Author archive: Terrie Hayward

What is separation anxiety in dogs?

Separation anxiety in dogs is a really difficult behavior problem for both the animal and their caregivers. Separation Anxiety often leaves people feeling isolated and alone. When it comes to dog separation anxiety it is not the doggie being insolent or vengeful or angry or bored; rather, separation anxiety is a panic disorder.

The dog is actually, for lack of a technical term, “freaked out” when being left home alone or not having access to a person or people. Unfortunately, this dog behavior disorder is really difficult, not only from the point of view that we’re watching the dog genuinely suffer from the behaviors that they end up displaying as a result of separation anxiety, but also having the people feeling so disconnected with struggling with this issue.

The pet guardians feel isolated, and frequently they feel like they can’t leave the house for fear of what will happen. Also, they feel like maybe nobody quite understands because oftentimes there’s a lot of anecdotal information around separation anxiety, which is an attempt to be helpful but often isn’t something that’s going to help them to arrive at a resolution. To be certain, separation anxiety is a challenging behavior to work with.

What is separation anxiety in dogs defined?

Specifically, separation anxiety in dogs is a panic disorder. It is when a dog feels stressed, anxious, and fearful about being left home alone and or being left without access to a person or people. True separation anxiety is actually more rare, which is a good thing. Oftentimes what it is that we’re talking about and witnessing in dogs is isolation distress.

Under the significant umbrella term of “separation anxiety” in dogs, isolation distress is when a dog feels comfortable as long as there’s a human body present. With true separation anxiety, we’re talking about a situation where a dog is only comfortable if there’s one specific person present.

How do most caregivers find out that their dog has separation anxiety?

Oftentimes, caregivers might find out that their dog is suffering from separation anxiety by way of puzzling things out. Frequently, there may be complaints from neighbors about noise, about vocalizations, and continuous barking. Also, they might have gone to the vet because their dog would have broken out of a crate or done some other type of self-injurious behavior.

Alternatively, the pet parents might go to the vet because their dog has ingested something due to destructive behavior in their absence. It’s not uncommon for an anxious dog that has been left alone to perhaps chew a piece of a wall.

So it’s a collection of behaviors that lead us to look at what separation anxiety in dogs truly is, which again, it is a panic disorder. In terms of how to find out, a veterinarian (or vet behaviorist) is the one who actually can make the diagnosis about if the dog is specifically suffering from separation anxiety.

Why is separation anxiety in dogs such a difficult behavior to treat effectively?

Separation Anxiety in any dog is so difficult because people are often feeling immensely isolated. Frequently any type of trip out of the house corresponds with some sense of guilt at leaving the dog at home feeling so anxious, as expressed by their body language and oftentimes barking or other types of vocalization. It can feel frustrating because perhaps they have tried to put their dog in a crate, to crate train, without effect—other than the dog breaking out of the crate.

Oftentimes we frequently find confinement issues exist co-morbidly with separation anxiety. As such, we may have a dog that is not only suffering from a panic attack at being left home alone, but now they’re in an enclosed space, and we haven’t addressed the underlying issue, which is the excessive anxiety.

Unfortunately, when a dog suffers from separation anxiety, it can feel isolating and make people feel alone. Friends and family, while providing good intentional advice, it may not be good advice that helps them arrive at a solution and a situation where the dog is able to relax when alone.

Along with the sadness and frustration, the pet parents may be suffering financially from having to replace destroyed items in their home, they may be at risk of having to move out of their home if there have been noise complaints, or again, if there’s destruction happening in a rental situation.

For all of these reasons, separation anxiety in dogs is something that’s really, really trying for both the human and the animal involved. For these reasons, it’s also beneficial to work with someone who is a professional and who specializes in working with cases of dogs suffering from separation anxiety. Engaging a certified separation anxiety trainer will also provide the guardian someone in their corner who can cheerlead and help walk them step by step on working on protocols to help the dog to feel more comfortable when they’re by themselves.

Why is separation anxiety in dogs such a tough behavior to unravel or fix?

Separation anxiety in dogs is really difficult because oftentimes people may approach either a dog trainer or veterinarian with complaints about the behaviors that the pup is exhibiting. For example, barking or howling nonstop for hours on end or they may be complaining about the destruction that’s happening or elimination– urination and defecation inside of the house.

And it may be only after further investigation that we realize these things are happening only when the dog is home alone or without access to a person. Therefore, sometimes puzzling out the fact that all of these behaviors, the collection of behaviors that we’re talking about, these unwanted behaviors are actually pointing back to the underlying issues that we need to address which is the separation anxiety, the anxiety of being home alone, or again, unable to access a person.

Are there different levels to separation anxiety, such as, moderate or severe?

We can categorize separation anxiety in dogs in terms of mild, moderate, and severe. However, the categorization only helps in terms of thinking about what people are able to recognize.

For example, most trainers can quickly identify a case of more moderate to severe separation anxiety, based on the level and frequency of destruction that we’re seeing when the dog is home alone. Whereas, if we’ve got a case of more mild or moderate separation anxiety, oftentimes, we first need to rule out other potential causes.

For example, if we have a younger dog or even a dog that’s not that young, we want to make sure that we’re not talking about boredom. Moreover, we want to make sure again, in the case of a younger dog or a puppy, that we’re not talking about puppy behaviors, i.e., is the dog chewing because they’re teething, or are they chewing because of anxiety?

Of course, our first step is to rule out any potential medical reason for the underlying cause. Again, if the dog is chewing something, we want to make sure that there’s not an irritant in their mouth. We want to make sure that it’s not a medical reason for the behavior with regard to mild or moderate separation anxiety. Also, if there’s barking going on, we would want to rule out if the dog is barking for attention, again, for some medical reason, versus the underlying cause has been anxiety.

If the dog is going to the bathroom in the house, we would want to rule out whether house training is an issue. So if house training is in place, and the dog doesn’t have accidents outside of the alone time, then we again would want to explore a little bit more and make sure that the reason for the behavior is due to anxiety versus a lack of training.

In your professional capacity as a certified separation anxiety trainer, what is the worst case of separation anxiety that you have come across?

Often I think people consider a worst-case scenario in terms of visually what we can observe, a.k.a., some severe destruction. There are the dogs who have literally eaten through a crate and escaped oftentimes injuring either their paws or teeth in doing so. I had a client whose dog had such severe separation anxiety that he ate the doorframe, and therefore, the dog was able to escape from the home.

Again, this was solely as a result of the anxiety associated with separation disorder.

On the other hand, I’ve encountered clients who may not have demonstrated that outward same level of, for example, destruction, but they’ve been suffering from their dog having this type of anxiety for many, many years. And I would consider that continued repetition of the unwanted behavior as a result of the chronic stress associated to be a really difficult case as well.

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We often see people seeking help for behavioral issues in online forums. Just as frequently folks may jump in looking to help with advice on how to approach the situation, stop the behavior, or otherwise address the issue.

However, there is an important step that needs to happen first. This first step is to understand why the unwanted behavior is occurring. Until we comprehend the reason for the behavior we cannot begin to sort out an action plan to change it.

Before a behavior modification plan or other random ideas can or should be put into play the first step is to figure out the options for the cause of the undesired behavior.

RULE OUT MEDICAL

A trip to the vets can help to determine if there is any possible medical reason for the behavior that your dog is exhibiting. Pain, discomfort, change in vision or hearing, or other medical conditions can cause an animal to behave differently. Sometimes these behaviors seem to be reactive, aggressive, or dangerous. As such, it’s key to be certain that the animal isn’t suffering from something physically wrong which could be causing the unwanted behavior.

TRAINING ISSUE

Once you have checked with your veterinarian the next step is to see if there is a possible training issue. Does your dog really understand where to use the bathroom? Is he old enough to be able to have bladder control for the duration of time that he’s left alone? What has been your reaction when he used the bathroom outside? An important consideration is to make sure that your dog has adequately been taught what the behavior is, where you want it to occur, and how to generalize the behavior to whenever you need it to happen. Reinforcement based training avoids dangerous side effects and can help you to effectivley seek your training goals.

ATTENTION SEEKING

Another reason that behavior occurs might be to seek attention.  Dr. Susan Friedman notes, “what’s the function” of the behavior? For example, while pawing you seemingly relentlessly may be annoying, if it elicits your attention it might be “working” for your dog. If your dog is seeking interaction with you and his behavior garners that interaction you might have just reinforced the pawing behavior.  If the pawing is repeated you will know for sure. Behaviors that are reinforced are repeated.

FAS

Finally, you want to be sure that your animal’s behavior isn’t due to anxiety. If an animal is fearful, anxious, or stressed (known as “FAS” by FearFree) he might display behavior which is out of the ordinary or undesirable. Working with a professional positive reinforcement trainer to help you to recognize FAS via body language interpretation is key. Once you identify behavior as occuring due to fear, anxiety, or stress you can creat a plan to help your dog to feel more self assured and relaxed. Using techniques such as desensitization and counter conditioning–which work at the dog’s pace and pair scary triggers with things your dog enjoys–can help change his conditioned emotional response (CER) from “reactive” to “relaxed.”

PLAN

After you figure out the reason for the behavior you can then make an appropriate plan. You can help teach the animal incompatible or alternative behaviors. You can work to make the “right”or desirable behavior the easy one for the animal using careful management and arrangement of antecedents. You can also help communicate via a clear method of interaction (marker) which behaviors will earn access to things the animal values (reinforcer).

These steps will help you understand, address, and resolve a behavioral issue. Keep them in mind the next time you are faced with a behavior you find concerning and you’ll be able to help your animal (and your household, sanctuary, rescue, or workplace) to feel more comfortable and confident displaying behaviors that work for everyone!

Have you adopted a deaf dog or just found out that the dog that you adopted is deaf? Often people feel anxious, scared, and sad when they realize their dog is deaf. In fact, these emotions are pretty typical. People feel afraid and aren’t quite sure how to proceed. They feel like they are alone and that no one quite understands their current predicament.

Too, they may feel upset that they have found themselves in this situation with a dog without the ability to hear—which they might feel puts them at a disadvantage.

While these emotions are valid I can tell you that sharing your home and life with a deaf dog has many advantages. Thunderstorms, vacuum cleaners, and fireworks won’t cause distress in your house! Additionally, often visual (vs. verbal) cues are more relevant for dogs. That is, if you were to say, “sit” and gesture for your dog to put his bottom on the floor, the version of the cue that he’s actually responding to, were we to test it out, may be more likely the visual option.

So now that you have a deaf dog, where do you begin? Let’s frame our plan via the acronym CALM—Communication, Attention, Life Skills, Modify behavior. You can think of CALM as a way to remember the steps to help you move forward in an order which makes the most sense.

COMMUNICATION

Frequently people believe that you need to start with an official sign language such as ASL (American Sign Language) or BSL (British) or JSL (Japanese). However, the very first step needs to be to establish a communication tool. This means that you want to begin to condition a marker. With hearing animals this often takes the shape of a clicker or a verbal marker like the word, “good.” With a deaf dog the marker would be a visual (or tactile) one—like a “hand flash,” or “thumbs up” sign. Just as with an auditory marker, you need to be sure to pair the marker with something your dog finds reinforcing—every single time. This ensures that the marker retains its value.

ATTENTION

Next, you need to get—and keep–your dog’s attention. You can do this via both teaching a “look-at-me” cue as well as capturing (then shaping duration for) a check-in behavior. This means teaching your deaf dog to look at you as well as “catching” him when he looks at you. You want to make it worthwhile for your dog to make eye contact and you want to communicate that continued and periodic eye contact is a reinforcing behaivor for him. Keep in mind that behaviors that are reinforced are repeated, so you should reinforce eye contact frequently and consistently.

LIFE SKILLS

Now that you have an effective way to let your dog know when he performs behaviors that you like and want to see more of, plus he’s checking in with you regularly, you can begin to work on some key, important skills to help him navigate life in your home. Building block behaviors like targeting, where he touches a part of his body to a target, and stationing, where he learns to relax, calmly in a particular spot are important skills that you can begin to teach and reinforce early and often.

MODIFY BEHAVIORS

Finally, now that both your dog’s (as well as your own) skill sets are continuing to grow you might encounter some behaviors that you would prefer not continue. In this case, you first want to figure out why the behavior is present. Then you can sort a plan to change or modify the behavior. You want to rule out any medical cause for the behavior as a first step. After that you can work to teach incompatible or alternative behaviors that you can mark and reinforce. Consistently marking and reinforcing behaviors that you want to see continue helps to build up a strong reinforcement history—and behaviors which have a long history of reinforcement are those that you will see most frequently in the future, too.

Overall, sharing your life with a deaf dog doesn’t need to be difficult and can be very enriching. It really just involves a perspective shift. It is like putting on glasses for the first time where the world goes from fuzzy to clear and you realize it just took a slight adjustment to make things fall into place. The same is true with working with a dog without the ability to hear.

Even if you don’t have a deaf dog in your life, practicing some visual or tactile cues can help to expand your training repertoire and perhaps make your communication more effective overall.

Changing your perspective to using non-auditory communication and becoming more fluid and comfortable with communication, attention, life skills, and behavior modification tools will set everyone up for success!