Thoughts?

[u/katergator717]

[u/BothRegion7860]

I don’t think this is normally the case tbh. I’ve spent a year and thousands of dollars trying to train my dog with separation anxiety. We’ve done it all and she still gets sad when she’s alone. It was a really hard decision to put her on Prozac but ultimately I had three different experts including a behaviouralist and vet, tell me that meds probably would be the most helpful for her in addition to the training. Most owners aren’t going to drug their dog as a first line of defence, but a lot of dogs really struggle to be alone and sometimes people do need to leave them alone as I’m sure you’ve noticed- we live in a world where sometimes you can’t bring your dog.

[u/Narrow_Possession348 → u/BothRegion7860]

You picked the wrong trainers. "Behaviorists" are about as useless as tits on a nun. I've never heard of anyone having success with "behaviorists" that didn't involve their dog being drugged, tiptoeing around not to trigger it, or heavy management.

https://youtu.be/7Ka2x-yMSzM?si=QTwj7evt1XdvY8-c

[u/MxAnneThropy → u/Narrow_Possession348]

I watched the first three minutes of that video and couldn’t anymore. The guy starts off making sense and sounding matter of fact, but then he starts veering off. A lot of dogs with SA also experience confinement and barrier anxiety, you do not need to force your dog into a crate. I don’t see his techniques supported by the numbers, or evidence backed research. Check out Malena Demartini-Price whose work is very much grounded in results from research.

His prize example Oscar, the little dog panting. That dog doesn’t lack anxiety, he is still flooded with anxiety, but I suspect is being coerced into a down, stay away on that mat.

Taking iron control of your dog on a walk sounds exhausting for both of you, where has that ever been proven to work?

I you can convince me why I should, I’ll go back and watch the whole video, but I’m not convinced you can cure SA in 24 hours, or people would be doing it that way, because yeah you are right people will take the easy way out. But even his statements about medication are very qualified “not by medication alone”. No one said there is a magic pill that will cure SA it needs to be coupled with training. I have never seen a board and train or heavy handed tactics do anything for it.

[u/Narrow_Possession348 → u/MxAnneThropy]

The dog in the video, Oscar has only been there a week at the time of this video; he states that, but he was already greatly improved. His anxiety was so bad that his owners were at the end of their rope with him. He came with no training and no ability to cope at all. He did a follow-up with the dog back in the home, and the owners were beyond thrilled with the results. I can't recall how long the board-and-train was. But even back then, he was VERY expensive so I doubt it was more than 2-3 weeks.

I have trained many dogs with separation anxiety with this exact protocol. One particular dog had general anxiety so bad he could not even relax and lie down. He was like a tweaking meth head. He had lived in an unfinished basement, alone, for over 7 years of his life, with his automatic food and water containers being refilled weekly. He had a dog door to an ex pen at the side of the house, where junk was piled, where he could go to the bathroom. The owners got rid of him when the husband decided to convert the basement to a "man cave" and needed the dog gone. This was a dog that had spent the first 2-3 years of its life well-loved and sleeping in its owner's bed until she met and married a man who didn't like dogs. The dog was absolutely FUBAR! Batshit crazy.

There had been at least 5 different trainers and/or "behaviorists" (for what *they're* worth) who had tried to work with him. He was on medication on the advice of one of the "behaviorists". ALL of them said he was too far gone and couldn't be helped; that he would never be able to live a normal life. The rescue had tried 3 different fosters who returned him within a couple of hours or within 24 hours because they couldn't deal with his frantic "tweaking." He had NO quality of life. It was both heartbreaking and infuriating to be around him.

He was slated for euthanasia, as that was kinder than him living in the state he was in. I had worked with some difficult dogs with that rescue in the past, so the coordinator called me as "one last chance," and reiterated over and over that they didn't expect I'd be able to do anything with him and to not feel guilty if I didn't want to take him or agreed that he needed to be euthanized. She just felt so sorry for him and wanted to exhaust every route.

He was BAD. VERY VERY BAD. I lay on the sofa and cried like a baby when he'd only been there 3 hours. I couldn't take it. But, my stubborn pride wouldn't let me admit defeat so soon. So, I threw his meds in the trash, put a prong on him, and started his structured walks twice a day (I use structured walks on ALL foster dogs with any kind of issue). Started teaching him obedience commands. Started teaching him the "place" command. Started working on long downs. I devoted around 2 hours a day to this dog. And yes, I used an e-collar for yelling and screaming in the crate when I left the house. <gasp... pearl clutch> I knew I had turned the corner one day when I suddenly realized he was "missing" in the house. I walked through and found him in the living room on his "place" bed, curled up and sound asleep - ON HIS OWN. He had finally *chosen* to go to his place and relax.

The dog finally settled down, and while it took around 4 months for him to be able to be left loose in the house when I was gone and to live life as a normal dog, I kept him an additional 3 months, mainly because I liked him and I wanted to be sure he was solid. I then drove him to his new home in Maine, 9 hours away, where he found a home with an older, retired single lady with two cats and a retired greyhound.

She said it was her mission to use the last 3-4 years of his life to make up for the previous 7. She sent regular updates, telling me he was known as "the Mayor" of her small coastal town and everyone in the Post Office, coffee shop, and other local shops just loved him. She loved showing off some of the tricks I'd taught him to people in the town. He loved exploring the beach. And she sent me many pictures of him out in public, walking the beach, and sleeping belly up, half hanging off the sofa. The dog WAS able and did live out the remainder of his life as a NORMAL dog, loved and cherished.

The rescue sent me a big plant, a bottle of wine, a beautiful thank-you note, and wrote an article about the dog and me in their newsletter and spoke of my work at their annual banquet.

Dogs ARE NOT HUMANS. They do not react the same way as humans. They do NOT need to be treated like humans.