you to sit there in
a blind panic.
It would be the same if you put me in a room with a thousand spiders, I would be in a blind
panic.
And so there's no sense just creating that distrust for him in humans that we're just
going to lock him away and not care about his emotional state.
So I got him out of the crate.
He couldn't even be in an X-Pen, so that was even a little more challenging.
I created a safe space for him down in our foyer, which I just lined the foyer with X-Pens
so that he couldn't chew the wall.
And I left him with my senior setter, who is now resolved for Seth Inks.
And that worked to be able to leave him alone if we had to for short periods of time.
But he could not be crated.
And I stepped all the way back to the very beginning, making positive associations.
I tried and tried and tried and tried.
We tried every minute to crate him.
He would make it about 30 minutes and then start whimpering and whining, which if you
didn't immediately respond to him, which a couple of my colleagues said, oh, he's just
learned that when he whines and whimpers, you get him out.
And I'm like, yeah, maybe.
But if I leave him, he escalates.
And he doesn't just escalate to the point of I'm barking out of getting your attention.
I am barking out of a sheer emotion and I'm panicking and he's drooling.
And then he would soil himself.
So we gave up at five months the crating at night.
And the first night, my husband's like, we're going to lose everything.
We're going to lose the walls.
We're going to lose wires.
I will honestly tell you, we've never lost a single thing.
And the very first night, five months in, was the first night we all slept completely
through the night.
He curled up on a dog bed on the floor and went right to sleep.
I continued to try to crate train and it's just not something he's willing to do.
I think he may be a dog that's claustrophobic and that's fine.
So the only thing we're working on now that he has some issues with is he does not like
to be left in a car.
So if you leave him in a car and try to walk away, he panics.
So we're working on some habituation and desensitization there.
But again, it's a very slow process.
Yeah.
And it often can be, right?
We know that.
And it's sometimes, it is easier when it's not your own dog.
It is way more stressful.
You've got all the tensions, you've got the family tensions.
And there's also a little bit of you that thinks, I mean, I certainly did, you know,
well, shouldn't I know better?
Why is this happening to me?
But I wanted to come back on a couple of things that you said.
So you started off by saying, I did some things that you might find surprising.
I'm thinking, oh my goodness, what is Beth going to say?
What's she going to tell me that we haven't talked about?
And you talked about not crating.
And now from where I am and where Joe is and the further kind of east we go into parts
of Europe, crating isn't a thing.
I mean, it's become more normal in the UK now, Joe, hasn't it?
That we crate puppies in order to help with house training and chewing.
But there are lots of countries in the world, lots of countries in Europe in particular,
where crates aren't used to house train.
They're not used to chew train.
I didn't do it with either of my two younger dogs, older dogs now.
It just didn't occur to me.
You know, I did what lots of people do.
I created a smaller space that we would be in together, watch them like a hawk.
And yeah, we lost a few things.
I'm not going to lie.
We lost a few, you know, backs of the heels of shoes and, you know,
a couple of chair legs had chomps in them.
But it was not something that I think in the UK at that time you felt compelled to do.
So it wouldn't seem like you were failing if you didn't crate.
But I do come across lots of guardians and owners in this part of the world,
in North America now, who feel like they're failing if they don't crate.
But there are many, many ways to house train and chew train a puppy
without having to use a crate.
Having said that, I love crates for reasons if we can get the puppy to love a crate.
So I'm kind of mixed on that.
And then there was something else you said,
and it completely gone out of my head, but we will come back to it.
But Jo, I want to ask you about crating,
because obviously now you work with lots of clients.
What's the stance in the UK on crates at the moment?
It's still very typical, you know.
You get told the dog needs a safe area, a pen, a den.
All dogs love a den.
That's why crates put a blanket over the top.
And I think for the house training, it's probably 99% of clients do crate training.
Right. OK, that's interesting.
Because that's not the case if you went somewhere like Sweden, for example.
In Scandinavian countries, they train house trained dogs.
But I'm making a broad generalisation here,
which a listener might pick me up on.
But they don't tend to be as 100% crate focused, I don't think.
Yeah, I think we need to be a bit more open.
But then maybe people are very precious about the houses and the floors
and the dirt the dog might bring in.
And the last thing they want is the pee and poo accident.
Which are going to happen anyway with the puppy.
Because even if you try and watch them 24-7,
you sometimes lose your concentration for a minute.
And that's the one minute where they're going to have an accident.
So, yeah, I think there's definitely...
crates do not suit every dog.
And I wish I'd known that at the time.
Yeah. Yeah. And you can...
It's like pushing water uphill with a dog who doesn't want to love a crate.
We've got, you know, lovely incremental crate training plans
that are designed to get dogs to love crates.
But there's just something with some dogs,
it seems like door closes, it seems like you can never get past that step.
Or the other step where I find that these dogs really struggle on
is as soon as you go out of sight and they're in a crate.
But it's great to hear both of you talk about alternatives
that, yes, you can house train and shoe train a puppy
even if you don't have a crate.
So you obviously gave up on the crating then as well, Jo.
Yeah, so I think we know where to turn
when I realised I obviously had a problem.
And my vets, very, very good vets,
but this obviously wasn't a specialist topic.
And I got sent away with some Google printouts about
leave her to quiet out, don't come back when they're crying,
keep her in a crate, at least go out every day
for at least 20 minutes leaving her.
So this was my first foray into separation training
which obviously didn't work.
We had probably about eight months of no sleep.
I don't think she slept either.
And in the end, as soon as I knew that
Reba was toilet trained and was going to be safe,
she was given the run of the room downstairs.
I still was trying to keep her downstairs
because my bedroom is my sanctuary.
I used to have a cat and I was allergic to cats
that's why I put more pets in my bedroom
because it was my safe zone.
She used to sleep on the little chair in the kitchen.
She was absolutely really good for about a week.
So I think there were some foxes in the garden
and then she's now upstairs in my bedroom
on her own dog bed and I have to kick her awake
in the morning, well not literally kick her
but you know, I have to wake her up.
She sleeps so well now.
It's lovely when they get to that stage
that one of the things that they definitely
see a change in dogs who get over separation anxiety
is that they start to settle much better
because they're not on high alert all the time
that we're about to walk out of the door
and this guy's about to fall on their heads.
I was just going to go back to what you said
earlier about the advice you were given.
It wasn't awful, it wasn't for the most part
and she'll get over it.
It was practice separation, go out for a certain amount of time
but the way that we all work now is very different to that
because it's much more precise and usually
it's much smaller chunks of time
because we're fine with these panicky dogs
and a minute is a long time for them, right?
I was initially told you've got to leave it for at least
20 minutes to half an hour every day.
My vet was saying no, you shouldn't be at home with her all the time
just leave her, she'll stop crying eventually
she'll get used to it.
So it was quite harsh and I could hear her from outside the house
and I was crying in my car.
It made her worse to what she was
and then my persistent crate training
made her worse.
She's still phobic about going in crates
and going behind the door to get a toy
so I still have issues there
but I started introducing her to absences
but starting at 20 minutes
I would never encourage that now.
It was too big a chunk of time
but I didn't know better at the time and I trusted my vets
and I trust them on medical issues now.
The 20 minutes is interesting because we do hear it a lot
15, 20 or I'll hear you leave them for 1
and then it's 5 and then it's 10
and honestly we just don't see dogs like that
if they panic they panic and they usually panic very quickly
when we first start working with them don't they?
Something you just said there just reminded me of something
that Beth said that I wanted to come back to
so Beth, one of the things you said
was that you were, maybe a couple of people have said to you
when he's in his crate and he whines and you let him out
he's just learning that when he whines he gets out
and you said maybe but the thing is
and I would come back on whoever said that to you
and say but if he's whining
because he's about to go into a panic
then yeah we need to let him out
so whether he's learning that whining gets him out or not
if he learns that whining gets him out
then fair enough him letting us know
he's about to go into a panic right?
Yeah absolutely, why if I know
that snake 4 yards in front of me
is going to come into a panic why would I keep walking forward towards that snake
I'm not going to
so it's interesting that there is a school of thought
that we should disregard emotion
and that pet parents often think that the dog
is just being stubborn or the dog is
oh it's not used to being in the crate so it's making noise
no, if you've ever seen a dog that's comfortable
in a crate they go in, they curl up, they lie down
maybe they'll give a little whimper here and there but they're not going to shriek
and Edmund was pure on shrieking
like it would raise the hair on the back of your neck
to listen if they can scream
and it was not worth it
I think that my husband and I had a little bit of
disagreement in the beginning
for the 5 months that we tried to get him to sleep in his crate
which I will tell you we did not sleep for 5 months
through the night so we were very sleep deprived
he wanted to keep going and I kept saying
no we need to let him out in my professional opinion
and then I had him talk to a couple of my colleagues
that specialize in separation anxiety too
and I'm like I swear I didn't
we need to get the dog out because it's not helping him
it's not changing his opinion about the crate
just keeping him in there
just like keeping me in the room with a snake isn't going to change my opinion about it
so let's get him out and let's see if that makes it better
and let's see if then he sleeps through the night
and then we can work on conditioning it
if you're insistent that we need to have a crate
if there's a fire you need crates
if there's whatever, a vet's office
and I'm like in all honesty if I have to send my dog to a vet
for an emergency, sedate him
I have no problem with it, if he's there for an emergency already
just sedate him because that's going to make it easier on everybody
and all of these reasons why we have to crate train
and I'm not against crate training
no none of us are
my dog sleeps in my house about 6 at the last count
but that's for different dogs for different reasons
I completely agree
it's just that feeling that every dog should crate train
you have to crate train
it is an absolute necessity
and for Edmund and with that emotion
it made it so much better
as soon as we took him out he was fine
he would not be in a crate
and why continue to push that water up the hill
that was not working
and it was making him miserable
and he wouldn't come into our bedroom after a while
he'd be like nope that's where the crate is
and I'm not going in there because that's where that devil box is
and I'm uncomfortable in there and yet you put me in there every single night
and we would do it with chicken
sorry a bit of a ramble there
no really interesting stuff to unpack there as well
because it's true crates can be incredibly useful
I feel like we're just having a conversation about crates now
maybe we should do a whole other episode just on crates
but it's equally
if it's that difficult there's always different ways around it
I totally agree
if a dog is that stressed out at the groomers or the vets
let's sedate them anyway
the point about dogs who can now be behind gates
that's certainly the case in our house
Percy can happily sit behind a gate or behind a closed door now
just crating was just that much harder
great points you're making
there are other ways of doing this
and if it becomes so difficult
you were losing sleep for how many months
5 months
we were sleep deprived
I'm a behavior consultant
I work about 50 clients a week
I was exhausted
I was short tempered
I was ill tempered with my husband
Tim and I were not getting along
there were points where we wanted to squash him like a bug
he knows what a puppy is like with not enough sleep
it was awful
he was hyper aroused
he was over threshold all the time
in all aspects of his life
and as soon as I stopped that his entire personality changed
he was able to get an off switch
and I was doing all the right things outside of the crating
enrichment, exercise, mental games
but it wasn't enough because he couldn't sleep
so important for everybody
everybody in the house
so Jo, you get Reba out of the crate
the problems didn't stop there
we also got separation issues
which you mentioned and started work on
when did you think this stuff is not working
I need to find another way of doing this
I remember my first year with Reba
I was like a zombie
my vet was more worried about me than the dog
it took a while, probably about a year
it took a while
I was training to be a trainer
I was dog walking at the time
I was very flexible with being out of the house
and not being out of the house very often
I just gradually built up the time
but like I say it was very chunky
it was quite haphazard
there was no system to it
I didn't make a record of what I was doing
it just went with my gut feeling
I had a camera on her
I could see she was a little bit upset
but I wasn't rushing back
5 minutes is better than crying for the whole time
I wasn't leaving very much
I was very much housebound
but that was the commitment I was prepared to make
but then it suited because my business was literally
just starting up
I wasn't that busy at the time anyway
I was doing a lot of study which I could do at home
but she's also very hyper attached
but for me it worked
I wish I'd known earlier
how to do it a bit more systematically
and a bit more slowly
Just train with a plan
track your progress
It's an interesting one
we ask everybody to find a way
for someone to be with their dog
because when they have dog separation anxiety
Beth was talking about the exposure to the snake
we want to stop the exposure to the scary thing
and you make a really good point
we ask people to do that
but then they end up spending more time with their dog
depending on what care structure they've implemented
does that make it worse
there is a risk
but the alternative
of just leave this dog to panic
and the impact that can have on a dog's brain
short term and long term
that's a way bigger risk
and a way bigger potential harm
because we can work on hyper attachment
that resolves quicker in most dogs
than does the pure isolation distress
a dog will go ok fine
mom's home all the time
as soon as you go anywhere
they can't be with anybody else
Edmund is hyper attached
he spent a lot more time with my husband
especially the first week that we got him
I was in a client's house
doing a board and train
now as we've been doing training
Richard's been taking a lead on it
because I can get very tired
wanting to come home and train my own dogs
after a day of training everyone else's dogs
Richard's been doing a lot of the training
and a lot of the work on Edmund
and when we do reactive dog programs
he's our neutral dog and Richard handles him
what that created is his inability
to be away from Richard
we've made some really nice progress
it was to the point where
if I took Richard from Edmund
or maybe it wasn't
if I took Richard from Edmund
even when we were out at the session
and I tried to walk away from Richard
he would do a smooth flip
he would scream, he would hyperventilate
he would claw at me, he would pull at my shirt
he would leap at me
and he would just spin back to try to get back to Richard
because Richard was his person
and if Richard left the house
I have a video of him on my TikTok
of his just pure panic with Richard leaving the house
and he just lost it
and so we had to build really slowly
shifting Richard away from all the care
and me doing more of the work with him
and building more of a bond with him
and then what we also did
because then sometimes what can happen
and what happened with him
is then he was like, oh I'm hyperattached to you now
and do some work with Edmund
and have them alleviate us during the week
and take him for walks and go to daycare
and stuff like that
because Edmund was just shifting too quickly
like he'd shift to me and then he'd shift back to Richard
so he's a very interesting character this guy
well what's fascinating there
is you showed that the process works
when a dog isn't just struggling with being alone
but they're struggling being apart from a person
in Edmund's case it was one person
we call it hyperattachment
it's just kind of an unhealthy attachment
unhealthy because it impacts the dog
and it can impact the guardian or the owner
but the way that we work on that
is we get other people in the dog's life
so the attachment that they formed with us
in the first place is to a degree unnatural
so we can transfer that but a great example from Beth there
that sometimes dogs just seem to be serial attachers
don't they? I love you so much
but great job of getting other people involved
to really spread that love
I just want to finish off
we've got a few more minutes
we've got you giving some advice to our listeners
and the first thing I'd love to hear from you
is thinking back to all that you've been through
the challenges that you've faced with your dogs
what's the number one feeling or experience
that you'd like to share with them
that maybe they've been going through the same experience too
I think for me
I felt like I was the only one
because I didn't know where to turn
and I didn't know what it was
and it was quite daunting
so I think the one key thing
is to let owners know
that you're not alone
there is the right support out there
and actually this affects way more dogs
than anyone ever realises
and one of the scary numbers
is how many dogs actually have separation anxiety
and probably half the owners either don't realise
or can't be bothered to deal with it
so if you are, that's a massive step in the right direction
but it's a long haul
I'm 6 years down the line
I can leave my girl home alone
3-4 hours comfortably now
I can go to the toilet in my mums house
even though we go there once a month
but she has got a best dog friend
with one of my ex-dog walking clients
that Reba and Byron love each other
and she will spend overnight there
Byron is down the utility room
but Reba is up in their bed
on the bed
and she's quite easily distracted
by Byron's toys
so it's a long journey
it's not just over in a couple of months
it probably would have been a quicker journey
had I known what I was doing sooner
but for us it worked, it built up slowly
it's a long journey but you're not on your own
but it can be very isolating
Do you have a separation anxiety dog?
It feels like the isolation gets layered on
because you do feel like
even now in this day and age
where we're all connected online
I hear it time and time again
people feeling like they're the only person
that's got a dog like this
and then they suddenly discover
I really thought I was the only one
and Jo you made such a good point
there are way more dogs out there with this
there are some people who don't know that
about their dog or they don't want to admit it
and so the ones that do know
and the ones that are working on it
can feel isolated because they've got people
in their immediate circle
you then feel emotionally isolated
because you think I'm the only person dealing with this
which is kind of the reason why I started doing this
in the first place 10 years ago
we cannot be the only people going through this
you also talked about how Reba
hasn't taken her newfound confidence on the road
and we know that's pretty standard
that these dogs don't generalise their confidence
but they tend to have to learn
their confidence, whether it's being home alone
or whether it's confidence around people they don't know
they tend to have to learn them in different setups
in different contexts
so that's really common isn't it
Reba not being able to be left anywhere else yet
is quite typical for these dogs
absolutely, but for me the most important thing
I needed to go out, I needed to go and see clients
I sat up a training class and needed to be able to go out
so the most important thing for me
was for me to be able to leave her home alone
and for her to be left in other places
was lower down the list
it wasn't as important
being able to have a friend that can take her
they've taken her up to two nights
but that for me is ok
that's fine, I can relax, I know she's enjoying herself
but to be honest, my days of probably long holidays
may be over for a bit
but that's just the way I'm quite happy to accept this
and you know
I've had some fantastic long holidays
a couple of months long holidays in the past
so for me this is just my new normal
spending the time with her but knowing that I can go out
seeing clients, running my business
that for me was the most important priority
I like that you say that because often we are
trying to get people to prioritise
because the training takes time
it takes a lot of invested time but it can also take a lot of elapsed time
the period of time that it takes to get these dogs to recover
so we're often saying aren't we
is it your priority to be able to leave your dog in any hotel room you go to
or would you like to get your dog to be comfortable for four hours
in your own home so you can go and do your stuff
and most people will say yes, you know what, home is fine
so it's great that you highlighted the fact that we do ask people to prioritise
Jo, thank you
Beth, same question to you
what feeling or experience do you think you could share
with us of your time with Edmund
your experience with Edmund that you think people would resonate with
yeah, I think the very first thing is
you didn't do anything wrong
your puppy came this way
I can remember our third night
and me sitting on the floor in front of the crate
I had gone home and tried to relieve my husband for a few hours
and I sat in front of the crate crying
and thought what did I do to create this
and how did I do that in three days
most people think a puppy can't be
broken or that there's nothing wrong
with a puppy coming straight from the mom
but genetics play such a big part in what
we get with our dogs and come to find out
that the Grand Dam of Edmund
has separation related behaviours
and is a very anxious dog and they could never crate her
of the 11 puppies Edmund is the only one
with separation related behaviours
but just because they skipped a generation
and skipped 10 other puppies doesn't mean that I created this
it means that he had a predisposition
to having something in his genetics that said
this isn't for me and don't give up
there were days when I wanted to squash him like a bug
or send him back to his breeder
by the way can we just be clear
Beth is 100% force free trainer
she's honest about her feelings
they push our buttons, it's like with kids
people love their kids to bits
these things that we adore
they push our buttons in a way that we can never imagine
if you don't ever say that you want to squash your puppy
like a bug you're lying
and then you don't do it
you can see there's proof of life all over my Instagram
he's fine, he's a lovely dude
and I am thankful for him every day
and also very thankful that I caught him
because it made me build some empathy for my own clients
because I hadn't raised a puppy in 16 years
and so when I got my first puppy
in 16 years and he was maladaptive
I was like oh goodness I can't imagine
what someone who's very first puppy they're getting
and it's like this is putting them through
so it built a bunch more empathy in me
and made me realize how
if I'm struggling this much so are my clients
and my clients don't have the knowledge that I have
and I was to the point that I didn't know what to do
so I even called in a pro
to help me set out a plan for him
because I needed more clear eyes on it
so more than anything he's not a professional
and it's okay to tell your professional that you're frustrated
and you hate your puppy
because there are days that I resented him
because I was exhausted
I didn't have the normal lovely kid that I thought I was going to get
and it is okay to feel that way
all of us are in this for the long run
it's also okay to
in a way kind of grieve the puppy or dog
that you imagined you would get and you didn't have
and that's just being human
that's just being normal isn't it
yes absolutely 100% normal
and I think so many people are so afraid to talk about that part of it
they don't want to be like oh I'm a monster
it's like you know
we often hear parents say this
I love my kids but some days I hate being a parent
I love my puppy to bits but some days I hate being guardian or pet parent
because today it's really tough
I love him but today it is really tough
and that's just normal
it would be weird if we didn't feel like that at times
anybody got any final words of wisdom
if you could only do one thing
if you could only give people one piece of advice
what would that be
just one thing
don't let them try it out
I'm glad you said that Joey
if we could only change that one thing
in the life of the puppy
we might all end up seeing far fewer cases
I think that could be a big game changer
if only people would just stop that horrible method
Liz and both of you thank you so much
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience
but also to make it real
and make people realise that it's not just them
and for you to share your wisdom
about how people can move forward with this
so appreciate your time so much
I will find you via my find the trainer site
so thank you Beth, thank you Jo
keep us all posted on that puppy journey Beth
I will for sure, thank you for having me Julie
thanks Jo
thank you Julie
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
go 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
and consider rating my show
thanks so much, good luck with that training
and bye for now