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counter conditioning, desensitization, dog training, patricia mcconnell, positive reinforcement, separation anxiety
I’ve had a recent surge in contacts regarding separation anxiety (SA). If you’ve followed me for a long time you probably remember my post on SA in my personal blog. Warning: my personal blog is personal for a reason. If you’re easily offended, I would skip it if I were you. In that blog, I covered what the disorder is and what it isn’t, and in this post I will hit on some basics for treatment. If you believe your dog is experiencing SA please find a qualified professional to help you.
What is Separation Anxiety? The briefest way for me to describe this disorder is this: it’s an anxiety disorder centered on departures/being alone. What happens is the dog experiences an anxiety attack (if you’ve ever had one yourself, you can sympathize with these poor animals–if you haven’t, just count yourself lucky) when he is left alone. After a few of these (or just one) the dog begins to experience anxiety surrounding departures and triggered by departure cues because he is anticipating the horrendous anxiety attack he experiences once left alone. It’s a vicious cycle because the actual event that caused the first few anxiety attacks (being left) is no longer even relevant because the dog’s anxiety is building long before that happens.
First, identify your dog’s “triggers.â€Â  As mentioned above, dogs with SA begin to experience anxiety surrounding departure cues. These departure cues are referred to as “triggers†and the first stage of treatment is identifying all triggers. You must become an avid student of your dog’s behavior and figure out what the specific triggers are that begin the spiral of anxiety that starts with involuntary stress signals and escalates into life-threatening destructive acts. If your dog has SA, at one point every morning he is calm, and at some point he begins to panic because he knows you are leaving. It is up to you to identify what that point is. Some sample triggers are:
- Owner’s alarm goes off (if you don’t use an alarm on days when you stick around, this can be the first trigger–unfortunate because it is how the day begins).
- Owner puts on makeup
- Owner puts on shoes
- Owner picks up keys
- Owner puts on jacket
- Owner puts coffee into travel cup
- Owner loads car
Now that you’ve identified possible triggers for your dog, list them out in order so that you aware of the order of operations. Each trigger causes more anxiety than the trigger before it, so it is important that we list and rank these triggers.
Then, randomly desensitize your dog to his triggers. That means repeating the triggers at random times throughout the day when you have no intention of leaving. If your dog’s first trigger is when your alarm goes off, set your alarm to go off multiple times a day. If it is you picking up your keys, pick them up and put them down all day long.  Get the point?
Finally, plan a system for counter-conditioning your dog’s triggers. That means giving your dog something amazing (raw marrow bone, hollow bone stuffed with liverwurst, Kong stuffed with crack chicken*, it has to be AMAZING), waiting for him to get really into it, then engaging a trigger. Then take away the good stuff and wait a few minutes before repeating the whole scenario again. Practice this with all triggers until the triggers become less and less anxiety-inducing and more and more pleasant.
The bad news is that while you go about this process you need to keep your dog somewhere else where he doesn’t experience anxiety while you have to be away. This means hiring a dog sitter, taking him to daycare or a boarding kennel, or taking him with you while you modify how he feels about being alone. If you go through the process of treating his disorder while simultaneously leaving him alone every day, causing anxiety attacks, your progress will be slowed dramatically.
The good news is that SA can be treated successfully. Most dogs can learn how to hang out alone if the treatment is done correctly.
Most people have never seen the spectacle that is a dog show. But if you’d like to, and you’re on the Front Range, this weekend is the show you’ll want to see. I like it because it’s got it all; agility, conformation, obedience, rally, and shopping (the best dog stuff shopping all year!). I compete in agility every year, because conformation’s not my thing for many reasons, and agility always trumps obedience for me. My dogs and I always enjoy this agility trial because the arena is big and luxurious with ample crating, and it’s four days of playing in the dirt, not just two or three which is standard. Lots of competitors from out of state come out to this show and I really enjoy watching all the teams we don’t normally see. If you want to attend as a spectator, check out this link for information.  They have a list of guidelines to follow at dog shows, but here’s mine: Also, if you go to the show, be sure to say hi to my friend Sasha Foster at her Canine Fitness Zone booth!
As promised, I am going to deliver something important today; a few thoughts on what I feel is one of the most important skills to teach a dog–how to respect the space of others. Dogs that have no respect for the body space of others (humans or other dogs) are no fun to live with, yet they are everywhere. I am convinced there are breed tendencies involved, with herding and toy breeds being the most aware of body space (for different reasons–herding dogs deal with body space in their job of moving stock around, and toy dogs work hard to avoid being stepped on) and retrievers being the least aware of it. There are exceptions, of course, to everything, so please don’t write me a comment about how YOUR golden has more respect for space than your beardie. First, let’s talk about what I mean by “respect for body space.â€Â Think of it this way: everyone has an invisible “bubble†surrounding them. When I move toward my dog and bump my bubble up against his, he should “feel†that and move back. He should not come into my bubble without permission. Intrusions of the bubble include; jumping up uninvited, pushing you over on the couch or in the bed, nudging your elbow when you are eating/typing/reading/etc., and it extends into stealing anything (toy, food, etc.) out of your hands. The trouble starts when people do not understand that all of these things are connected. If you pet your dog when he nudges your arm but get upset when he jumps on you upon arrival, you are contradicting yourself. Understand that you must either tolerate physical pushiness across the board, or you must be the “pushiness†police and never allow any form of it to occur. On the topic of police, using physical corrections on your dog to try to eliminate body space issues is the most counter-productive thing you can do.  Dogs that are manhandled are the pushiest of all the dogs I have met. I can instantly tell upon meeting a new dog is he is being physically corrected at home, and almost all cases I see of over-the-top body space issues (this usually looks like this: dog not only jumps on the person but bites at her and gets wildy–but aggressively–playful without solicitation) the dog is being physically, sometimes harshly, corrected.  I’ve said it before, and I will say it again: getting physical with your dog only invites him to become physical with you. So how do you deal with this? First, take a good manners class that focuses on impulse control. Most dog training classes do not teach any sort of impulse control, so the ones that are focusing on it will advertise it up front. When your dog learns how to control himself around things he wants (like food and toys) he can start to learn to respect your space, too. But this won’t happen overnight. This is a video of Patricia McConnell (one of my earliest influences in dog training) teaching “stay†using body blocking. I do not teach the stay cue this way, but this is how I introduce dogs to body-blocking. I do exactly what you see in the video, I just don’t ask for a sit or a stay, in fact I don’t use any words at all. Once your dog gets the concept you can start to use body blocking when your dog pushes into your space in any way. As soon as he backs out of your space, reward him with praise or, preferably, the thing he was seeking in the first place (like attention). This was just the tip of the iceberg on body space. For a deeper understanding of body space and dogs, sign up for my Fido Focus class at Loveland Dog Club. Not sure how to sign up but want to? Leave me a comment and I will contact you privately!
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