Separation Anxiety

Dogs - separation anxiety - home alone

Separation Anxiety can seem almost insurmountable for pawrents of dogs with SA. You can feel isolated and chained to your dog as they cannot be left home alone which means that you cannot go anywhere unless they can go with you. It is draining and frustrating having to plan everything like a military operation as sponteneity is impossible. Other people just don't get it when you try to explain. It can take all your patience, empathy and energy to support your panicking pooch. Hats off to you, you have my utmost respect and understanding, it is a really hard role to fulfil.

From the doggy's end, SA is terrifying. Always observing, unable to relax as they are always on the lookout for those micro signs that you may be about to leave the room / house without them and this will send them into a full blown panic.

Dogs suffering with SA basically enter an extreme panic attack every time they are left alone. Dogs are social creatures and for thousands of years we have deliberately bred them into being our constant companions, out working with / for us and home with us the rest of the time. Unfortunately this is incompatible with the contemporary world where most of us need to work - without our dogs.

Once the dog enters the panic attack they lose all control of their emotional and physical response, they are driven to reunite with us by any means necessary as their brain has invoked an emergency response which overrides any opportunity for conscious and logical responses.

This is when you will find that dogs may constantly vocalise as they try to bring us back, they may damage floors, walls, door frames, furniture etc as they try to dig or chew their way out to be able to find us, they may toilet inside as through terror they lose control of their bladder / bowels, they may pace non-stop, they may vomit, they may be destructive as they attempt to distract from the sheer panic, they may over groom themselves to the point of obsessive self-mutilation... Each dog responds differently but each dog will also stop when their owner comes home as this ends the panic attack.

No dog is responsible for their actions in a state of blind panic any more than we would be so it is crucial not to add a further layer of anxiety by telling them off (however hard this may be to hold back) when you return and see the fall-out.

Separation Anxiety relaxed dog

SA cannot get better by itself. Every time the dog is left alone, this reinforces how terrifying the situation is and the cycle continues. These dogs are in a state of chronic stress and anxiety, constantly on edge and monitoring for the tiny indicators that they are about to be left alone again.

But we can start to resolve this together. SA training is complex but there is hope. It can be a long road to regaining your freedom but it is so worth it. Being able to go out to the shop when you have forgotten something, out to see family, out for a coffee with friends, cinema, meals.....and to not have to be worrying about how your dog is coping at home.

At the end of the day, no matter how frustrating and exhausting the situation currently is, you love your dog and don't want to think of them in a blind terror every time you need to go out. By teaching them coping skills, they learn to relax and you regain your freedom.

We can do this through a 1:1 plan of support together. It is done through online remote monitoring of the dog so it doesn't matter where in the world that you live as long as you have internet and a camera! Give me a shout if you would like to learn more about coping with SA and the road to freedom!

Dog Training - The importance of Consistency

When training our dogs, consistency is key. As a dog trainer, it is quite obvious that much frustration (both dog and owner) is borne out of a lack of consistency.

I very often see different family members (or even the same person) switching between different vocal cues such as ‘wait’ and ‘stay’. Another common one is teaching the dog 'down' for lie down and then telling them 'down' meaning get off when they have jumped up at us, 'down' when they are on the furniture etc. If they give a beautiful lie 'down' on the sofa, which is what has been asked of them, they then get told off for not getting off!

People in the household may also be using different hand signals for the same required behaviour.

We have the advantage of knowing what we mean, the dog doesn’t! To the dog, the change in signal and / or vocal cue creates much confusion and the owners can end up getting very frustrated with the dog when actually, the error lies with the handler’s communication.

Family dog training

Its like someone asking me to sit in Japanese and then switching to a Russian word for sit and expecting me to understand what both words are asking of me. I will likely look at you in as confused a way as the dog does!

Another thing I often come across is a lack of consistency for the dog which differs with the mood of the owner. For example, a dog is not allowed on a sofa but occasionally the owner is feeling sad or lonely and encourages the dog up for a cuddle. The next time the dog gets on the sofa, they are then told off and put back on the floor. Either they can or they cant be on the sofa. It is unfair to deliver mixed messages dependent on our moods or the habits of the different individuals in the house.

Another example of how to confuse a dog with human behaviour: maybe I train the dog to stay out of the kitchen so as not to be under my feet. One day whilst preparing a Kong, I drop dog food on the floor. It is much easier to invite him in to eat it up than it is to hunt down the dustpan and sweep it up. This is giving my dog very mixed messages as the permitted behaviour varies with, and is conditional on, my personal mood and levels of laziness on that specific day. He cannot be expected to, and will not be able to, predict in the future when he should or should not enter the kitchen.

Consistency is key. Training a dog requires everybody to communicate with the dog using the same vocal and visual language. We are speaking an entirely different language and expecting the dog to understand, lets make it clear and consistent so that we are being fair to the pooch!

Dog Enrichment: The Importance of Sniffing!

Let them sniff!

So often I see people walking their dogs and pulling them on when they are engrossed in sniffing something.

Personally I think we need to reframe our walks in our heads. Are we out for a walk for the dog, or for us? If we are out for a walk for the benefit of the dog, then we should let them sniff.

Sniffing is such an important part of walks. The sense of smell in a dog is unrivalled. They can detect medical conditions through scent before machines can pick them up. They are sniffing machines, it is what they are designed to do.

The primary sense for dogs is that of smell. There is an entire other world out there that they are bombarded with when they leave the house, that we are oblivious to. Let them explore it. Let's not keep pulling them away from it and asking them to ignore it.

It's like walking a child through the aisles of a toy shop and telling them not to look at the shelves all around them. Frustrating much?!

For many many breeds of dogs, we have deliberately selected for them, over thousands of years, to use their nose to go off hunting and bring stuff back to us. Now we often ask those same dogs to ignore their DNA and every instinct hardwired into them, and to stop sniffing and walk on. Let them do what we have deliberately bred them to do.

If you have allocated half an hour for a dog walk, allow them to use that half hour how they want to. It isn't particularly important how far you go, what is important is allowing them to connect with the environment and explore it through their nose.

Doggy sniffing - information and relaxation!

Sniffing and licking are both stimulating and very relaxing for the doggy brain and you will find that your furry friend is more exhausted from the mental stimulation of sniffing their way around for half an hour than by running around like a lunatic for half an hour.

By sniffing a lamppost, your dog learns about who is around, their age, health status, gender etc there is a whole doggy profile left in the pheromones of their urine. Let them learn. It's like us finding emails stuck to lampposts, getting engrossed in one then being pulled away before finishing reading it - how annoying is that?!

We micro manage every move they make, when they can eat, what they eat and how; where they can toilet and when; where they sleep and when; what behaviours they are allowed to do, with who and at what times.... Every moment of their day is controlled by us. If they are going for a dog walk, let it be a dog walk. Their time. Let them use those precious 30 minutes to sniff for as long as they want. It is their time to be a dog.

Go on a sniffari with your dog. Let their nose lead the way. They will thank you for it!