It can feel really helpless when you’ve tried to help your dog to the best of your ability and they continue to get worse. Separation Anxiety is a tricky behavior to treat in dogs and there is no shortage of misinformation about it on the internet. Many of my clients have exhausted themselves with internet research, DIY programs and even seeking out help from other professional trainers without seeing improvement in their dog’s separation anxiety symptoms by the time they reach out to me. The truth is that Separation anxiety is a complicated issue and there could be a myriad of reasons why the dog’s symptoms haven’t improved. Let’s go over a few of the most common:
Incomplete Management
Management is one of the most important things to get right in your dog’s separation anxiety training. Progress will be hard, if not impossible, if your dog is continuously left alone longer than they can handle it. The most effective way to treat separation anxiety is with desensitization, which effectively teaches the dog that alone-time is consistently safe, therefore there’s no need to feel anxious. So, we cannot teach the dog that alone-time is safe while also contradicting ourselves by sometimes having the dog experience alone time that isn’t safe (or at least doesn’t feel safe to them). So, we have to make sure all absences are covered in some way. Either by daycare, a neighbor or friend, dog walker, etc.
Flooding, Sensitization VS desensitization: Is your training too hard?
The name of the game for Separation Anxiety training is desensitization. Without getting into the technical nitty gritty of it, desensization essentially exposes the dog to the scary thing, alone time, at an intensity that doesn’t feel scary. Over time, you can increase the intensity ever to gradually so that it is barely perceptible to the dog. Resulting, over time, in a dog that doesn’t feel scared with longer and longer durations of alone-time. Here’s a human example to help you visualize: let’simagine that you have an intense fear of snakes. You’ve been so scared of snakes that you avoid hiking with friends and other once-loved outdoor activities. You’ve decided to seek out a therapist to help you overcome your anxiety so you can get back to doing fun outdoorsy activities. They may begin your protocol by having you look at a noodle that could bring up mental images of a snake, then by showing you a friendly cartoon snake, then you watch the 2006 class film Snakes on a Plane, and so on until you’ve worked your way up to tolerating handling a socialized, non-venomous snake. Every step of the way your therapist checks in on your anxiety levels to ensure you aren’t experiencing stress that would stifle progress. And if you began to panic at one stage she would reduce the intensity of the stimuli and meet you where you were at. This is desensitization in a nut shell.
Now let’s talk about the therapist you decided not to go with. His treatment plan involved helping you “get over” your fear of snakes by a total immersion protocol in which you would be dropped into a pit of snakes until you felt better. If that strikes you as terrifying, you are correct! This is called a flooding procedure and is no longer deemed humane in human or animal behavioral procedures. It can have unwanted side effects like sensitization (making the anxiety much worse) or learned helplessness (a feeling of being unable to escape and therefore shutting down/giving up).
Often, I encounter cases where previous training attempts were just too hard for the dog. Remember, the dog must set the pace for separation anxiety training to be effective desensitization. If we continuously push the dog over their threshold, we run a very real risk of making their separation anxiety worse. It is crucial to take it at the dog’s pace, even if the pace feels very slow, especially in the beginning of your training.
Throwing Spaghetti
I’ve seen and heard of many, many approaches to training dog separation anxiety. Everything from the very common, well-meaning but typically ineffective crate training approach to the very sad, and troubling to hear shock collar method and almost everything in between. But, in my 15 years of professional experience, I have yet to see a more effective approach than desensitization. Not only does it target the anxiety directly, it does so without the risk of fallout. Which is great news for you and your dog!
Other methods either don’t target the anxiety and instead rely on teaching behaviors such as the dog to hold a down-stay in suspended animation until the owner returns. Which, I don’t know about your dog, but there isn’t enough chicken in the world that could get my dog to reliably “stay” for 3 hours + without supervision or some sort of reinforcement. So layer on the dog’s anxiety and the likelihood for success becomes very low.
Separation Anxiety can be a complex issue and it’s important to take the dog’s overall behavioral and physical health in to consideration. A Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer can help you assess your dog’s specific needs and develop an appropriate training plan. Reach out today to get the help you and your dog need to move towards resolution!