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Separation Anxiety with Jackie JohnstonYour dog’s separation anxiety isn’t an unsolvable issue, even if it might feel that way sometimes. In this episode, Libby and Emily sit down with Jackie Johnston to talk all things separation. They define separation anxiety and how to identify it in your dog, why it’s natural and adaptive, and how we can work to help our dogs feel safe.
Jackie Johnston is a certified separation anxiety trainer with a certificate in training and counseling. She works solely with separation anxiety, and her focused knowledge in this challenging area will be sure to benefit the ways you work with your own dog with this issue. Jackie Johnston Social Links: http://instagram.com/believeinyourdog/ http://facebook.com/believeinyourdog https://www.believeinyour.dog Free facebook support group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/272516593265257 Blogs: https://malenademartini.com/blog/ https://www.subthresholdtraining.com/blog/ https://www.believeinyour.dog/blog Julie Naismith’s podcast: https://www.subthresholdtraining.com/podcasts/ Books: Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Next Generation Treatment Protocols: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08LRPXSRP BRB: https://www.amazon.com/Be-Right-Back-Overcome-Separation-ebook/dp/B081Y9XFXF Doggie language: https://www.doggielanguagebook.com DIY training programs: Heroes Club (if use this affiliate link, you do not have to wait for Heroes club to open) - https://learn.subthresholdtraining.com/heroes-2021?affiliate=jackiejohnston Mission Possible: https://malenademartini.com/for-owners/separation-anxiety-in-dogs-mission-possible-online-course/ |
Episode Transcript
Emily 0:09
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. However, everyone and welcome back to pod to the rescue. Today, Emily and I are so excited to bring you an interview with Jackie Johnston, who is an expert trainer when it comes to separation anxiety related behaviors, and we spoke with her about leaving your dog alone. Now, as the pandemic is coming to an end, we hope knock on wood, and the world is opening back up. And also just in general.
Emily 0:50
I learned so much from that interview Libby, I thought I knew about separation anxiety, because I had a dog with severe separation, distress, isolation, distress. But wow, I have to say she's amazing. And I would urge anyone who loves dogs, Foster's dogs, rescues dogs to listen to what she presents because the information is really new and cutting edge. And nobody wants to see their dog in distress. And we can alleviate that with some of some of these strategies.
Libby 1:26
Yeah, totally. We talked about myths about separation anxiety, we defined a lot of terms, we talked about the steps to go about finding out if your dog has separation anxiety, and then what to do about it. And we just had a really fabulous conversation.
Emily 1:44
It was amazing. And now as the world is opening up, I feel like it's it's gonna be a tough change for our dogs in so many ways. And one of those is going to be that now they're going to be alone a lot more while we're out working and going out to eat meeting with friends, going on trips, what have you. So it's it's kind of a must listen, I would say.
Libby 2:08
I totally agree. And I think that the my big takeaway from this conversation is that it's you can do something about it. You know, if you start to notice that your dog isn't quite comfortable being left alone, there are things you can do about it to prevent it from becoming a full blown behavior issue that has you bringing your dog back to the shelter. You know, that's the last thing we want. We want you to keep your dog, your pandemic puppy in your home. And, you know, there are ways to work with this that can help you and help your dog. Exactly. So Jackie Johnston little more about her. Jackie Johnston is a certified separation anxiety trainer with a certificate in training and counseling, and a certified professional dog trainer knowledge assist who works solely with separation anxiety and other alone time behaviors. She's focused her knowledge and experience in this challenging area and understands the havoc that this behavior problem can wreak on a dog guardians life and peace of mind and the toll it can take on the dog who is suffering. Jackie is certified and mentored by the world's leading experts on separation anxiety, and continues to pursue the most up to date research and continuing education. She works remotely with dogs and their people from all over the world. Jackie currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina with her dog Drake.
Emily 3:32
Here's the interview
Libby 3:42
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to pod to the rescue. We are here today with Jackie Johnson, a separation anxiety expert. Hi, Jackie. How are you?
Jackie 3:52
Good. How are you guys?
Libby 3:53
Oh, we're great. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.
Jackie 3:59
Totally excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Emily 4:01
Yeah, absolutely.
Libby 4:03
So let's just jump right in. How did you get so focused on separation anxiety in your career?
Jackie 4:08
Yeah. So I was working at training and behavior department and an animal shelter and Maalena Demartini, who is the world's leading expert on separation anxiety came and did a two day seminar at the shelter. And of course I went because I'm just fascinated by all things behavior as we all are. And as someone who is completely fascinated by all things behavior, I was really firstly intrigued by the idea of using straight desensitization without counter conditioning and so gradual under threshold exposure without food and I'll just disclaimer here. I love using food and training. I will die on the Hill of use food for training but it was just so interesting for me to learn as a positive enforcement trainer, that using food could actually be potentially detrimental to helping these dogs recover. And it really sounded like a new and interesting challenge for me as a trainer, and I was just totally up for it. So that was the really, that was the big spark for me. And so from there, I enrolled in malena's CSAT course. So the certified separation anxiety trainer course. And when I graduated, I started taking cases. And since all the training is done remotely, when COVID hit, I focused on shifting my practice to solely working with separation anxiety. And not just for that reason, but just because I love it. I mean, it's just the clients and seeing these dogs through these challenges through to the end through graduation. It's just really, really rewarding. So that's kind of how I got into it. In a nutshell. Yeah.
Emily 5:55
Fascinating. I love that. And the timing right now couldn't be better, because it seems like the world is opening up post pandemic, and so many people adopted dogs in the last year. And those dogs were pretty used to people being around all the time. And now everyone's going back to work going out to dinner. Are you seeing a lot more separation anxiety cases,
Jackie 6:19
I am seeing quite a big uptick. I will say that I haven't. I haven't been waitlisted. As much as I have been in the last, I would say four to six months. And I don't know if it's I think a lot of people adopted dogs during the pandemic. So I think we just have more dogs and homes. But I also think that we have more dogs in homes who have not been acclimated to being left alone. We have more pandemic puppies, right. So maybe have had someone with them 24/7. So I'm definitely getting a lot of inquiries and clients who are now that things are opening back up, they're starting to leave the home and they're encountering problems.
Libby 7:08
I'd like to pause for a second and get into some definitions here. Not only can you define separation anxiety, but also in your intro there, you threw out a couple of technical terms that I would love to discuss a little more in depth with you, which is desensitization and counterconditioning.
Jackie 7:30
Yeah. So, you know, when we're talking dog trainers, we always use our technical terms, right? So I appreciate you pausing and asking for definitions. So defining separation anxiety, this is the really confusing part. And I make it confusing and other trainers make it confusing. And most people including myself, use the term separation anxiety as a catch all sort of umbrella term to refer to a dog who is simply uncomfortable when left home alone, due to being left home alone, not due to noises or other things that might be happening. But actually due to that stimulus of being left home alone. And there I go use the word stimulus, I would shift that to say, the context right, the context of being left home alone or separated from one key figure. So there are actually a variety of labels that might refer to different contexts in which a dog is uncomfortable when alone. And so I think it's, I think, for me, I much prefer to use the term separation related problem behaviors, but it just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as separation anxiety. And I think that when you say separation anxiety, your average dog owner, anyone you're talking to kind of knows what you're talking about. So we use it for simplicity sake, and Malea Demartini will talk about how it's sort of like Kleenex, right? Like, there's the one Kleenex brand but we call them all Kleenex. And so that kind of in a nutshell, and I think a little later on, we're going to talk about the difference between sort of isolation, distress separation anxiety, but But again, it's just a very broad general term. For, for me, for a dog who's uncomfortable in left home alone. And so as far as behaviors that are associated with separation anxiety, it's absolutely going to vary from dog to dog. Every individual dog will have a different behavioral repertoire that they display when they are uncomfortable. For some dogs that might be a more gradual build up. So hypervigilance pacing, panting and then vocalizing. Sometimes it's reversed the vocalizing starts and then painting and then pacing and vigilance. Some dogs won't eat when left home alone. So anorexia, urination, defecation, and another wise house trained dogs. So these are all those little complexities where you know, my dogs urinating defecating when I leave them home alone, but what's the what's the big picture there right like are they housetrained attempts to escape the environment destruction, usually an often at exit point. So doorways, windows, things like that. And then for some dogs, we have the zero to 60 barking, you know, it's just the door closes and the barking starts. And we might label these dogs as frustrated. But we would still treat the problem the same way with that gradual exposure at a level where they are comfortable. And so kind of important for us to note that just to not get too much into the complexities, but if a dog, you exit the door and a dog barks a couple of times when the owner leaves, and then goes to snooze on the couch, we don't likely need to work through an intensive, gradual exposure protocol. Right. So one defining feature, I think, is that for the dogs I work with is that these behaviors that I listed above, typically are going to increase in intensity and frequency if the owner continues to be away, right. So throughout that duration of the absence, the dogs not going to suddenly be like, okay, they're not coming back, I'm gonna go take a nap on the couch, right? They don't typically show a little bit of a stress and then go and relax. So we're looking at that big picture of does this continue to escalate canvas, dog recover, because some can, right, and some people will say My dog has separation anxiety. And we might do an assessment and they bark, bark, bark. But as soon as owners out of earshot, or the car pulls away, the dogs like, Oh, they're gone, and they go and snooze on the couch. So I'm not going to ask you to do a really intensive training protocol, if I see that, right. So that's kind of the defining separation anxiety and talking about what kind of behaviors we're looking for when we're talking about separation related behaviors. And then we can get intothe technical terms of desensitization and counter conditioning. And so systematic desensitization is in human psychology, involves gradually exposing someone to something that freaks them out at a level that does not freak them out at all. And in human psychology, we're actually also looking at the human being totally relaxed, right. So we have a hierarchy of, of stimuli. And I had I failed to find the word the owner friendly word that's not a trainer, specific word for stimuli, I'll have to figure that one out, maybe later things, things in the environment, things in the environment. So an example would be full blown version for separation anxiety would be picking up your keys, putting on your shoes, picking up your purse, putting on your coat, walking out the door, closing the door, locking the door, getting in your car, starting your car, right, like there's all these big things happening. And your dog is noticing every single one of them even if your dog does not experience distress when left alone, dogs notice all these things. So a dog who does experience distress when left alone is really really noticing these things from the get go and likely starting to display distress as soon as that starts to happen. And so an example would be if we were to take this and break it down into a to a level where your dog's totally comfortable, which for a lot of dogs means you're standing up and you're taking a couple of steps towards the door, and then you're going and you're sitting down, and then you're standing up and you're walking four steps towards the door and you're going and you're sitting down and every dog is an individual. So not to freak anyone out and be like my dog's got to start with, you know, walking two steps towards the door, they might. But often in the first week or so for many dogs were exiting, returning, exiting, returning open and closing door, no shoes, no keys, no purse, and the dog is comfortable throughout the process, and then we gradually increase that. So that would be if you're looking at systematic desensitization, that's what that means. And then counter conditioning which we're not doing typically with dogs who are distressed when left alone is pairing something the dog finds aversive or uncomfortable with something they love. So desensitization and counterconditioning something we use together often as trainers to help dogs who are fearful uncomfortable stressed learn to like the trigger that is causing the distress right so pairing the nail clippers with food so nail clippers followed by food over and over and over and then nail clippers touching the the nail followed by food over and over right making sure the dogs comfortable every step of the way. So the counter conditioning pieces about changing that emotional state from yuck to yay, I like that it predicts food or my favorite toy or whatever.
Libby 14:46
Awesome. Thank you so much for those definitions. That's super helpful. So when you're talking about separation anxiety, and that there are kind of different levels how, how do you figure all of this out? How do you help your client and understand what's really going on and identify the problem.
Jackie 15:04
So oftentimes, it's really nice that we we often have quite a lot of history from clients, right? Like, we often have like I hear him barking from the moment I close the door. And then when I come back two hours later, he's you know, he's urinated defecate out, the door is destroyed. He's still barking is sweating, pause, there's drool puddles. Right. So those are pretty clear indicators. If I just hear from a client that he barks when I leave, and then when I come back, I hear him barking, we don't really know the whole story. They're like, is this dog barking? Man, I want to go with you, man. And then they settle on the couch. And then they bark again, because they heard your car pull up right? Or are they actually barking that entire duration that the owner is gone. So if we're not sure, we're really lucky that we live in an age where there's relatively simple and often free technology that we can use to watch a dog during a departure or an absence. And so zoom or FaceTime, or free options. I really like external cameras like nest are wise and you can get away as cam 25 $30 Get the app on your phone, and or Furbo even right and just keep an eye on your dog. And it's really all about watching the dog very closely and being very good at observing body language. Because if you're not, if you don't know what you're seeing, you don't know, you don't know what you're seeing, right. And observing that body language and the behaviors and being really keen about, you know, okay, like he just barked once, I'm not gonna have this owner come back right away, because this dog might be totally fine in a minute or two, it's about looking for that, again, that unraveling, carefully walking that line of I don't want to push you totally over the edge or off the ledge. But I need to know exactly what we're dealing with here before I asked this client to suspend absences and start on an intensive training protocol. So I think that, I think getting the cameras a big, big piece of the puzzle for owners who aren't working with a trainer. But I think that getting really really good at dog body language is the key, right? Because otherwise you don't know what you're seeing. And there can be some really subtle signs of stress. Or wood there might be barking and the dogs having a blast, which I think we're going to talk about a bit later. And an owner might think that dog is stressed right. And so I love the new Lily Chen doggy language book, I send it to all my clients. And so I highly recommend it's like 10 bucks. If you feel like you aren't sure if what you're seeing is stress or if it's your dog partying. Because I think we take that for granted as trainers right that we are people in rescue we see stress a mile away, like we know stress and so we do it as a as my partner to now he's like that dogs stress and like Yeah. So, you know, I think that's a great resource is it really just get really keen on body language and then watch, right?
Emily 18:20
And we can link to that book in the show notes because that book is exceptional for anyone who has a dog even if their dog does not have separation anxiety. I love that you talk about the cameras at our rescue. We actually have a couple of cameras that we bought just because you know when we bring in our dogs that first week or two, I feel like it's tough to you know, leave the new dog home alone. Regardless of any known history. They've come from shelters that have been left by their people. Can you speak a little bit to like rescue dogs as far as separation anxiety? Do you think that it's more common? And how would you coach someone who had a new rescue or got a new dog as to like how you slowly leave them alone?
Jackie 19:03
Yeah, so I think that we we do know and when I say we do know it's sort of like the research has shown us which you know, science changes and we it's not set in stone but but I think we have a pretty good understanding that traumatic experiences, multiple rehab bombings, changes in routine which all these rescue dogs have experienced right can potentially lead to separately separation related behaviors and and other behavior problems of course, right. I don't know that I'd say that they're more prone to it than any other dog as I've experienced a variety of dogs with a variety of plethora of backgrounds who struggled to be left home alone. So dogs from breeders dogs who've been in the home their whole life since then. puppies, rescue dogs, I think sometimes we can certainly guess that an experience may have triggered it such as a rehoming death in the family and major change in routine. You know, I've had dogs where you had a dog fight at the dog park and had a severe injury, and now they're experiencing separation anxiety. But you know, we also have, like genetics, learning history and possible untreated medical issues to contend with. So I think it's really difficult to say, This is why right, like, this dog has it because he's a rescue. But we can definitely make good guesses about why a particular dog might be struggling to be left alone, for sure.
Emily 20:40
Would you coach them on bringing in a new dog, though, to try to clear their schedule a little bit, you know, just to make sure you don't get your dog on a Saturday and then go back to work on Monday for eight hours, like post pandemic time when you do go to work for eight hours? You know, that seems a little like maybe there's a rubber band approach to the seeing how your dog adjusts to being alone when you have a new dog.
Jackie 21:06
Yeah, so I think that's a great question. And I It sounds like you guys are doing that for people who are taking a new rescues and fosters where you're kind of asking them to pause for a week or so let the dog have a decompression period. Don't like bring the dog home and then go out for four hours the same night. And I love it. I love that you guys do this for people that you make time in your schedules, you are amazing to accommodate these fosters, for a week or so so that you can get them used to this just in case it happens, right. And you're definitely doing the right thing. It's about slowly leaving them for short durations and then increasing gradually at a level they can handle. And I would totally agree with you as well and giving them that time, however much time that individual dog needs to settle into the home before leaving without them, right, let them get comfortable. For every dog, that period of getting comfortable will be different. But yes, don't bring them home and then leave for four hours. And I would see this in the shelter. And I know you see it all the time. Probably right and these dogs would get adopted and then the next day they would come back and the notes would say this dog has separation anxiety we left last night for six hours and he destroyed everything these dogs need time to you know understand that there's this transition that has happened and and and we're going to talk about them being social animals too. And that that's it's not normal for them to just be okay with us leaving them for long durations at a time. And so I would totally recommend starting with very short departures watching on camera. Maybe even just going out to check the mail lingering around the house for a few minutes. I know people do this sometimes where they get a dog and they'll go hide like by the window and sometimes they peek in the window. And like watch just to see like how's he handling it? Know the body language? What indicators are you seeing is he snoozing? If he's totally comfortable, then start gradually building and, you know, we have this complexity to have like with new dogs, meaning a dog who's just come into our home who's maybe an adult that we don't know at all. We're contending with the potential for accidents in the house, if that dogs not house trained doing things for fun. I'm sure you've encountered this with the rescues you place. So that's where we want to look at making sure this dog's needs are met bladders empty. We're dog proofing. Or we may be wanting to use a large confinement area, but also keeping in mind that some dogs are going to show confinement anxiety, right? And so there's no real easy answer. It's all about making that plan to suit that individual dog. But the big nono is that, like I bring you home and then I leave, leave for four to six hours, you're totally out in the house or you're in a crate, you know, which could be even worse for the dog. And I love crates, but some dogs who experience distress when left alone are gonna do much worse when they're in that small confinement area. Right. So yeah, I and we'll talk about this post pandemic, you know, everybody going back to work and it's the same sort of thing, right? Like we've got to be, I'm will tell you about my dog who I'm watching like a hawk, because things are changing, you know,
Emily 24:23
right, a side note, I'm just going through all our crates, and some of them are donated. Some of them have been in the rescue for 15 years and I'm going to try to clean up my garage. Nobody needs 30 crates, and it's actually amazing to me, how many of them are bent and it kind of breaks my heart. You know, it's like, okay, what happened here that this dog bent metal. So, you know, if you come home and your crate is bent, that is a big red flag.
Jackie 24:52
Totally, totally agree. Yeah. And then we have the so don't anyone who's listening don't fall for the index. directable crate marketing, which I get marketed all the time, because I'm a dog person, so I see it and I reply, report them and hide them. And you know, and that's a whole other topic we could go into. But yes, letting a dog in a crate and locking them in isn't going to change how they feel about being alone. It definitely can and will likely make it worse.
Emily 25:23
We really like Sarah Walsh's videos on YouTube for crate training for beginners. I think anyone who's like how do I get my dog then to enjoy the crate? Start. They're
Jackie 25:33
awesome. I haven't heard of her, I'll totally lucked out.
Emily 25:36
She's great. She's a trainer in Longmont, her her YouTube site is just outstanding, I think for everything you would ever need to do with your dog. So I actually had a foster dog with separation anxiety, oh, God, it must have been 10 years ago, and she was such a special girl. But I didn't know anything about separation anxiety. When I got her she was relinquished to the shelter for separation anxiety. So I had to learn the hard way. And there was no CSAT back then. I had Patricia McConnell's book, which was amazing that I'll be home soon. And I worked on it through slow desensitization that actually use behavior meds and she managed to be 90% successful. I never got her to the point where she could be home alone at night. But that was okay, I just changed my life around for her. It was worth it. I know. I know. She also liked the car. So it was nice. I'd be like, I can meet you for dinner. But it has to be cool enough that my dog can sit in the car. Anyway, I'm gonna cry because I loved her so much anyway. Um, so it was. But the point is, if you really think about it with dogs, it's hard for a dog to be home alone. At the time, I thought there was something really severely wrong with my dog. But she was a high energy lab. So being home alone with nothing to do was tough. She had experienced trauma. And she was a very highly social dog. She loved people, she loved being with people. Can you speak to that a little bit about how dogs are social creatures? So being alone really isn't a normal request?
Jackie 27:18
Yeah, it's such a good question. I just want to I 100% agree and would say yes, and I just want to commend you, I want to point out that what I really love about what you said, is that you compromise your goals for her. And I think that's so important when we're dealing with this, and it's something that I want to touch on and social media soon, really more in depth is that, you know, we want to often leave these dogs for eight hours a day, anytime a day. And I it's doable, but it's gonna be intensive, and it's gonna be a lot of work. And I think if we can compromise, like we're that much closer to getting somewhere with our goal. So I just love that you did that where you were like, You know what, I'm just gonna bring her in the car effect that goes somewhere at night. That's awesome. So back to your question. It's such a good question again. Yes, I totally agree. And I think this is such a such an important thing to relate to people. And there's this great quote that I love by Pat Miller. And she says it's natural for young mammals to experience anxiety when separated from their mothers and siblings. It's an adaptive survival mechanism, a pup who gets separated from his family cries and distress enabling moms easily find him. And I think that that's so it's so helpful to look at behavior, all all behavior through that lens of what is the significance of this like, it's the dogs not doing it to spite you or upset you there is an adaptive piece here, right? And so, separation related behaviors are adaptive and normal. Now, that does not mean that we should let dogs cry it out or experience them or experience that level of distress. We definitely want to resolve that distress and the owners distress. But I think that understanding the mechanism behind behavior helps us to empathize with that animal and dogs simply right do what works to avoid unpleasant or scary situations. Right. And yeah, it's normal and adaptive. But again, we want to modify it for sure. And, and I'll say that, since the recent we had a recent move last year and the lockdowns began, I have been watching my dog on camera like a hawk. I've never did before because he never has shown has no history of separation distress, no indication that he's experiencing that. But what I really noticed lately and it's because I'm a dog trainer, it makes me a little antsy. He tolerates it, right like he doesn't love it. He's not like oh my god, I'm so glad you're gone. I'm gonna go sleep on the couch. He waits by the door He lays down in front of the door and he for quite a while, intermittently, you know, two or three times over and an hour, he'll yawn, a little stress yawn caucus headed, every little noise like is that her. And eventually he'll go sleep on the couch and chill out. So we're not seeing that like escalation and inability to cope. But I've been asking my other colleagues about this, I'm like, What is your dog do because I know you're watching now that we're, you know, things are transitioning, and everybody's just like, they like wait by the door, not they're not standing there painting, pacing, freaking out, but there, they would rather be with us. Like, for sure. I think that for a lot of these dogs that I'm teaching to be left home alone, I don't think I will ever teach many of them or most of them to love being left home alone. And you'll see some of my videos and updates are dogs like snoozing, which is what everybody wants, right? I want that the owner, the owner, everybody wants to see the dog on a cat like a couch potato. And that is not always what we're seeing, like, a lot of times we're seeing they go to the door, they wait at the door, they look around, they, you know, they hear a noise and they're gonna sleep and they wake up and they look around and is that her, they maybe go to the door and they, but they're not distressed. But they're not like I love this. They really, really would prefer I think to be with us. Yeah.
Emily 31:27
And I noticed that the beginning, you talked about not using food in your protocols? Would you say for a dog like yours, you would consider using food because he doesn't have it? Or you pretty much like don't leave food when your dog is alone?
Jackie 31:41
Yeah, you know, that's a really good question. And I really, I've only been watching him because I've only been leaving my house personally, since I got vaccinated. I've been leaving more and more, which has only been a few weeks. And it's not a lot, right. Like, it's like, I'm kind of an introvert, I work from home. So I'm like, I go to yoga every now and then. And I watch him when I drive away. And it hasn't gotten to a point where I've said I need to do something about this. But I certainly could Emily like and I think that's a great kind of point for me to think about. I think we don't think about our own dogs in the same way to think about client training plan dogs, right. And I don't think there's a problem with using food. In a dog that like my dog or any other dog that's not freaking out and unraveling and going totally over over thresholds. I don't think that's an issue.
Emily 32:36
So like, maybe someone could do like a little nose work and leave like piles of kibble like in five different places so that the dog has something fun to do. totally gonna be gone for a couple hours.
Jackie 32:48
Yeah, totally. And we'll do we'll do a quick like just to do a find it, you know, and toss a handful of food over to the side. That's a good idea, Emily. Do that with my dog now instead of watching him and being like, are you? Are you anxious? Thank you. No, yeah, I think it's totally fine. And I think that I think even for some dogs who are maybe new to the home who are in you may have encountered this as well, where they freak out when someone leaves meaning they do go over a threshold and they can't recover. Food might help with that transition, right? Like, I'd say you get a new dog, you could try that for a week or two and see like, Are you are you eating the food and then go into snooze? Because you might see that happen with a brand new dog in a brand new home where they just need that kind of like get in there during the departure. It's not something I would use in a training plan. But if you if they came back to me and said, Yeah, that's not working, then okay, let's remove the food and start with just the gradual exposure.
Emily 33:52
I love that. That's great.
Libby 33:54
And I really love how you're framing all of this as normal dog behavior. I feel like so often, we see behavior issues, where what we're actually looking at is a normal dog behavior. And the problem is just integrating the dog into our human lives.
Jackie 34:14
Yeah, almost all dog behavior is normal. Right?
Libby 34:17
Totally. I think right now is a perfect time to go into a little bit more detail I think about why you necessarily wouldn't use food in this protocol.
Jackie 34:31
Yeah, so I think the main reason for me anyway, is that we really want an organic read on how the dog is feeling right like so. Meaning like, if we're using food are we really seeing how this dog feels if I put a calm down and I walk out the door What I typically see with dogs were clients have sent me videos of here's the video where I left To MACOM, I either see the dog eat the con, anxiously, so frantically sort of eating the car and then maybe run to the door, and then they run back to the car. And then they run to the door, and they run back to the car. And then as soon as the cones gone, or they just get to a point where they're a little too stressed to continue to eat the car, then we start seeing the anxiety, right? Where they don't eat at all, which can be a manifestation of separation anxiety, clinical separation anxiety is anorexia when the owner leaves. And so is the dog eating, are they are they not able to eat? Because they're so stressed? And if we're giving them that food, we don't really know. And they are eating right? Do we know? How comfortable is this dog with X duration? Right? Like, is this dog comfortable with three minutes of duration? I don't know, because he's eating for 15 minutes, right? And so we really important that we're observing this dog's body language, which will indicate to us how he's feeling about the departure and the duration and the departure cues and all of that. So I just I get a lot of people who say, he's fine for 1520 minutes. And usually I know what's coming next is that he's fine for 1520 minutes, because he's got a con. Right. And so the other thing that's risky that I don't like, it's super, super, super common, but I've definitely seen it, it definitely can happen. Is that backwards, poisoning the food. So I give you the car, and then I leave, and then I give you the car, and I leave over and over and over. And then the car and or food becomes aversive because it predicts the Guardian leaving, right. So yucky risk that we don't want to happen.
Emily 36:48
And just to clarify, she doesn't mean that anyone poisoned their food
Jackie 36:53
trainer term was another technical. Yeah, another technical term. Yes. So poisoned, poisoned key or a poison, you know, anything in the environment would mean, we have turned that thing into something through pairing it with something that dog finds aversive like us leaving. Now food predicts scary absence. And so food is scary, right.
Emily 37:17
And on that note, I recently saw a little blurb about how to deal with separation anxiety, and one of the things mentioned was using a bark collar for your dog with separation anxiety, can you speak to why that wouldn't be a great plan,
Jackie 37:36
we would need an hour. No, I will simplify but that the indestructible crate and the bark collar are the two are the two big kind of like break my heart recommendations that are out there that are seen as a potential quick fix. And I think the big problem with the bark collars is that people are potentially viewing them as a quick fix in a quick way to just get the dog to stop barking and I understand that these people are suffering and we have to understand that their dogs are suffering and so with, with punishment, specifically positive punishment, and so a call or that will electrocute if a dog vocalizes we certainly might get rid of barking. But we certainly likely are going to have a whole other slew of manifestations of distress that we maybe you these people who got the bark collar would prefer to have the barking, you know what I mean? And and that's not taking into account the dog's emotional state, which is our priority, right? But if you're not if you're distressed, the bark collar is not going to ease your distress the bark color is likely going to increase the distress and we are still going to get unless we get learned helplessness which we go down that rabbit hole of the dog just stops behaving because nothing works to solve their anxiety or their their attempts to escape. And so a slew of reasons why it's a bad idea. I hope that that in a nutshell kind of summarized. I think that was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, we're our goal is to change how this dog is feeling. Right? We're our goal is not to suppress their their behaviors.
Emily 39:27
Yeah. And there's real health health issues associated with chronic stress. So you know, we all are worried about what we feed our dog and what's in their food. But we should really think about what's stressing our dogs out and try to alleviate some of that stress if we want our dogs to be a healthy long lived companion.
Libby 39:50
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about I think you use the term Jackie separation distress. Is there a difference between between separation distress Separation anxiety. Earlier you talked about anxiety being kind of the overarching catch all term.
Jackie 40:07
So the first partial portion of your question kind of circles back to that first question where we talked about separation anxiety being a catch all term, and we can clarify some of these terms. Now, you know, like, separation anxiety, this is just to confuse everyone a little bit more, is a clinical diagnosis that can only be made by a veterinarian. Right. So I can't say to someone, your dog, I am diagnosing your dog with separation anxiety. And that's true with any diagnosis in dogs, right. So dogs with clinical separation anxiety, are attached to one person. So one key figure. So clinical separation anxiety means, let's say my dog had clinical separation anxiety, if I left the house, but my partner was home, my dog would be over threshold, you would struggle with that. If I were home, and my partner left no problem, right. And so these dogs experienced distress when that key figure is absent whether another human is present with them or not. And so they're more rare, much more rare. A lot of times with new dogs, dogs new to the home, a lot of these pandemic dogs. They are, we're hearing a lot of this, they're attached to one person. I think that's pretty normal. I don't think it's necessarily clinical separation anxiety, I think it's just a dog who's formed a bond with a new person, and just needs to sort of learn that other people predict good things also. So we kind of spread the love. And we're like, okay, Dad's gonna be doing all the fun stuff. And when mom walks out, you're going to do some trick training and provide a calm, so I will use counter conditioning in those situations. So mom leaves. Soon as mom departs, dog gets calm. And then there's a lot of variables there, like, did your dog eat the car? While Dad was home with the dog? Do you know what was in the car? And how long did he eat it when he finished it? What did he do? So is is that Kong able to kind of mitigate that 2030 minutes where I'm like, Yeah, Mom's gone. And then you can settle. And if not, we're potentially looking at clinical separation anxiety, and we want to get a veterinarian on board. So by contrast, what most of the dogs I'm working with are experiencing is what we would label isolation, distress, again, doesn't roll off the tongue. Most people you say it and they're like, I don't know what that means. Maybe that'll change over the years, right, as more and more people know about this condition behavior challenge. I'm so dogs with isolation, distress are not attached to one particular person, they can be left with a variety of humans without experiencing over threshold distress. Usually, any warm body will do so much more common than clinical separation anxiety. So those are a little bit easier for people to work through because they can get a sitter or go to daycare or all those different things. And so how do you know if your dog is eating a couch because they're bored or because they have separation anxiety. So body language, right? It's all about, I remember in the CSAT course, Mallanna showed us a video of a dog. I think it was an example of so you have a client who contacts you and they they send you this video and they say their dog's got severe separation anxiety, and they need your help right now. And then she shows the video and it's this is like, I mean, he's having a blast. He's like, you know, running around the house, like he's played bowing and himself and like throwing his toys, and he grabs the remote, he chews it up, and then he like sleeps on the couch for a little bit and goes back to it. So the big thing is, is body language. The other thing is, you know, if you're not sure, right, because body language can be tricky. So like, what if you have a dog who's like chewing stuff up. And I've seen this, but they're not like, they don't look happy. And they don't look stressed, necessarily, but they look like they're like, maybe chew it and then they'll look at the door and they're like, a little vigilant and they're like chewing things. So for that, I would, I would typically say like, what happens if you're, if your dog's needs are met? Right, like, meaning their chewing needs, their exercise and enrichment needs. We're we're doing our best to make sure they're not bored.
Not being left home alone, eight to 10 hours a day, every single day without having their needs met. Right. And so if those needs are met, and we look at it again, does it look the same if the needs are met, and we do see that again? Um, I would say, what happens if we block off access to that particular item that they are chewing? Are we seeing? You know, like, if they're chewing the shoes in the closet? What if you put all the shoes out of reach? Now what are we seeing? Right? So it's all about that big picture of body language and an escalation, right? Like, are you choo, choo, choo choo. And then you go to sleep? Or are you choo, choo choo. And now you're, you're also panting pacing, etc.
Libby 45:30
I love the example of the dog just having a blast. Home Alone.
Jackie 45:36
That's what we that's what we prefer to see. So sometimes we'll do an assessment. And I'm like good news. You just need to puppy proof better.
Libby 45:44
Yeah. Well, that was Daisy. Whenever I first had Daisy, I was fostering and she had heartworm. And so it was really, really difficult to meet all of her physical needs. Because we couldn't exercise. We couldn't do zoomies, we couldn't play. And she would on the camera after you know, two or three hours alone, she'd start ripping up pillows, and we could tell that she was having a great time. But yeah, it was difficult. But once we were able to meet those needs, you know, that behavior went away. So,
Emily 46:18
so specifically, do you have like three things you would tell people who are suddenly going out for two, three hours a day that weren't for the past year?
Jackie 46:29
I have five, huh? Yeah, camera would be one. So I do just and this will be in the show notes. I do have a blog post on preparing your dog. And everybody's like Wall Street Journal has done this. There's this I think pretty good too. If I'm remembering correctly, just that to be sure. But five steps to prepare your dog for post pandemic alone time. I think the first thing I want to emphasize is like there might not be a problem, right? Like you may, you may have no issue, don't worry about it until there is a I'm a big proponent of like, don't fix what's not broken, be prepared, be aware but don't like think your dog is gonna suddenly definitely be freaking out the whole time you're gone. Right? So watch your dog on camera, get really familiar with body language. That's too so watch camera, know the signs doggy language book. There's a free online course for body language on Bravo, dog training.ca, which I love and then start small. So like most most things in life, we're going to, you know, change is easiest when it comes to those small manageable increments. And so if you haven't left your dog home alone in a year, don't go out for six hours all of a sudden, right like take a 10 minute walk with your dog every day, or without your dog sorry, I step out on the porch for a little bit just like start small, right like not a huge don't don't change things suddenly for long durations. If your dogs handling their shorter absence as well. And this really circles back and link to what you guys are doing with your postures and rescues right as gradually build up to longer and longer absences. If your dog seems totally ho hum about these kinds of departures, then continue to fold reality in as you go. And then number five is asked for help. So your dog is clearly uncomfortable with a sudden change in routine. And you are about to have to go back to work, just reach out and we're going to talk about free resources and trainers you can reach out to but if he's not handling it, I would definitely say don't try and go it alone unless you until you kind of dig into some of these resources that we're going to provide.
Libby 48:40
That's so helpful. Is there anything that people do or don't do that can either cause or prevent separation anxiety?
Jackie 48:52
Yeah, good question. So I'm a big proponent of never blaming you explore your dog, let your dog sleep in the bed. All of those are myths, you're not going to cause separation anxiety by snuggling and being affectionate with your dog. So get that out of the way I want people to have 100% permission to sleep in the bed with their dog if they want to. I there's been some research on this and I have a blog post on this as well. I think it was a dog men who did some research on the determined essentially that owner interaction had no impact on dogs developing or having worse separation distress. So I think that as long as you're not putting them in an indestructible crate, potentially using a bark collars to suppress behavior and increase anxiety. Leaving them home alone eight hours a day, five days a week to experience panic attacks for that long that you're not doing anything to cause or make your dog's separation anxiety. At worst, a lot of this stuff is totally out of our control. So I think we absolutely have a shot at a percentage shot at preventing it. By being aware. And especially by being proactive and preparing puppies, and dogs who are new to our home for being left alone. I don't think we can totally control which dogs will develop separation anxiety, just like with any other behavior problem, like aggression, fear, noise phobia, right? Like we, we can do our best to be proactive and practice prevention and socialize properly. And we can have a dog leg who's been with us their whole life and has had no problems being left home alone. But there are so many variables that are out of our control. So genetics, medical problems, aging, unavoidable routine changes learning history. So if my dog developed it next week, um, I couldn't have done anything to prevent that. Right. So
Libby 51:02
that's, that's good to hear. Because I, you know, I guess there's like a rumor or myth that, oh, when you come home, you shouldn't greet your dog. Because if you do, you're gonna cause separation anxiety. And that always just feels so wrong to me like not to say hello to my dog when I walk in the door.
Jackie 51:18
Yeah, no, no, you can totally say hello. Party. Yeah, we party when we come in the door. So
Emily 51:27
Well, this was amazing. I feel like I learned so much from you in this one hour.
Libby 51:32
Is there anything else we didn't cover that you want to touch on?
Emily 51:37
Sure. Well, let's see. I love that you have free resources for people who are struggling with this, perhaps don't have it in their budget to hire a CSAT. Can you tell us more about free resource resources that are out there?
Jackie 51:52
Yeah. So this is this is the question. This is the most important one of the most important questions because it is expensive to work one on one intensive training with a with a certified trainer, I know that and so I am doing my absolute best to get as much information out there on social media as I can for people. So in the show notes, there are going to be some links, but I'll just briefly kind of go over them. So social links for my Instagram and Facebook, where I'm posting a lot of content about do's and don'ts and blogs and things that are helpful that will guide you on your journey. There's also this really wonderful free Facebook support group with like 40,000 people or something. And it's called Dog separation anxiety training support with Julian Naismith. And so I highly recommend people check that out if they're want something totally free. The other things I'd recommend is checking out Malena de martini.com/blog, sub threshold training.com/blog And then believe in your dot dog slash blog, which is my blog as well so three blogs where you can find tons of information about this behavior challenge. Julie Naismith also has a podcast they're very short, like 510 minute episodes. That link will be in the show notes to a couple of books, separation anxiety and dogs next generation treatment protocols, which is Milena de Martini his most recent book on separation anxiety, training and treatment. Julie Naismith be right back book, which is on Amazon, there will be a link there as well. There is also an almost done, there's a lot of great resources out here. There is the Heroes Club, which is created by Julian Naismith and sub threshold training, which is a subscription service where you get a training app and you get a membership to a Facebook group where you get access weekly to zoom calls with trainers, I think it's $117 for three months, which is a really great deal. And you get an app where you set your dog's baseline and and then the app creates training plans for you that you can go through which gradually will push dropper stick based on how your dog did an app on its own, I think is great, but without that human piece, it's a little imperfect. So that's why I love that you get that access to the Facebook support group as well, where there's trainers like constantly providing feedback and watching your videos and doing zoom calls. So that's a great option to the last one is Milena de martinis mission possible course which is a DIY separation anxiety training course where you would do it you know, online watching videos that she's created to walk you through training so, so those are those are some good ones.
Emily 54:50
Yeah, that's great. That course is $100 and it seems like it's worth every penny. If you're if you're struggling with this.
Libby 54:57
Thank you so much, Jackie for speaking with us. Today, I learned a lot. I know I've learned a lot. Our listeners are going to learn a lot. So we really, really appreciate it.
Jackie 55:07
So it was so nice. Thank you guys for everything you do for people and their dogs. You're amazing.
Libby 55:15
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs, you can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to pod to the rescue.
Libby 0:11
Rescuing the dog is just the first step. We're here to help with everything that comes next. However, everyone and welcome back to pod to the rescue. Today, Emily and I are so excited to bring you an interview with Jackie Johnston, who is an expert trainer when it comes to separation anxiety related behaviors, and we spoke with her about leaving your dog alone. Now, as the pandemic is coming to an end, we hope knock on wood, and the world is opening back up. And also just in general.
Emily 0:50
I learned so much from that interview Libby, I thought I knew about separation anxiety, because I had a dog with severe separation, distress, isolation, distress. But wow, I have to say she's amazing. And I would urge anyone who loves dogs, Foster's dogs, rescues dogs to listen to what she presents because the information is really new and cutting edge. And nobody wants to see their dog in distress. And we can alleviate that with some of some of these strategies.
Libby 1:26
Yeah, totally. We talked about myths about separation anxiety, we defined a lot of terms, we talked about the steps to go about finding out if your dog has separation anxiety, and then what to do about it. And we just had a really fabulous conversation.
Emily 1:44
It was amazing. And now as the world is opening up, I feel like it's it's gonna be a tough change for our dogs in so many ways. And one of those is going to be that now they're going to be alone a lot more while we're out working and going out to eat meeting with friends, going on trips, what have you. So it's it's kind of a must listen, I would say.
Libby 2:08
I totally agree. And I think that the my big takeaway from this conversation is that it's you can do something about it. You know, if you start to notice that your dog isn't quite comfortable being left alone, there are things you can do about it to prevent it from becoming a full blown behavior issue that has you bringing your dog back to the shelter. You know, that's the last thing we want. We want you to keep your dog, your pandemic puppy in your home. And, you know, there are ways to work with this that can help you and help your dog. Exactly. So Jackie Johnston little more about her. Jackie Johnston is a certified separation anxiety trainer with a certificate in training and counseling, and a certified professional dog trainer knowledge assist who works solely with separation anxiety and other alone time behaviors. She's focused her knowledge and experience in this challenging area and understands the havoc that this behavior problem can wreak on a dog guardians life and peace of mind and the toll it can take on the dog who is suffering. Jackie is certified and mentored by the world's leading experts on separation anxiety, and continues to pursue the most up to date research and continuing education. She works remotely with dogs and their people from all over the world. Jackie currently resides in Asheville, North Carolina with her dog Drake.
Emily 3:32
Here's the interview
Libby 3:42
Hi, everyone, and welcome back to pod to the rescue. We are here today with Jackie Johnson, a separation anxiety expert. Hi, Jackie. How are you?
Jackie 3:52
Good. How are you guys?
Libby 3:53
Oh, we're great. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us today.
Jackie 3:59
Totally excited to be here. Thank you for having me.
Emily 4:01
Yeah, absolutely.
Libby 4:03
So let's just jump right in. How did you get so focused on separation anxiety in your career?
Jackie 4:08
Yeah. So I was working at training and behavior department and an animal shelter and Maalena Demartini, who is the world's leading expert on separation anxiety came and did a two day seminar at the shelter. And of course I went because I'm just fascinated by all things behavior as we all are. And as someone who is completely fascinated by all things behavior, I was really firstly intrigued by the idea of using straight desensitization without counter conditioning and so gradual under threshold exposure without food and I'll just disclaimer here. I love using food and training. I will die on the Hill of use food for training but it was just so interesting for me to learn as a positive enforcement trainer, that using food could actually be potentially detrimental to helping these dogs recover. And it really sounded like a new and interesting challenge for me as a trainer, and I was just totally up for it. So that was the really, that was the big spark for me. And so from there, I enrolled in malena's CSAT course. So the certified separation anxiety trainer course. And when I graduated, I started taking cases. And since all the training is done remotely, when COVID hit, I focused on shifting my practice to solely working with separation anxiety. And not just for that reason, but just because I love it. I mean, it's just the clients and seeing these dogs through these challenges through to the end through graduation. It's just really, really rewarding. So that's kind of how I got into it. In a nutshell. Yeah.
Emily 5:55
Fascinating. I love that. And the timing right now couldn't be better, because it seems like the world is opening up post pandemic, and so many people adopted dogs in the last year. And those dogs were pretty used to people being around all the time. And now everyone's going back to work going out to dinner. Are you seeing a lot more separation anxiety cases,
Jackie 6:19
I am seeing quite a big uptick. I will say that I haven't. I haven't been waitlisted. As much as I have been in the last, I would say four to six months. And I don't know if it's I think a lot of people adopted dogs during the pandemic. So I think we just have more dogs and homes. But I also think that we have more dogs in homes who have not been acclimated to being left alone. We have more pandemic puppies, right. So maybe have had someone with them 24/7. So I'm definitely getting a lot of inquiries and clients who are now that things are opening back up, they're starting to leave the home and they're encountering problems.
Libby 7:08
I'd like to pause for a second and get into some definitions here. Not only can you define separation anxiety, but also in your intro there, you threw out a couple of technical terms that I would love to discuss a little more in depth with you, which is desensitization and counterconditioning.
Jackie 7:30
Yeah. So, you know, when we're talking dog trainers, we always use our technical terms, right? So I appreciate you pausing and asking for definitions. So defining separation anxiety, this is the really confusing part. And I make it confusing and other trainers make it confusing. And most people including myself, use the term separation anxiety as a catch all sort of umbrella term to refer to a dog who is simply uncomfortable when left home alone, due to being left home alone, not due to noises or other things that might be happening. But actually due to that stimulus of being left home alone. And there I go use the word stimulus, I would shift that to say, the context right, the context of being left home alone or separated from one key figure. So there are actually a variety of labels that might refer to different contexts in which a dog is uncomfortable when alone. And so I think it's, I think, for me, I much prefer to use the term separation related problem behaviors, but it just doesn't roll off the tongue as easily as separation anxiety. And I think that when you say separation anxiety, your average dog owner, anyone you're talking to kind of knows what you're talking about. So we use it for simplicity sake, and Malea Demartini will talk about how it's sort of like Kleenex, right? Like, there's the one Kleenex brand but we call them all Kleenex. And so that kind of in a nutshell, and I think a little later on, we're going to talk about the difference between sort of isolation, distress separation anxiety, but But again, it's just a very broad general term. For, for me, for a dog who's uncomfortable in left home alone. And so as far as behaviors that are associated with separation anxiety, it's absolutely going to vary from dog to dog. Every individual dog will have a different behavioral repertoire that they display when they are uncomfortable. For some dogs that might be a more gradual build up. So hypervigilance pacing, panting and then vocalizing. Sometimes it's reversed the vocalizing starts and then painting and then pacing and vigilance. Some dogs won't eat when left home alone. So anorexia, urination, defecation, and another wise house trained dogs. So these are all those little complexities where you know, my dogs urinating defecating when I leave them home alone, but what's the what's the big picture there right like are they housetrained attempts to escape the environment destruction, usually an often at exit point. So doorways, windows, things like that. And then for some dogs, we have the zero to 60 barking, you know, it's just the door closes and the barking starts. And we might label these dogs as frustrated. But we would still treat the problem the same way with that gradual exposure at a level where they are comfortable. And so kind of important for us to note that just to not get too much into the complexities, but if a dog, you exit the door and a dog barks a couple of times when the owner leaves, and then goes to snooze on the couch, we don't likely need to work through an intensive, gradual exposure protocol. Right. So one defining feature, I think, is that for the dogs I work with is that these behaviors that I listed above, typically are going to increase in intensity and frequency if the owner continues to be away, right. So throughout that duration of the absence, the dogs not going to suddenly be like, okay, they're not coming back, I'm gonna go take a nap on the couch, right? They don't typically show a little bit of a stress and then go and relax. So we're looking at that big picture of does this continue to escalate canvas, dog recover, because some can, right, and some people will say My dog has separation anxiety. And we might do an assessment and they bark, bark, bark. But as soon as owners out of earshot, or the car pulls away, the dogs like, Oh, they're gone, and they go and snooze on the couch. So I'm not going to ask you to do a really intensive training protocol, if I see that, right. So that's kind of the defining separation anxiety and talking about what kind of behaviors we're looking for when we're talking about separation related behaviors. And then we can get intothe technical terms of desensitization and counter conditioning. And so systematic desensitization is in human psychology, involves gradually exposing someone to something that freaks them out at a level that does not freak them out at all. And in human psychology, we're actually also looking at the human being totally relaxed, right. So we have a hierarchy of, of stimuli. And I had I failed to find the word the owner friendly word that's not a trainer, specific word for stimuli, I'll have to figure that one out, maybe later things, things in the environment, things in the environment. So an example would be full blown version for separation anxiety would be picking up your keys, putting on your shoes, picking up your purse, putting on your coat, walking out the door, closing the door, locking the door, getting in your car, starting your car, right, like there's all these big things happening. And your dog is noticing every single one of them even if your dog does not experience distress when left alone, dogs notice all these things. So a dog who does experience distress when left alone is really really noticing these things from the get go and likely starting to display distress as soon as that starts to happen. And so an example would be if we were to take this and break it down into a to a level where your dog's totally comfortable, which for a lot of dogs means you're standing up and you're taking a couple of steps towards the door, and then you're going and you're sitting down, and then you're standing up and you're walking four steps towards the door and you're going and you're sitting down and every dog is an individual. So not to freak anyone out and be like my dog's got to start with, you know, walking two steps towards the door, they might. But often in the first week or so for many dogs were exiting, returning, exiting, returning open and closing door, no shoes, no keys, no purse, and the dog is comfortable throughout the process, and then we gradually increase that. So that would be if you're looking at systematic desensitization, that's what that means. And then counter conditioning which we're not doing typically with dogs who are distressed when left alone is pairing something the dog finds aversive or uncomfortable with something they love. So desensitization and counterconditioning something we use together often as trainers to help dogs who are fearful uncomfortable stressed learn to like the trigger that is causing the distress right so pairing the nail clippers with food so nail clippers followed by food over and over and over and then nail clippers touching the the nail followed by food over and over right making sure the dogs comfortable every step of the way. So the counter conditioning pieces about changing that emotional state from yuck to yay, I like that it predicts food or my favorite toy or whatever.
Libby 14:46
Awesome. Thank you so much for those definitions. That's super helpful. So when you're talking about separation anxiety, and that there are kind of different levels how, how do you figure all of this out? How do you help your client and understand what's really going on and identify the problem.
Jackie 15:04
So oftentimes, it's really nice that we we often have quite a lot of history from clients, right? Like, we often have like I hear him barking from the moment I close the door. And then when I come back two hours later, he's you know, he's urinated defecate out, the door is destroyed. He's still barking is sweating, pause, there's drool puddles. Right. So those are pretty clear indicators. If I just hear from a client that he barks when I leave, and then when I come back, I hear him barking, we don't really know the whole story. They're like, is this dog barking? Man, I want to go with you, man. And then they settle on the couch. And then they bark again, because they heard your car pull up right? Or are they actually barking that entire duration that the owner is gone. So if we're not sure, we're really lucky that we live in an age where there's relatively simple and often free technology that we can use to watch a dog during a departure or an absence. And so zoom or FaceTime, or free options. I really like external cameras like nest are wise and you can get away as cam 25 $30 Get the app on your phone, and or Furbo even right and just keep an eye on your dog. And it's really all about watching the dog very closely and being very good at observing body language. Because if you're not, if you don't know what you're seeing, you don't know, you don't know what you're seeing, right. And observing that body language and the behaviors and being really keen about, you know, okay, like he just barked once, I'm not gonna have this owner come back right away, because this dog might be totally fine in a minute or two, it's about looking for that, again, that unraveling, carefully walking that line of I don't want to push you totally over the edge or off the ledge. But I need to know exactly what we're dealing with here before I asked this client to suspend absences and start on an intensive training protocol. So I think that, I think getting the cameras a big, big piece of the puzzle for owners who aren't working with a trainer. But I think that getting really really good at dog body language is the key, right? Because otherwise you don't know what you're seeing. And there can be some really subtle signs of stress. Or wood there might be barking and the dogs having a blast, which I think we're going to talk about a bit later. And an owner might think that dog is stressed right. And so I love the new Lily Chen doggy language book, I send it to all my clients. And so I highly recommend it's like 10 bucks. If you feel like you aren't sure if what you're seeing is stress or if it's your dog partying. Because I think we take that for granted as trainers right that we are people in rescue we see stress a mile away, like we know stress and so we do it as a as my partner to now he's like that dogs stress and like Yeah. So, you know, I think that's a great resource is it really just get really keen on body language and then watch, right?
Emily 18:20
And we can link to that book in the show notes because that book is exceptional for anyone who has a dog even if their dog does not have separation anxiety. I love that you talk about the cameras at our rescue. We actually have a couple of cameras that we bought just because you know when we bring in our dogs that first week or two, I feel like it's tough to you know, leave the new dog home alone. Regardless of any known history. They've come from shelters that have been left by their people. Can you speak a little bit to like rescue dogs as far as separation anxiety? Do you think that it's more common? And how would you coach someone who had a new rescue or got a new dog as to like how you slowly leave them alone?
Jackie 19:03
Yeah, so I think that we we do know and when I say we do know it's sort of like the research has shown us which you know, science changes and we it's not set in stone but but I think we have a pretty good understanding that traumatic experiences, multiple rehab bombings, changes in routine which all these rescue dogs have experienced right can potentially lead to separately separation related behaviors and and other behavior problems of course, right. I don't know that I'd say that they're more prone to it than any other dog as I've experienced a variety of dogs with a variety of plethora of backgrounds who struggled to be left home alone. So dogs from breeders dogs who've been in the home their whole life since then. puppies, rescue dogs, I think sometimes we can certainly guess that an experience may have triggered it such as a rehoming death in the family and major change in routine. You know, I've had dogs where you had a dog fight at the dog park and had a severe injury, and now they're experiencing separation anxiety. But you know, we also have, like genetics, learning history and possible untreated medical issues to contend with. So I think it's really difficult to say, This is why right, like, this dog has it because he's a rescue. But we can definitely make good guesses about why a particular dog might be struggling to be left alone, for sure.
Emily 20:40
Would you coach them on bringing in a new dog, though, to try to clear their schedule a little bit, you know, just to make sure you don't get your dog on a Saturday and then go back to work on Monday for eight hours, like post pandemic time when you do go to work for eight hours? You know, that seems a little like maybe there's a rubber band approach to the seeing how your dog adjusts to being alone when you have a new dog.
Jackie 21:06
Yeah, so I think that's a great question. And I It sounds like you guys are doing that for people who are taking a new rescues and fosters where you're kind of asking them to pause for a week or so let the dog have a decompression period. Don't like bring the dog home and then go out for four hours the same night. And I love it. I love that you guys do this for people that you make time in your schedules, you are amazing to accommodate these fosters, for a week or so so that you can get them used to this just in case it happens, right. And you're definitely doing the right thing. It's about slowly leaving them for short durations and then increasing gradually at a level they can handle. And I would totally agree with you as well and giving them that time, however much time that individual dog needs to settle into the home before leaving without them, right, let them get comfortable. For every dog, that period of getting comfortable will be different. But yes, don't bring them home and then leave for four hours. And I would see this in the shelter. And I know you see it all the time. Probably right and these dogs would get adopted and then the next day they would come back and the notes would say this dog has separation anxiety we left last night for six hours and he destroyed everything these dogs need time to you know understand that there's this transition that has happened and and and we're going to talk about them being social animals too. And that that's it's not normal for them to just be okay with us leaving them for long durations at a time. And so I would totally recommend starting with very short departures watching on camera. Maybe even just going out to check the mail lingering around the house for a few minutes. I know people do this sometimes where they get a dog and they'll go hide like by the window and sometimes they peek in the window. And like watch just to see like how's he handling it? Know the body language? What indicators are you seeing is he snoozing? If he's totally comfortable, then start gradually building and, you know, we have this complexity to have like with new dogs, meaning a dog who's just come into our home who's maybe an adult that we don't know at all. We're contending with the potential for accidents in the house, if that dogs not house trained doing things for fun. I'm sure you've encountered this with the rescues you place. So that's where we want to look at making sure this dog's needs are met bladders empty. We're dog proofing. Or we may be wanting to use a large confinement area, but also keeping in mind that some dogs are going to show confinement anxiety, right? And so there's no real easy answer. It's all about making that plan to suit that individual dog. But the big nono is that, like I bring you home and then I leave, leave for four to six hours, you're totally out in the house or you're in a crate, you know, which could be even worse for the dog. And I love crates, but some dogs who experience distress when left alone are gonna do much worse when they're in that small confinement area. Right. So yeah, I and we'll talk about this post pandemic, you know, everybody going back to work and it's the same sort of thing, right? Like we've got to be, I'm will tell you about my dog who I'm watching like a hawk, because things are changing, you know,
Emily 24:23
right, a side note, I'm just going through all our crates, and some of them are donated. Some of them have been in the rescue for 15 years and I'm going to try to clean up my garage. Nobody needs 30 crates, and it's actually amazing to me, how many of them are bent and it kind of breaks my heart. You know, it's like, okay, what happened here that this dog bent metal. So, you know, if you come home and your crate is bent, that is a big red flag.
Jackie 24:52
Totally, totally agree. Yeah. And then we have the so don't anyone who's listening don't fall for the index. directable crate marketing, which I get marketed all the time, because I'm a dog person, so I see it and I reply, report them and hide them. And you know, and that's a whole other topic we could go into. But yes, letting a dog in a crate and locking them in isn't going to change how they feel about being alone. It definitely can and will likely make it worse.
Emily 25:23
We really like Sarah Walsh's videos on YouTube for crate training for beginners. I think anyone who's like how do I get my dog then to enjoy the crate? Start. They're
Jackie 25:33
awesome. I haven't heard of her, I'll totally lucked out.
Emily 25:36
She's great. She's a trainer in Longmont, her her YouTube site is just outstanding, I think for everything you would ever need to do with your dog. So I actually had a foster dog with separation anxiety, oh, God, it must have been 10 years ago, and she was such a special girl. But I didn't know anything about separation anxiety. When I got her she was relinquished to the shelter for separation anxiety. So I had to learn the hard way. And there was no CSAT back then. I had Patricia McConnell's book, which was amazing that I'll be home soon. And I worked on it through slow desensitization that actually use behavior meds and she managed to be 90% successful. I never got her to the point where she could be home alone at night. But that was okay, I just changed my life around for her. It was worth it. I know. I know. She also liked the car. So it was nice. I'd be like, I can meet you for dinner. But it has to be cool enough that my dog can sit in the car. Anyway, I'm gonna cry because I loved her so much anyway. Um, so it was. But the point is, if you really think about it with dogs, it's hard for a dog to be home alone. At the time, I thought there was something really severely wrong with my dog. But she was a high energy lab. So being home alone with nothing to do was tough. She had experienced trauma. And she was a very highly social dog. She loved people, she loved being with people. Can you speak to that a little bit about how dogs are social creatures? So being alone really isn't a normal request?
Jackie 27:18
Yeah, it's such a good question. I just want to I 100% agree and would say yes, and I just want to commend you, I want to point out that what I really love about what you said, is that you compromise your goals for her. And I think that's so important when we're dealing with this, and it's something that I want to touch on and social media soon, really more in depth is that, you know, we want to often leave these dogs for eight hours a day, anytime a day. And I it's doable, but it's gonna be intensive, and it's gonna be a lot of work. And I think if we can compromise, like we're that much closer to getting somewhere with our goal. So I just love that you did that where you were like, You know what, I'm just gonna bring her in the car effect that goes somewhere at night. That's awesome. So back to your question. It's such a good question again. Yes, I totally agree. And I think this is such a such an important thing to relate to people. And there's this great quote that I love by Pat Miller. And she says it's natural for young mammals to experience anxiety when separated from their mothers and siblings. It's an adaptive survival mechanism, a pup who gets separated from his family cries and distress enabling moms easily find him. And I think that that's so it's so helpful to look at behavior, all all behavior through that lens of what is the significance of this like, it's the dogs not doing it to spite you or upset you there is an adaptive piece here, right? And so, separation related behaviors are adaptive and normal. Now, that does not mean that we should let dogs cry it out or experience them or experience that level of distress. We definitely want to resolve that distress and the owners distress. But I think that understanding the mechanism behind behavior helps us to empathize with that animal and dogs simply right do what works to avoid unpleasant or scary situations. Right. And yeah, it's normal and adaptive. But again, we want to modify it for sure. And, and I'll say that, since the recent we had a recent move last year and the lockdowns began, I have been watching my dog on camera like a hawk. I've never did before because he never has shown has no history of separation distress, no indication that he's experiencing that. But what I really noticed lately and it's because I'm a dog trainer, it makes me a little antsy. He tolerates it, right like he doesn't love it. He's not like oh my god, I'm so glad you're gone. I'm gonna go sleep on the couch. He waits by the door He lays down in front of the door and he for quite a while, intermittently, you know, two or three times over and an hour, he'll yawn, a little stress yawn caucus headed, every little noise like is that her. And eventually he'll go sleep on the couch and chill out. So we're not seeing that like escalation and inability to cope. But I've been asking my other colleagues about this, I'm like, What is your dog do because I know you're watching now that we're, you know, things are transitioning, and everybody's just like, they like wait by the door, not they're not standing there painting, pacing, freaking out, but there, they would rather be with us. Like, for sure. I think that for a lot of these dogs that I'm teaching to be left home alone, I don't think I will ever teach many of them or most of them to love being left home alone. And you'll see some of my videos and updates are dogs like snoozing, which is what everybody wants, right? I want that the owner, the owner, everybody wants to see the dog on a cat like a couch potato. And that is not always what we're seeing, like, a lot of times we're seeing they go to the door, they wait at the door, they look around, they, you know, they hear a noise and they're gonna sleep and they wake up and they look around and is that her, they maybe go to the door and they, but they're not distressed. But they're not like I love this. They really, really would prefer I think to be with us. Yeah.
Emily 31:27
And I noticed that the beginning, you talked about not using food in your protocols? Would you say for a dog like yours, you would consider using food because he doesn't have it? Or you pretty much like don't leave food when your dog is alone?
Jackie 31:41
Yeah, you know, that's a really good question. And I really, I've only been watching him because I've only been leaving my house personally, since I got vaccinated. I've been leaving more and more, which has only been a few weeks. And it's not a lot, right. Like, it's like, I'm kind of an introvert, I work from home. So I'm like, I go to yoga every now and then. And I watch him when I drive away. And it hasn't gotten to a point where I've said I need to do something about this. But I certainly could Emily like and I think that's a great kind of point for me to think about. I think we don't think about our own dogs in the same way to think about client training plan dogs, right. And I don't think there's a problem with using food. In a dog that like my dog or any other dog that's not freaking out and unraveling and going totally over over thresholds. I don't think that's an issue.
Emily 32:36
So like, maybe someone could do like a little nose work and leave like piles of kibble like in five different places so that the dog has something fun to do. totally gonna be gone for a couple hours.
Jackie 32:48
Yeah, totally. And we'll do we'll do a quick like just to do a find it, you know, and toss a handful of food over to the side. That's a good idea, Emily. Do that with my dog now instead of watching him and being like, are you? Are you anxious? Thank you. No, yeah, I think it's totally fine. And I think that I think even for some dogs who are maybe new to the home who are in you may have encountered this as well, where they freak out when someone leaves meaning they do go over a threshold and they can't recover. Food might help with that transition, right? Like, I'd say you get a new dog, you could try that for a week or two and see like, Are you are you eating the food and then go into snooze? Because you might see that happen with a brand new dog in a brand new home where they just need that kind of like get in there during the departure. It's not something I would use in a training plan. But if you if they came back to me and said, Yeah, that's not working, then okay, let's remove the food and start with just the gradual exposure.
Emily 33:52
I love that. That's great.
Libby 33:54
And I really love how you're framing all of this as normal dog behavior. I feel like so often, we see behavior issues, where what we're actually looking at is a normal dog behavior. And the problem is just integrating the dog into our human lives.
Jackie 34:14
Yeah, almost all dog behavior is normal. Right?
Libby 34:17
Totally. I think right now is a perfect time to go into a little bit more detail I think about why you necessarily wouldn't use food in this protocol.
Jackie 34:31
Yeah, so I think the main reason for me anyway, is that we really want an organic read on how the dog is feeling right like so. Meaning like, if we're using food are we really seeing how this dog feels if I put a calm down and I walk out the door What I typically see with dogs were clients have sent me videos of here's the video where I left To MACOM, I either see the dog eat the con, anxiously, so frantically sort of eating the car and then maybe run to the door, and then they run back to the car. And then they run to the door, and they run back to the car. And then as soon as the cones gone, or they just get to a point where they're a little too stressed to continue to eat the car, then we start seeing the anxiety, right? Where they don't eat at all, which can be a manifestation of separation anxiety, clinical separation anxiety is anorexia when the owner leaves. And so is the dog eating, are they are they not able to eat? Because they're so stressed? And if we're giving them that food, we don't really know. And they are eating right? Do we know? How comfortable is this dog with X duration? Right? Like, is this dog comfortable with three minutes of duration? I don't know, because he's eating for 15 minutes, right? And so we really important that we're observing this dog's body language, which will indicate to us how he's feeling about the departure and the duration and the departure cues and all of that. So I just I get a lot of people who say, he's fine for 1520 minutes. And usually I know what's coming next is that he's fine for 1520 minutes, because he's got a con. Right. And so the other thing that's risky that I don't like, it's super, super, super common, but I've definitely seen it, it definitely can happen. Is that backwards, poisoning the food. So I give you the car, and then I leave, and then I give you the car, and I leave over and over and over. And then the car and or food becomes aversive because it predicts the Guardian leaving, right. So yucky risk that we don't want to happen.
Emily 36:48
And just to clarify, she doesn't mean that anyone poisoned their food
Jackie 36:53
trainer term was another technical. Yeah, another technical term. Yes. So poisoned, poisoned key or a poison, you know, anything in the environment would mean, we have turned that thing into something through pairing it with something that dog finds aversive like us leaving. Now food predicts scary absence. And so food is scary, right.
Emily 37:17
And on that note, I recently saw a little blurb about how to deal with separation anxiety, and one of the things mentioned was using a bark collar for your dog with separation anxiety, can you speak to why that wouldn't be a great plan,
Jackie 37:36
we would need an hour. No, I will simplify but that the indestructible crate and the bark collar are the two are the two big kind of like break my heart recommendations that are out there that are seen as a potential quick fix. And I think the big problem with the bark collars is that people are potentially viewing them as a quick fix in a quick way to just get the dog to stop barking and I understand that these people are suffering and we have to understand that their dogs are suffering and so with, with punishment, specifically positive punishment, and so a call or that will electrocute if a dog vocalizes we certainly might get rid of barking. But we certainly likely are going to have a whole other slew of manifestations of distress that we maybe you these people who got the bark collar would prefer to have the barking, you know what I mean? And and that's not taking into account the dog's emotional state, which is our priority, right? But if you're not if you're distressed, the bark collar is not going to ease your distress the bark color is likely going to increase the distress and we are still going to get unless we get learned helplessness which we go down that rabbit hole of the dog just stops behaving because nothing works to solve their anxiety or their their attempts to escape. And so a slew of reasons why it's a bad idea. I hope that that in a nutshell kind of summarized. I think that was pretty good. Yeah, yeah, we're our goal is to change how this dog is feeling. Right? We're our goal is not to suppress their their behaviors.
Emily 39:27
Yeah. And there's real health health issues associated with chronic stress. So you know, we all are worried about what we feed our dog and what's in their food. But we should really think about what's stressing our dogs out and try to alleviate some of that stress if we want our dogs to be a healthy long lived companion.
Libby 39:50
Okay, so let's talk a little bit about I think you use the term Jackie separation distress. Is there a difference between between separation distress Separation anxiety. Earlier you talked about anxiety being kind of the overarching catch all term.
Jackie 40:07
So the first partial portion of your question kind of circles back to that first question where we talked about separation anxiety being a catch all term, and we can clarify some of these terms. Now, you know, like, separation anxiety, this is just to confuse everyone a little bit more, is a clinical diagnosis that can only be made by a veterinarian. Right. So I can't say to someone, your dog, I am diagnosing your dog with separation anxiety. And that's true with any diagnosis in dogs, right. So dogs with clinical separation anxiety, are attached to one person. So one key figure. So clinical separation anxiety means, let's say my dog had clinical separation anxiety, if I left the house, but my partner was home, my dog would be over threshold, you would struggle with that. If I were home, and my partner left no problem, right. And so these dogs experienced distress when that key figure is absent whether another human is present with them or not. And so they're more rare, much more rare. A lot of times with new dogs, dogs new to the home, a lot of these pandemic dogs. They are, we're hearing a lot of this, they're attached to one person. I think that's pretty normal. I don't think it's necessarily clinical separation anxiety, I think it's just a dog who's formed a bond with a new person, and just needs to sort of learn that other people predict good things also. So we kind of spread the love. And we're like, okay, Dad's gonna be doing all the fun stuff. And when mom walks out, you're going to do some trick training and provide a calm, so I will use counter conditioning in those situations. So mom leaves. Soon as mom departs, dog gets calm. And then there's a lot of variables there, like, did your dog eat the car? While Dad was home with the dog? Do you know what was in the car? And how long did he eat it when he finished it? What did he do? So is is that Kong able to kind of mitigate that 2030 minutes where I'm like, Yeah, Mom's gone. And then you can settle. And if not, we're potentially looking at clinical separation anxiety, and we want to get a veterinarian on board. So by contrast, what most of the dogs I'm working with are experiencing is what we would label isolation, distress, again, doesn't roll off the tongue. Most people you say it and they're like, I don't know what that means. Maybe that'll change over the years, right, as more and more people know about this condition behavior challenge. I'm so dogs with isolation, distress are not attached to one particular person, they can be left with a variety of humans without experiencing over threshold distress. Usually, any warm body will do so much more common than clinical separation anxiety. So those are a little bit easier for people to work through because they can get a sitter or go to daycare or all those different things. And so how do you know if your dog is eating a couch because they're bored or because they have separation anxiety. So body language, right? It's all about, I remember in the CSAT course, Mallanna showed us a video of a dog. I think it was an example of so you have a client who contacts you and they they send you this video and they say their dog's got severe separation anxiety, and they need your help right now. And then she shows the video and it's this is like, I mean, he's having a blast. He's like, you know, running around the house, like he's played bowing and himself and like throwing his toys, and he grabs the remote, he chews it up, and then he like sleeps on the couch for a little bit and goes back to it. So the big thing is, is body language. The other thing is, you know, if you're not sure, right, because body language can be tricky. So like, what if you have a dog who's like chewing stuff up. And I've seen this, but they're not like, they don't look happy. And they don't look stressed, necessarily, but they look like they're like, maybe chew it and then they'll look at the door and they're like, a little vigilant and they're like chewing things. So for that, I would, I would typically say like, what happens if you're, if your dog's needs are met? Right, like, meaning their chewing needs, their exercise and enrichment needs. We're we're doing our best to make sure they're not bored.
Not being left home alone, eight to 10 hours a day, every single day without having their needs met. Right. And so if those needs are met, and we look at it again, does it look the same if the needs are met, and we do see that again? Um, I would say, what happens if we block off access to that particular item that they are chewing? Are we seeing? You know, like, if they're chewing the shoes in the closet? What if you put all the shoes out of reach? Now what are we seeing? Right? So it's all about that big picture of body language and an escalation, right? Like, are you choo, choo, choo choo. And then you go to sleep? Or are you choo, choo choo. And now you're, you're also panting pacing, etc.
Libby 45:30
I love the example of the dog just having a blast. Home Alone.
Jackie 45:36
That's what we that's what we prefer to see. So sometimes we'll do an assessment. And I'm like good news. You just need to puppy proof better.
Libby 45:44
Yeah. Well, that was Daisy. Whenever I first had Daisy, I was fostering and she had heartworm. And so it was really, really difficult to meet all of her physical needs. Because we couldn't exercise. We couldn't do zoomies, we couldn't play. And she would on the camera after you know, two or three hours alone, she'd start ripping up pillows, and we could tell that she was having a great time. But yeah, it was difficult. But once we were able to meet those needs, you know, that behavior went away. So,
Emily 46:18
so specifically, do you have like three things you would tell people who are suddenly going out for two, three hours a day that weren't for the past year?
Jackie 46:29
I have five, huh? Yeah, camera would be one. So I do just and this will be in the show notes. I do have a blog post on preparing your dog. And everybody's like Wall Street Journal has done this. There's this I think pretty good too. If I'm remembering correctly, just that to be sure. But five steps to prepare your dog for post pandemic alone time. I think the first thing I want to emphasize is like there might not be a problem, right? Like you may, you may have no issue, don't worry about it until there is a I'm a big proponent of like, don't fix what's not broken, be prepared, be aware but don't like think your dog is gonna suddenly definitely be freaking out the whole time you're gone. Right? So watch your dog on camera, get really familiar with body language. That's too so watch camera, know the signs doggy language book. There's a free online course for body language on Bravo, dog training.ca, which I love and then start small. So like most most things in life, we're going to, you know, change is easiest when it comes to those small manageable increments. And so if you haven't left your dog home alone in a year, don't go out for six hours all of a sudden, right like take a 10 minute walk with your dog every day, or without your dog sorry, I step out on the porch for a little bit just like start small, right like not a huge don't don't change things suddenly for long durations. If your dogs handling their shorter absence as well. And this really circles back and link to what you guys are doing with your postures and rescues right as gradually build up to longer and longer absences. If your dog seems totally ho hum about these kinds of departures, then continue to fold reality in as you go. And then number five is asked for help. So your dog is clearly uncomfortable with a sudden change in routine. And you are about to have to go back to work, just reach out and we're going to talk about free resources and trainers you can reach out to but if he's not handling it, I would definitely say don't try and go it alone unless you until you kind of dig into some of these resources that we're going to provide.
Libby 48:40
That's so helpful. Is there anything that people do or don't do that can either cause or prevent separation anxiety?
Jackie 48:52
Yeah, good question. So I'm a big proponent of never blaming you explore your dog, let your dog sleep in the bed. All of those are myths, you're not going to cause separation anxiety by snuggling and being affectionate with your dog. So get that out of the way I want people to have 100% permission to sleep in the bed with their dog if they want to. I there's been some research on this and I have a blog post on this as well. I think it was a dog men who did some research on the determined essentially that owner interaction had no impact on dogs developing or having worse separation distress. So I think that as long as you're not putting them in an indestructible crate, potentially using a bark collars to suppress behavior and increase anxiety. Leaving them home alone eight hours a day, five days a week to experience panic attacks for that long that you're not doing anything to cause or make your dog's separation anxiety. At worst, a lot of this stuff is totally out of our control. So I think we absolutely have a shot at a percentage shot at preventing it. By being aware. And especially by being proactive and preparing puppies, and dogs who are new to our home for being left alone. I don't think we can totally control which dogs will develop separation anxiety, just like with any other behavior problem, like aggression, fear, noise phobia, right? Like we, we can do our best to be proactive and practice prevention and socialize properly. And we can have a dog leg who's been with us their whole life and has had no problems being left home alone. But there are so many variables that are out of our control. So genetics, medical problems, aging, unavoidable routine changes learning history. So if my dog developed it next week, um, I couldn't have done anything to prevent that. Right. So
Libby 51:02
that's, that's good to hear. Because I, you know, I guess there's like a rumor or myth that, oh, when you come home, you shouldn't greet your dog. Because if you do, you're gonna cause separation anxiety. And that always just feels so wrong to me like not to say hello to my dog when I walk in the door.
Jackie 51:18
Yeah, no, no, you can totally say hello. Party. Yeah, we party when we come in the door. So
Emily 51:27
Well, this was amazing. I feel like I learned so much from you in this one hour.
Libby 51:32
Is there anything else we didn't cover that you want to touch on?
Emily 51:37
Sure. Well, let's see. I love that you have free resources for people who are struggling with this, perhaps don't have it in their budget to hire a CSAT. Can you tell us more about free resource resources that are out there?
Jackie 51:52
Yeah. So this is this is the question. This is the most important one of the most important questions because it is expensive to work one on one intensive training with a with a certified trainer, I know that and so I am doing my absolute best to get as much information out there on social media as I can for people. So in the show notes, there are going to be some links, but I'll just briefly kind of go over them. So social links for my Instagram and Facebook, where I'm posting a lot of content about do's and don'ts and blogs and things that are helpful that will guide you on your journey. There's also this really wonderful free Facebook support group with like 40,000 people or something. And it's called Dog separation anxiety training support with Julian Naismith. And so I highly recommend people check that out if they're want something totally free. The other things I'd recommend is checking out Malena de martini.com/blog, sub threshold training.com/blog And then believe in your dot dog slash blog, which is my blog as well so three blogs where you can find tons of information about this behavior challenge. Julie Naismith also has a podcast they're very short, like 510 minute episodes. That link will be in the show notes to a couple of books, separation anxiety and dogs next generation treatment protocols, which is Milena de Martini his most recent book on separation anxiety, training and treatment. Julie Naismith be right back book, which is on Amazon, there will be a link there as well. There is also an almost done, there's a lot of great resources out here. There is the Heroes Club, which is created by Julian Naismith and sub threshold training, which is a subscription service where you get a training app and you get a membership to a Facebook group where you get access weekly to zoom calls with trainers, I think it's $117 for three months, which is a really great deal. And you get an app where you set your dog's baseline and and then the app creates training plans for you that you can go through which gradually will push dropper stick based on how your dog did an app on its own, I think is great, but without that human piece, it's a little imperfect. So that's why I love that you get that access to the Facebook support group as well, where there's trainers like constantly providing feedback and watching your videos and doing zoom calls. So that's a great option to the last one is Milena de martinis mission possible course which is a DIY separation anxiety training course where you would do it you know, online watching videos that she's created to walk you through training so, so those are those are some good ones.
Emily 54:50
Yeah, that's great. That course is $100 and it seems like it's worth every penny. If you're if you're struggling with this.
Libby 54:57
Thank you so much, Jackie for speaking with us. Today, I learned a lot. I know I've learned a lot. Our listeners are going to learn a lot. So we really, really appreciate it.
Jackie 55:07
So it was so nice. Thank you guys for everything you do for people and their dogs. You're amazing.
Libby 55:15
Thanks for tuning in. If you liked this episode, don't forget to rate and review. It helps other folks like you find the show. To find out more about our programming and adoptable rescue dogs, you can visit summit dog rescue.org thanks to Mike pesci for the original music and to Alex Lee Ammons and for the love media for graphics production and editing. See you soon on pod to the rescue.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai