April 23, 2024 • 33 mins
Separation anxiety is a very real phobia for many companion dogs. Being alone is
downright terrifying for them. And that makes living with these dogs so very stressful for
pet parents.
This is the first of a 2-part series discussing Separation Anxiety and its treatment.
My guest is my own coach, teacher, and mentor when it comes to helping others find hope
with separation anxiety.
Dr. Moira Hechenleitner graduated from Mayor University College of Veterinary Medicine
in 2007, in Santiago, Chile. She is a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT), with a
postgraduate in Animal-Assisted Therapy.
Dr. Hechenleitner is a founding board member of the Chilean Association of Professional
Dog Trainers (APDT Chile) and has spent the last 15 years offering consultation services
for pet guardians and teaching courses to dog professionals. She is a speaker on the
topic of Separation Anxiety, giving seminars internationally in English and Spanish.
She currently resides in Noank, Connecticut and helps dogs and their families from all over
the world overcome separation anxiety. Learn more about her educational programs and
support for professionals and pet parents at www.separationanxietydog.com.
Among what you will learn from listening:
What is separation anxiety?
How does separation anxiety differ from confinement distress?
Are there causes of separation anxiety?
When you bring home a puppy or rescue dog, how can you acclimate to alone time?
Is there hope?
Come back to the second of this 2-part series with Dr. Hechenleitner as we talk about the
treatment of separation anxiety.
Thanks for listening!
As a reminder, learn more about Dr. Hechenleitner and her support for dog owners and
dog professionals at www.separationanxietydog.com.
Learn more about me and my dog training at www.SoMuchPETential.com.
downright terrifying for them. And that makes living with these dogs so very stressful for
pet parents.
This is the first of a 2-part series discussing Separation Anxiety and its treatment.
My guest is my own coach, teacher, and mentor when it comes to helping others find hope
with separation anxiety.
Dr. Moira Hechenleitner graduated from Mayor University College of Veterinary Medicine
in 2007, in Santiago, Chile. She is a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT), with a
postgraduate in Animal-Assisted Therapy.
Dr. Hechenleitner is a founding board member of the Chilean Association of Professional
Dog Trainers (APDT Chile) and has spent the last 15 years offering consultation services
for pet guardians and teaching courses to dog professionals. She is a speaker on the
topic of Separation Anxiety, giving seminars internationally in English and Spanish.
She currently resides in Noank, Connecticut and helps dogs and their families from all over
the world overcome separation anxiety. Learn more about her educational programs and
support for professionals and pet parents at www.separationanxietydog.com.
Among what you will learn from listening:
What is separation anxiety?
How does separation anxiety differ from confinement distress?
Are there causes of separation anxiety?
When you bring home a puppy or rescue dog, how can you acclimate to alone time?
Is there hope?
Come back to the second of this 2-part series with Dr. Hechenleitner as we talk about the
treatment of separation anxiety.
Thanks for listening!
As a reminder, learn more about Dr. Hechenleitner and her support for dog owners and
dog professionals at www.separationanxietydog.com.
Learn more about me and my dog training at www.SoMuchPETential.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Separation anxiety is a very real phobia for many companion dogs.
Being alone is downright terrifying if that makes living with
them very stressful for pet parents too. If you're one
of those people, you know, just daily activities can be
really difficult.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So is there any hope? Well, that is a great question.
Joining me today is my own coach, teacher, and mentor
when it comes to helping others find hope. Doctor Moya
hech Enleitner is a veterinarian and a certified separation anxiety
trainer with postgraduate and animal assistant therapy. She's a founding
(00:47):
board member of the Chilean Association of Professional Dog Trainers.
Moya speaks internationally, so I'm just thrilled that she had
a few minutes to spend with me, and I'm hoping
that this discussion will be really enlightening and helpful for
you too. Hi, Marea, it's so good to be with
(01:08):
you today.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes, thank you so much for having me. Thank you
for the invitation.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I love.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
When I got your email, it was just I'm going
to be able to seek eat that. It's been a
long time and has.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Been for those who don't know, which is everybody here.
The way that I got to know more is I
participated in a shadowing program that you offer, and it
was so hugely helpful for me, and especially with a
case that we can mention later on in the interview,
(01:41):
but it was a severe case of separation anxiety that
turned out very successful, and I so credit you for
helping with that. It was just awesome. So I think
you're awesome and everything that you do, and I'm so
excited that we get to share some of your knowledge
with the world today. Thanks again for being here.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thank you so much for your kind words. I mean,
it wasn't only it was you. I just you know,
the messenger and I just provide the tools. It was
all new, and I did enjoy that shot on program
quite a lot. I think it's one of my favorite programs,
you know, within all the different variety of courses and
programs I have in my library or in my platform,
(02:24):
because it's so real, right, and it really pouches on
what's really going on with a case and how to
handle each part of the way. So I really enjoyed it,
and I really enjoyed the group that we created and
there with all the AT and B so it felt
I was a little bit sad when we finish. That's
why I'm so happy to be able to be here
(02:45):
with you today.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Let's dive in. Okay, So the whole topic of my
podcast is lives touched by pets. So we have to
start with you telling us about a pet that has
touched your life.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
There's so many, and I remember were you mentioning this
ahead of time? And I was like, I already know
who to truth and I really don't. So I'm sorry
if I like rumble a little bit. But I think
that every bit I have had has has been part
of a different stage of my life, and it has
(03:19):
been perfect because they have taught me so much about
that stage I'm living. And I would say that this too,
so my current dog and my cat you can see
there at the screen in the screen. I think they've
have touched me as an adult quite a lot because
they have taught me patience, not because they do something
(03:41):
wrong in any way, but because of how they behave
and how they face life. They have allowed me to
observe how patient they are, how accepting off their circumstances,
their life circumstances, how they don't really dwell much with
whatever is going wrong or not going perfect, and they
just they just stay present and they're grateful for whatever
(04:04):
is that happens in the day today. And I think
that is such a huge lesson that I have been
absorbing or learning in my forties that I guess I
would have to choose them.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think that's the most beautiful gift that pets give
us in life, and we give it back to them too.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
There's a reason why everybody who has a pad is
so touched through the hard times and the good times
that they add such just a different quality to our lives.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So, yeah, are sometimes to keep up with everything that
they give up, I believe, you know. I think it's
a day, you know, they daily job of really working
on giving that back to them. Because we are so
busy in our lives nowadays, are so feasted that we
go like, we don't stop, you know, we go on on,
(05:01):
and we forget to take over either and observe them
and mirror their behavior a little bit more So, I
think that it's a nice reminder to have on an
everyday basis that we cancelo down that we can enjoy
the present moment, and that data serve us to pay
attention to them a little bit too, and not only
to strike to be efficient, you know, every second of
(05:24):
every day, and.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Even when they've got some sort of whether it's a
mental health issue or behavioral issue, it's so important to
take a breath and to look at the good things
and that the good things that you bring to each
other's lives, and that's so important. Separation anxiety is definitely
(05:46):
one of those that we hear a lot from different
people talking about that, and so this is such an
important topic. I think that's going to benefit so many people.
What is separation anxiety? Separation distress exactly and easy words.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Separation a society is being afraid of being left alone.
But this is not a regular fear. It's something that
we could call an irrational fear. What does that mean?
What does irrational mean? Fear mean? Excuse me? It's basically
a phobia and why do we call it like that
(06:24):
and not just a regular fear. Because one kdoga has
been exposed to being left alone and has been able
to confirm that their life isn't endanger, they aren't able
to stop creating or having a response, that means that
they're threatened by it. So in other words, what happens
(06:45):
is that every time they're exposed to it, no matter
that they have confirmed that is not a life threatening situation,
they still punt, they still elicit or display a stress
response when they're facing the situation. So what happens is
that over time, when they're exposed to this, they escalate
in terms of the symptoms or the signs or the
(07:05):
behaviors that they are displaying, and they are not going
to likely adapt to the situation even if you expose
them to them on a daily basis, because they don't
know how to use those scoping mechanisms that the dog
without separation anxiety would be able to you.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Is there a difference between separational anxiety or distress and
confinement distress?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
First, I think it's important to sort of go through
the different terminology right because there's a lot of talk
about separation the stress and separational anxiety. To me, those
two are the same. I wouldn't really separate them. They
both mean that the dog for them, that being left
alone is an aversive stimulus, so they can't handle it.
(07:51):
It's completely it's a passion and basically for them to
be left alone. And on the other hand, we have
separation related behavior. Separational related behaviors are behaviors that the
dog displays when they are left alone, but they can
have multiple different causes or root causes or underlying motivations.
(08:11):
Because a dog could bark because he saw someone passing by,
or a dog who could destroy things in the house
because they have been left in wone for a long
time and they're very bored, or their puppies and they
don't really know what is a toling, what is they
shouldn't be eating or we don't like them to eat right,
And they could also be suffering from separation anxiety or
(08:33):
separation distress, which I would consider saying thing, and they're
actually panicking because they are left alone, so the situation
is a verson to them. That's on onehand, I just
wanted to clarify because I feel like there's so many
terminology that we use and we haven't really come to
an agreement as a field to really label all of
these things in a unifying way, and so it tends
(08:55):
to become very confusing for a dog guardian when they
are trying to find out how to help their dogs.
Having said all of that, there is another underlying motivasion
to display all of these behaviors when left alone, which
is confinement issues or confinement distress. And confinement distress is
basically very similar to the definition I gave about separational society,
(09:20):
but in this case isn't necessarily about being left alone.
It's about being confined. So for that particular dog, what's
subversive is actually being confined. Now, when you add to
that another stressor such as, for example, being left alone,
the dog tends to react even more because the situation
comes even more uncomfortable. You're adding fuel to this big tongue.
(09:42):
You know, your fuel until the situation explodes. The difference, though,
is that if a dog only suffers from confinement issues
and not separation on siety, if you put that dog
you need a dog alone in a house with full
rate of the house, without confining the dog, the dog
will likely not react at all. And I think they
(10:05):
do at the beginning the first few times you're exposing
him to that situation because they don't really know or
they have never experienced it. I react a few minutes slightly,
but you will start seeing a cur that basically starts
dying down. So the intensity of those signs starts decreasing,
(10:25):
the frequency of the sign starts spreading, and they eventually
are able to settle down fully and completely, which separational
siding dog wouldn't be able to do. Having settle of this,
it is important to keep in mind that there is
a high correlation between confinement issues and separation anxiety. So
you can seeple and that's when the situation gets a
(10:47):
little bit trickier and actually most oparational side and dogs
will also saw her from confinement issues. So what does
this look like when you do on a lot of
time of set which means that you're gonna need the
dog alone and you're gonna record or you're gonna watch
online to see the dog's behavior and body language and
science and symptoms. What you're going to see is that
(11:11):
if the dog is free in the house, the signs
or the behaviors look a little bit less intense than
if you were leaving a dog on fine. So you
can do two assessments and you're going to see the
difference and intensity. And in general, we tend to treat
when we implement our training program, we tend to do
it with a dog for in the house to avoid
(11:32):
that extra challenge of also having the dog in a
situation or in a position that is not setting him
up for success. But it is important to rule this
out because many cases come to me thinking that the
separation anxiety, and when you test the difference and you
assess the dog for in the house, you realize that
it wasn't separation anxiety at all and its confining issues.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So what you're saying, separation anxiety is a true panic exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Hit a lot of situations, such as, for example, for
the pandemic. After the pandemic was kind of war slowly
starting to come back to normal. All of the people
who had adopted dogs during the pandemic, or they hadn't
let their dogs, they're all done alone for quite a while.
What happened was that when they started needing them again,
(12:23):
they would see reactions and reactions that actually looked like
the dog wasn't having a good time. So it wasn't
that the dog was worn just playing around. You could
see that the battle language was suggesting in distress. The
difference though, in many of those cases is that if
you looked at the big picture, you would see that
after a few minutes or over time, So from one
(12:45):
day to another, the dog who start actually relaxing progressively
more and more and more, rather than maintaining the intensity
day after day or increasing the intensity of the reaction.
That means that those dogs were actually not adapted to
be left alone. But they didn't have separation anxiety because
(13:08):
they were able to understand that this wasn't a life
threatening situation. Was they were exposed to it once and
once they figured that out, they were Okay, you know what,
I guess maybe this wasn't super fun the first time,
but I guess I'm all right, I'm not gonna die. Oh,
I'm just going to relax. A separational society dog. Of course,
we saw a lot of those as well during the
(13:29):
pandemic and after wouldn't be able to do that every
time they left they are left alone. It would be
like the first ever experienced right where they don't know
if the situation is gonna kill them more now, and
so they continue to replicate the saying responsible.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So that brings me to another point is that are
there certain traits of dogs that are more prone to
separation anxiety than others? And is it something that people
can cause by not leaving their dog alone?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The truth is that we haven't found a specific trade
or a common trade that could need us to think
that this type of dogs will probably have a separation
a society. There's a lot of club and there's a
lot of comments. You so I get a lot of
that from guardians can come to me and they said, yeah,
(14:25):
I know that this I adopted this breed of dog
and I knew that, you know, most of them have
separational society. That's not necessarily true. Any dog can have.
Sometimes you get like loaws of a certain breed and
a lot of cases of the same one, and you
start wondering, and then you get like a completely different
breed for a long time, and sometimes you talk to
(14:46):
your colleagues and you realize that you know, it's just
like certain different groups of dogs that come to you
and they are completely different type of dog, like case
Loan that they're working with with different types of So unfortunately, no,
basically we say that this has a genetic predisposition and
appear with environmental factors, specific environmental factors they could trigger
(15:14):
the onset of separation anxiety, and those environmental factors are
usually the line of change. So anything that could be
traumatizing to the dog, or it could be something that
really sort of you know, take them out of balance,
could trigger this onset if they already had a genetic
(15:37):
predisposition or separation anxiety. That's how we believe at this point,
and that means it doesn't really matter what the guardian does.
If the dog doesn't have that predisposition, it's not going
to happen. So there is nothing that a guardian can
do that will cause separation anxiety, and that is something
(15:59):
very important to consider and to communicate two dog guardians
because most of them come to us feeling very guilty,
if feeling like they're doing something wrong either in their
day to bay routines or rituals, or that they did
something wrong in the past that if they hadn't done,
(16:20):
the dog would be okay, and that isn't correct or
is an accurate. It could have happened anyway. Of course,
you can certain things to maybe increase the likelihood of success,
but that doesn't mean that you have any guarantees that
this is not going to happen at some point in
the dog stock, so that that really releases the distress
and the guilt that many guardians have surrounding this wow.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So so let me pause there, because that is such
an important point that people feel so guilty about their
dog that has separation anxiety, but the reality is they
didn't cause the separation anxiety. That's huge weight off people's
(17:03):
shoulders to think about that.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I just have seen so many people wandering and wondering
what they did wrong to come to realize that no
matter what they would have done, that things would have
happened anyway. Many cases that I have seen, the dog
already had separation anxiety before the dog was adopted, or
before or even if it's the doc couns my breeder
(17:27):
from the breeding from that place, they already had separation anxiety,
and so or even many just the transitions from one
household to the other maybe cause or triggered the separation anxiety,
but that's not something that they could have prevented or
changed in any way. So it's the point. The focus
(17:48):
shouldn't be on one did I did to cause it?
The focus shouldn't be on what can I do to help,
because that's the only thing that's going to take you
out of the situation, rather than dwelling on what could
I have done different? Because you can't change.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That anyway, absolutely focus on what you can't do about
it now and helping with quality of life in the
future too. That's huge and we're going to talk more
about that in just a minute. What about when we
were just talking about when you bring home an animal
from a rescue, or let's say you bring home a
(18:25):
puppy and the puppy showing distress. How can people then
help to acclimate to alone time before it becomes a
major issue.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
The first step would need to make sure if this
has already become a major issue or not, because if
it is separation anxiety, it's not going to get better
over time. So it's very important to diffriendship. What are
we talking about and what is happening that will give
(18:59):
you a better understanding on how you can help your dog.
So my first ask that would be to run a
very short, lone time assessment when you get your dog now.
It is important to consider that if when you just
got your dog, I wouldn't need the dog alone the
next day. I would make sure that you know I'm
(19:22):
a responsible guardian and I take vacation and take a
few days off so I can really give the dog
the time to settle and to understand that this is
their house, because if PA speck about it, just don't
know how to speak human. And no mother, how much
love I want to get this dog, and no matter
how good, how many good intentions I have, and that
(19:45):
I actually want this dog forever, and I will never
let the dog down, and all of those things that
doesn't know. And so imagine if you didn't speak human,
and someone grabs you from one place, takes you to another,
puts you in a room and brings your food. I
close the door, you would think that you are being
kidnapped with kidnapped right or that, or you don't know
(20:05):
what's gonna happen to you, what they're gonna do every
time they open the door. Are they gonna talk to you?
Or the boat court? You just don't know right. Only
time will tell, and only good memories that you start
collecting from the situation will allow you to feel safe.
So the best, the first and most important thing is
to provide predictability and as foundation, so the dog can
(20:26):
feels safe and comfortable in this new place. Once that
has happened. So let's say that takes away till a
few days and the dog feels more comfortable in his
own skin in that place, then I would run a
short alone time, says man. Whether that is recording, you
can leave your phone recording facing the door or wherever
you say your dog is going to be, or you
can have your surveilliance cameras or soon two devices connected
(20:50):
and bring one with you and leave the property. Not
stand upside, just leave the property, drive away or walk
away for fifteen minutes and analyze what you see. If
you see that your dog reacts in any way but
settles quickly or doesn't grab at all, you're in the
right track right and that will mean that you will
(21:12):
face the situation a little bit different. So if you
saw that things looked okay, how do you plan ahead
after that first assessment, The second step would need to
start to eat abstances paly. So I will continue monitoring
because I think it's very important. It allows you not
to really imagine what was happening, but actually knowing. You
(21:35):
know there is subgentive information here that you can analyze
and start monitoring your dog. Curvilliance cameras are pretty cheap
nowadays and assert what happens in the day to day
and the progression of this behavior. When you leave your
dog alone, and if everything is going well, you will
start increasing those times to seek city, your knees, your needs,
(21:55):
excuse me, in your final duration goal. That would be
my first advice in regards to dogs who don't offer
from separation side and are adapting to a new home.
And the second big advice would be to make sure
you are first providing pretty predictable foundation in general, so
(22:18):
your dog knows what to expect of life, because that
really creates comfort. It allows you to heal, to relax,
to trust, to feel safe. And once they have that foundation,
it would be ideal if you start sprinkling more flexibility
in the dog's lave. So sometimes we don't eat it
this time. Sometimes we go out to a place we
(22:39):
hadn't been before. Sometimes we go on a rapeer. Sometimes
we do this. But sprinkles within this realm of predictability
because that will allow the dog to grow, it will
push the dog to the edge of their discomfort, and
it will help to avoid any changes to become traumatizing
(23:02):
in the future, because a dog will live hopefully fifteen years,
so many years, thirteen years, and they are going to
be changes in that dog's life during that time. And
what you want is for none of those changes to
be so traumatizing that the dog handed to this position
to sufferer from separation anxiety for them to trigger it.
If the doglines changes cool the likeli, that is that
(23:25):
nothing is going to touch him to a point to
trigger all of these bad events that we want to only.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
And I get see you with puppies. You know, we
use confinement for management a lot with puppies, and so
that can also come into play with.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
This most definitely, and that makes that adds to the
layer of difficulties. Right, So you have sometimes a separation
aciety dog and that is in itself challenging, But then
you have a dog who is also doesn't get along
with the dogs, and you have a puppy who still
has a learn word to eliminate, and then you have
(24:05):
so all of those things will add up to how
difficult the situation is to appro navigate and also to
the prognosis, not because the treatment will be necessary or
the dog will will make less progress and the training
in itself, but because also these other layers are making
(24:27):
it harder to manage to continue with the training and
so on. So the puppy part is one of them
for sure. What I try to do is first to
determine if the dog is okay being confined or not right,
then that's eas you can do it with the same
style of assessment. If the dog doesn't have separationalciety that
has confinement issues, I would try to choose sense one
(24:51):
to create a confinement place that is as big as possible,
because the bigger it is, the less confined the dog
is going to feel. And at the same time time
to really focus your all your energy on helping that
dog or teaching the dog to be reliable. And I
say quote unquote, because what is reliable but reliable in
(25:11):
the sense that you can't leave the dog says Lee
alone without confinement and the dog is going to be okay,
it's safe and it's not going to do some people
so and rather than focusing on teaching the dog to
be a fine five on five are using all your
energy on that. Why don't you just fogut your energy
and teaching your dog to be okay for in the house.
(25:32):
It will take you three weeks and after that you
can leave your dog for in the house. You can
close certain doors right and you can have a certain
safe proof certain places, but you won't have to be
dwelling on my dog doesn't like the creed, it's okay,
you know, and don't use the cred what was on
the other aspect if the dog has separation on siety.
(25:52):
The cool thing about the training we do is that
we separate the training such little pieces in your watching
all the time, and we're suspending all the types of
absences that it's like a win win because you were
leading a dog all for three seconds, so being free
is not really dangerous because you're watching and it's three seconds,
(26:14):
and over time those three seconds become ten minutes, twenty minutes,
one hour, and the dog learns a consequence to actually
your relaxed during that time. And then you have your
house string dog and you know all of the other
things that you were worrying about. And we're needing to
confine the dogs.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
So finding the largest type of confinement space possible and
teaching just to be okay. One thing I did when
I brought my puppy home and I didn't realize. You know,
he is now on anti anxiety meds, but he had
a lot of anxiety and the creative early on, like
(26:53):
from that very first weekend. I was really committed to
teaching him that is the safest place. It's so safe
in there. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
I would have him up and we'd do fun things
and activities, and when I knew it was tired, I
just you know, I made it very comfortable for him
and sat with him and just there was no pressure.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
He just was learning that this just just feels really
really nice. And he had complete freedom to come out
if he wanted to, and I just made arrangements. I
was not going to leave him in the crate until
we got through that whole process, and it went so
well that, you know what, it was very quickly he
was sleeping through the night. He could sleep in the
(27:37):
living room. I remember that day when I had the
camera on him that I actually walked out of the
house going.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, I did it.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
But I just really made a commitment that I was
really going to work on that and I was not
going to put any pressure on him at all. It
was just about teaching him, you know, this is as
comfortable as bad over on the other side of the room. Man.
So he just came to eleven. To this day, he
still loves being in his creat You.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Mentioned something that I think is key, which is you
progress based on his speed, and you made a promise
that I'm not going to add more. I'm not going
to leave you alone here until you are not comfortable
in this place with me by your side. And I
think that's why things tend to go wrong. Then we
(28:31):
skip that part like I need to leave my doll alone.
I don't want my dog to store my house. I'm
going to put the dog in the crate. And the
dog hasn't really learned to be on a craid. So
you're adding two big things for the dog, like you're
exposing about to those two huge monsters. And yeah, it
likely that is that something is going to go wrong.
(28:52):
And I think that understanding that and also promoting that
so guardians understand that it's okay and they don't feel
guilty about being permissive or too soft with their dogs.
And I'm saying all of this quote unquote because I
believe those things are a thing and right. It is
(29:12):
very important. And I'm just gonna give you one little
example of something that happened to me last few days,
which is I have seen this happen in so many
times where people come to me and they're so overwhelmed
because there's so much going on, and they feel so
guilty that they actually don't want to leave their dog
alone because they don't want their dog to suffer. But
(29:33):
they have read, they have heard that they should be
doing all of these things, so they feel so guilty.
They're pushing it and pushing it in so many levels
that they're completely drowning and overwhelmed. And once you give
them the peace of mind, the permission, and you tell
them you have to leave your dog alone, I mean,
I don't want you to do it, like, please, don't.
(29:54):
It's fine. Your intuition was correct. What's on the point.
Let's side the one thing at a time, and it's
okay to support your dog, to empathize with him, to
give your dog love. It's not bad. You're not hurting
your dog. You shouldn't be harder and harsher and tougher,
all these things that your God does. You are correct.
(30:16):
The relaxation that that gives it's so big that you
start seeing changes happening right away without making any other
adjustments because the person relaxes and they understand that it's
fine and they can take the time they need to
help their dogs. If that makes.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Sense, absolutely one hundred percent. It's just feeling that sense
of relief that oh, okay, I can do that. Yes,
it does a lot. And the humans are stressed too
sometimes a lot of times, you know, when our dogs
are in distress, we are too. It's not easy on
(30:54):
either one of.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Us, and there's so much conflict because we're in distress.
We don't want to see then software. But we have
been told that it's like even like the dog almost
was doing it on purpose, you know, I've been told
that we should be tougher because this is somehow arranged
(31:16):
or you know, like prepare like the dog was really
conspiring to do this. And on the other hand, we
feel like we need to support it because this is horrible.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
This is terrible.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
We don't want to see them software. So it's like
feeding the good wolf and the bad wall. Which one
are you going to feed?
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Right?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
And as as strainers, I'll help you with that and
providing that information and that peace of mind that they're
on the right track, thinking that they should actually support
them and caring for them, and that they are not
doing it on purpose. It's a big intention.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
Well, this has been just so insightful today, and I
hope you've shared so much information that's going to be
helpful for people. Let's dig even deeper and let's do
a part two about how to actually treat separation anxiety
because it is treatable, right, Yeah, So we're gonna talk
(32:12):
about that.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
So please come back for our part two and we're
gonna delve into that subject. Thanks for listening. If you
enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to my podcast, Come
back often, and tell your friends. If I can be
of any help to you and your pet, Please reach
(32:33):
out to me via my website www dot somuchpotential dot
com and for a lot more information, fun and videos,
please follow me so Much Potential on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
(32:54):
See you soon,
Separation anxiety is a very real phobia for many companion dogs.
Being alone is downright terrifying if that makes living with
them very stressful for pet parents too. If you're one
of those people, you know, just daily activities can be
really difficult.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
So is there any hope? Well, that is a great question.
Joining me today is my own coach, teacher, and mentor
when it comes to helping others find hope. Doctor Moya
hech Enleitner is a veterinarian and a certified separation anxiety
trainer with postgraduate and animal assistant therapy. She's a founding
(00:47):
board member of the Chilean Association of Professional Dog Trainers.
Moya speaks internationally, so I'm just thrilled that she had
a few minutes to spend with me, and I'm hoping
that this discussion will be really enlightening and helpful for
you too. Hi, Marea, it's so good to be with
(01:08):
you today.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Yes, thank you so much for having me. Thank you
for the invitation.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
I love.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
When I got your email, it was just I'm going
to be able to seek eat that. It's been a
long time and has.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Been for those who don't know, which is everybody here.
The way that I got to know more is I
participated in a shadowing program that you offer, and it
was so hugely helpful for me, and especially with a
case that we can mention later on in the interview,
(01:41):
but it was a severe case of separation anxiety that
turned out very successful, and I so credit you for
helping with that. It was just awesome. So I think
you're awesome and everything that you do, and I'm so
excited that we get to share some of your knowledge
with the world today. Thanks again for being here.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thank you so much for your kind words. I mean,
it wasn't only it was you. I just you know,
the messenger and I just provide the tools. It was
all new, and I did enjoy that shot on program
quite a lot. I think it's one of my favorite programs,
you know, within all the different variety of courses and
programs I have in my library or in my platform,
(02:24):
because it's so real, right, and it really pouches on
what's really going on with a case and how to
handle each part of the way. So I really enjoyed it,
and I really enjoyed the group that we created and
there with all the AT and B so it felt
I was a little bit sad when we finish. That's
why I'm so happy to be able to be here
(02:45):
with you today.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Let's dive in. Okay, So the whole topic of my
podcast is lives touched by pets. So we have to
start with you telling us about a pet that has
touched your life.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
There's so many, and I remember were you mentioning this
ahead of time? And I was like, I already know
who to truth and I really don't. So I'm sorry
if I like rumble a little bit. But I think
that every bit I have had has has been part
of a different stage of my life, and it has
(03:19):
been perfect because they have taught me so much about
that stage I'm living. And I would say that this too,
so my current dog and my cat you can see
there at the screen in the screen. I think they've
have touched me as an adult quite a lot because
they have taught me patience, not because they do something
(03:41):
wrong in any way, but because of how they behave
and how they face life. They have allowed me to
observe how patient they are, how accepting off their circumstances,
their life circumstances, how they don't really dwell much with
whatever is going wrong or not going perfect, and they
just they just stay present and they're grateful for whatever
(04:04):
is that happens in the day today. And I think
that is such a huge lesson that I have been
absorbing or learning in my forties that I guess I
would have to choose them.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I think that's the most beautiful gift that pets give
us in life, and we give it back to them too.
Speaker 4 (04:28):
There's a reason why everybody who has a pad is
so touched through the hard times and the good times
that they add such just a different quality to our lives.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So, yeah, are sometimes to keep up with everything that
they give up, I believe, you know. I think it's
a day, you know, they daily job of really working
on giving that back to them. Because we are so
busy in our lives nowadays, are so feasted that we
go like, we don't stop, you know, we go on on,
(05:01):
and we forget to take over either and observe them
and mirror their behavior a little bit more So, I
think that it's a nice reminder to have on an
everyday basis that we cancelo down that we can enjoy
the present moment, and that data serve us to pay
attention to them a little bit too, and not only
to strike to be efficient, you know, every second of
(05:24):
every day, and.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Even when they've got some sort of whether it's a
mental health issue or behavioral issue, it's so important to
take a breath and to look at the good things
and that the good things that you bring to each
other's lives, and that's so important. Separation anxiety is definitely
(05:46):
one of those that we hear a lot from different
people talking about that, and so this is such an
important topic. I think that's going to benefit so many people.
What is separation anxiety? Separation distress exactly and easy words.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Separation a society is being afraid of being left alone.
But this is not a regular fear. It's something that
we could call an irrational fear. What does that mean?
What does irrational mean? Fear mean? Excuse me? It's basically
a phobia and why do we call it like that
(06:24):
and not just a regular fear. Because one kdoga has
been exposed to being left alone and has been able
to confirm that their life isn't endanger, they aren't able
to stop creating or having a response, that means that
they're threatened by it. So in other words, what happens
(06:45):
is that every time they're exposed to it, no matter
that they have confirmed that is not a life threatening situation,
they still punt, they still elicit or display a stress
response when they're facing the situation. So what happens is
that over time, when they're exposed to this, they escalate
in terms of the symptoms or the signs or the
(07:05):
behaviors that they are displaying, and they are not going
to likely adapt to the situation even if you expose
them to them on a daily basis, because they don't
know how to use those scoping mechanisms that the dog
without separation anxiety would be able to you.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Is there a difference between separational anxiety or distress and
confinement distress?
Speaker 3 (07:30):
First, I think it's important to sort of go through
the different terminology right because there's a lot of talk
about separation the stress and separational anxiety. To me, those
two are the same. I wouldn't really separate them. They
both mean that the dog for them, that being left
alone is an aversive stimulus, so they can't handle it.
(07:51):
It's completely it's a passion and basically for them to
be left alone. And on the other hand, we have
separation related behavior. Separational related behaviors are behaviors that the
dog displays when they are left alone, but they can
have multiple different causes or root causes or underlying motivations.
(08:11):
Because a dog could bark because he saw someone passing by,
or a dog who could destroy things in the house
because they have been left in wone for a long
time and they're very bored, or their puppies and they
don't really know what is a toling, what is they
shouldn't be eating or we don't like them to eat right,
And they could also be suffering from separation anxiety or
(08:33):
separation distress, which I would consider saying thing, and they're
actually panicking because they are left alone, so the situation
is a verson to them. That's on onehand, I just
wanted to clarify because I feel like there's so many
terminology that we use and we haven't really come to
an agreement as a field to really label all of
these things in a unifying way, and so it tends
(08:55):
to become very confusing for a dog guardian when they
are trying to find out how to help their dogs.
Having said all of that, there is another underlying motivasion
to display all of these behaviors when left alone, which
is confinement issues or confinement distress. And confinement distress is
basically very similar to the definition I gave about separational society,
(09:20):
but in this case isn't necessarily about being left alone.
It's about being confined. So for that particular dog, what's
subversive is actually being confined. Now, when you add to
that another stressor such as, for example, being left alone,
the dog tends to react even more because the situation
comes even more uncomfortable. You're adding fuel to this big tongue.
(09:42):
You know, your fuel until the situation explodes. The difference, though,
is that if a dog only suffers from confinement issues
and not separation on siety, if you put that dog
you need a dog alone in a house with full
rate of the house, without confining the dog, the dog
will likely not react at all. And I think they
(10:05):
do at the beginning the first few times you're exposing
him to that situation because they don't really know or
they have never experienced it. I react a few minutes slightly,
but you will start seeing a cur that basically starts
dying down. So the intensity of those signs starts decreasing,
(10:25):
the frequency of the sign starts spreading, and they eventually
are able to settle down fully and completely, which separational
siding dog wouldn't be able to do. Having settle of this,
it is important to keep in mind that there is
a high correlation between confinement issues and separation anxiety. So
you can seeple and that's when the situation gets a
(10:47):
little bit trickier and actually most oparational side and dogs
will also saw her from confinement issues. So what does
this look like when you do on a lot of
time of set which means that you're gonna need the
dog alone and you're gonna record or you're gonna watch
online to see the dog's behavior and body language and
science and symptoms. What you're going to see is that
(11:11):
if the dog is free in the house, the signs
or the behaviors look a little bit less intense than
if you were leaving a dog on fine. So you
can do two assessments and you're going to see the
difference and intensity. And in general, we tend to treat
when we implement our training program, we tend to do
it with a dog for in the house to avoid
(11:32):
that extra challenge of also having the dog in a
situation or in a position that is not setting him
up for success. But it is important to rule this
out because many cases come to me thinking that the
separation anxiety, and when you test the difference and you
assess the dog for in the house, you realize that
it wasn't separation anxiety at all and its confining issues.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
So what you're saying, separation anxiety is a true panic exactly.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Hit a lot of situations, such as, for example, for
the pandemic. After the pandemic was kind of war slowly
starting to come back to normal. All of the people
who had adopted dogs during the pandemic, or they hadn't
let their dogs, they're all done alone for quite a while.
What happened was that when they started needing them again,
(12:23):
they would see reactions and reactions that actually looked like
the dog wasn't having a good time. So it wasn't
that the dog was worn just playing around. You could
see that the battle language was suggesting in distress. The
difference though, in many of those cases is that if
you looked at the big picture, you would see that
after a few minutes or over time, So from one
(12:45):
day to another, the dog who start actually relaxing progressively
more and more and more, rather than maintaining the intensity
day after day or increasing the intensity of the reaction.
That means that those dogs were actually not adapted to
be left alone. But they didn't have separation anxiety because
(13:08):
they were able to understand that this wasn't a life
threatening situation. Was they were exposed to it once and
once they figured that out, they were Okay, you know what,
I guess maybe this wasn't super fun the first time,
but I guess I'm all right, I'm not gonna die. Oh,
I'm just going to relax. A separational society dog. Of course,
we saw a lot of those as well during the
(13:29):
pandemic and after wouldn't be able to do that every
time they left they are left alone. It would be
like the first ever experienced right where they don't know
if the situation is gonna kill them more now, and
so they continue to replicate the saying responsible.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
So that brings me to another point is that are
there certain traits of dogs that are more prone to
separation anxiety than others? And is it something that people
can cause by not leaving their dog alone?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
The truth is that we haven't found a specific trade
or a common trade that could need us to think
that this type of dogs will probably have a separation
a society. There's a lot of club and there's a
lot of comments. You so I get a lot of
that from guardians can come to me and they said, yeah,
(14:25):
I know that this I adopted this breed of dog
and I knew that, you know, most of them have
separational society. That's not necessarily true. Any dog can have.
Sometimes you get like loaws of a certain breed and
a lot of cases of the same one, and you
start wondering, and then you get like a completely different
breed for a long time, and sometimes you talk to
(14:46):
your colleagues and you realize that you know, it's just
like certain different groups of dogs that come to you
and they are completely different type of dog, like case
Loan that they're working with with different types of So unfortunately, no,
basically we say that this has a genetic predisposition and
appear with environmental factors, specific environmental factors they could trigger
(15:14):
the onset of separation anxiety, and those environmental factors are
usually the line of change. So anything that could be
traumatizing to the dog, or it could be something that
really sort of you know, take them out of balance,
could trigger this onset if they already had a genetic
(15:37):
predisposition or separation anxiety. That's how we believe at this point,
and that means it doesn't really matter what the guardian does.
If the dog doesn't have that predisposition, it's not going
to happen. So there is nothing that a guardian can
do that will cause separation anxiety, and that is something
(15:59):
very important to consider and to communicate two dog guardians
because most of them come to us feeling very guilty,
if feeling like they're doing something wrong either in their
day to bay routines or rituals, or that they did
something wrong in the past that if they hadn't done,
(16:20):
the dog would be okay, and that isn't correct or
is an accurate. It could have happened anyway. Of course,
you can certain things to maybe increase the likelihood of success,
but that doesn't mean that you have any guarantees that
this is not going to happen at some point in
the dog stock, so that that really releases the distress
and the guilt that many guardians have surrounding this wow.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
So so let me pause there, because that is such
an important point that people feel so guilty about their
dog that has separation anxiety, but the reality is they
didn't cause the separation anxiety. That's huge weight off people's
(17:03):
shoulders to think about that.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
I just have seen so many people wandering and wondering
what they did wrong to come to realize that no
matter what they would have done, that things would have
happened anyway. Many cases that I have seen, the dog
already had separation anxiety before the dog was adopted, or
before or even if it's the doc couns my breeder
(17:27):
from the breeding from that place, they already had separation anxiety,
and so or even many just the transitions from one
household to the other maybe cause or triggered the separation anxiety,
but that's not something that they could have prevented or
changed in any way. So it's the point. The focus
(17:48):
shouldn't be on one did I did to cause it?
The focus shouldn't be on what can I do to help,
because that's the only thing that's going to take you
out of the situation, rather than dwelling on what could
I have done different? Because you can't change.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
That anyway, absolutely focus on what you can't do about
it now and helping with quality of life in the
future too. That's huge and we're going to talk more
about that in just a minute. What about when we
were just talking about when you bring home an animal
from a rescue, or let's say you bring home a
(18:25):
puppy and the puppy showing distress. How can people then
help to acclimate to alone time before it becomes a
major issue.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
The first step would need to make sure if this
has already become a major issue or not, because if
it is separation anxiety, it's not going to get better
over time. So it's very important to diffriendship. What are
we talking about and what is happening that will give
(18:59):
you a better understanding on how you can help your dog.
So my first ask that would be to run a
very short, lone time assessment when you get your dog now.
It is important to consider that if when you just
got your dog, I wouldn't need the dog alone the
next day. I would make sure that you know I'm
(19:22):
a responsible guardian and I take vacation and take a
few days off so I can really give the dog
the time to settle and to understand that this is
their house, because if PA speck about it, just don't
know how to speak human. And no mother, how much
love I want to get this dog, and no matter
how good, how many good intentions I have, and that
(19:45):
I actually want this dog forever, and I will never
let the dog down, and all of those things that
doesn't know. And so imagine if you didn't speak human,
and someone grabs you from one place, takes you to another,
puts you in a room and brings your food. I
close the door, you would think that you are being
kidnapped with kidnapped right or that, or you don't know
(20:05):
what's gonna happen to you, what they're gonna do every
time they open the door. Are they gonna talk to you?
Or the boat court? You just don't know right. Only
time will tell, and only good memories that you start
collecting from the situation will allow you to feel safe.
So the best, the first and most important thing is
to provide predictability and as foundation, so the dog can
(20:26):
feels safe and comfortable in this new place. Once that
has happened. So let's say that takes away till a
few days and the dog feels more comfortable in his
own skin in that place, then I would run a
short alone time, says man. Whether that is recording, you
can leave your phone recording facing the door or wherever
you say your dog is going to be, or you
can have your surveilliance cameras or soon two devices connected
(20:50):
and bring one with you and leave the property. Not
stand upside, just leave the property, drive away or walk
away for fifteen minutes and analyze what you see. If
you see that your dog reacts in any way but
settles quickly or doesn't grab at all, you're in the
right track right and that will mean that you will
(21:12):
face the situation a little bit different. So if you
saw that things looked okay, how do you plan ahead
after that first assessment, The second step would need to
start to eat abstances paly. So I will continue monitoring
because I think it's very important. It allows you not
to really imagine what was happening, but actually knowing. You
(21:35):
know there is subgentive information here that you can analyze
and start monitoring your dog. Curvilliance cameras are pretty cheap
nowadays and assert what happens in the day to day
and the progression of this behavior. When you leave your
dog alone, and if everything is going well, you will
start increasing those times to seek city, your knees, your needs,
(21:55):
excuse me, in your final duration goal. That would be
my first advice in regards to dogs who don't offer
from separation side and are adapting to a new home.
And the second big advice would be to make sure
you are first providing pretty predictable foundation in general, so
(22:18):
your dog knows what to expect of life, because that
really creates comfort. It allows you to heal, to relax,
to trust, to feel safe. And once they have that foundation,
it would be ideal if you start sprinkling more flexibility
in the dog's lave. So sometimes we don't eat it
this time. Sometimes we go out to a place we
(22:39):
hadn't been before. Sometimes we go on a rapeer. Sometimes
we do this. But sprinkles within this realm of predictability
because that will allow the dog to grow, it will
push the dog to the edge of their discomfort, and
it will help to avoid any changes to become traumatizing
(23:02):
in the future, because a dog will live hopefully fifteen years,
so many years, thirteen years, and they are going to
be changes in that dog's life during that time. And
what you want is for none of those changes to
be so traumatizing that the dog handed to this position
to sufferer from separation anxiety for them to trigger it.
If the doglines changes cool the likeli, that is that
(23:25):
nothing is going to touch him to a point to
trigger all of these bad events that we want to only.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
And I get see you with puppies. You know, we
use confinement for management a lot with puppies, and so
that can also come into play with.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
This most definitely, and that makes that adds to the
layer of difficulties. Right, So you have sometimes a separation
aciety dog and that is in itself challenging, But then
you have a dog who is also doesn't get along
with the dogs, and you have a puppy who still
has a learn word to eliminate, and then you have
(24:05):
so all of those things will add up to how
difficult the situation is to appro navigate and also to
the prognosis, not because the treatment will be necessary or
the dog will will make less progress and the training
in itself, but because also these other layers are making
(24:27):
it harder to manage to continue with the training and
so on. So the puppy part is one of them
for sure. What I try to do is first to
determine if the dog is okay being confined or not right,
then that's eas you can do it with the same
style of assessment. If the dog doesn't have separationalciety that
has confinement issues, I would try to choose sense one
(24:51):
to create a confinement place that is as big as possible,
because the bigger it is, the less confined the dog
is going to feel. And at the same time time
to really focus your all your energy on helping that
dog or teaching the dog to be reliable. And I
say quote unquote, because what is reliable but reliable in
(25:11):
the sense that you can't leave the dog says Lee
alone without confinement and the dog is going to be okay,
it's safe and it's not going to do some people
so and rather than focusing on teaching the dog to
be a fine five on five are using all your
energy on that. Why don't you just fogut your energy
and teaching your dog to be okay for in the house.
(25:32):
It will take you three weeks and after that you
can leave your dog for in the house. You can
close certain doors right and you can have a certain
safe proof certain places, but you won't have to be
dwelling on my dog doesn't like the creed, it's okay,
you know, and don't use the cred what was on
the other aspect if the dog has separation on siety.
(25:52):
The cool thing about the training we do is that
we separate the training such little pieces in your watching
all the time, and we're suspending all the types of
absences that it's like a win win because you were
leading a dog all for three seconds, so being free
is not really dangerous because you're watching and it's three seconds,
(26:14):
and over time those three seconds become ten minutes, twenty minutes,
one hour, and the dog learns a consequence to actually
your relaxed during that time. And then you have your
house string dog and you know all of the other
things that you were worrying about. And we're needing to
confine the dogs.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
So finding the largest type of confinement space possible and
teaching just to be okay. One thing I did when
I brought my puppy home and I didn't realize. You know,
he is now on anti anxiety meds, but he had
a lot of anxiety and the creative early on, like
(26:53):
from that very first weekend. I was really committed to
teaching him that is the safest place. It's so safe
in there. Yeah.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
I would have him up and we'd do fun things
and activities, and when I knew it was tired, I
just you know, I made it very comfortable for him
and sat with him and just there was no pressure.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
He just was learning that this just just feels really
really nice. And he had complete freedom to come out
if he wanted to, and I just made arrangements. I
was not going to leave him in the crate until
we got through that whole process, and it went so
well that, you know what, it was very quickly he
was sleeping through the night. He could sleep in the
(27:37):
living room. I remember that day when I had the
camera on him that I actually walked out of the
house going.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, I did it.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
But I just really made a commitment that I was
really going to work on that and I was not
going to put any pressure on him at all. It
was just about teaching him, you know, this is as
comfortable as bad over on the other side of the room. Man.
So he just came to eleven. To this day, he
still loves being in his creat You.
Speaker 3 (28:10):
Mentioned something that I think is key, which is you
progress based on his speed, and you made a promise
that I'm not going to add more. I'm not going
to leave you alone here until you are not comfortable
in this place with me by your side. And I
think that's why things tend to go wrong. Then we
(28:31):
skip that part like I need to leave my doll alone.
I don't want my dog to store my house. I'm
going to put the dog in the crate. And the
dog hasn't really learned to be on a craid. So
you're adding two big things for the dog, like you're
exposing about to those two huge monsters. And yeah, it
likely that is that something is going to go wrong.
(28:52):
And I think that understanding that and also promoting that
so guardians understand that it's okay and they don't feel
guilty about being permissive or too soft with their dogs.
And I'm saying all of this quote unquote because I
believe those things are a thing and right. It is
(29:12):
very important. And I'm just gonna give you one little
example of something that happened to me last few days,
which is I have seen this happen in so many
times where people come to me and they're so overwhelmed
because there's so much going on, and they feel so
guilty that they actually don't want to leave their dog
alone because they don't want their dog to suffer. But
(29:33):
they have read, they have heard that they should be
doing all of these things, so they feel so guilty.
They're pushing it and pushing it in so many levels
that they're completely drowning and overwhelmed. And once you give
them the peace of mind, the permission, and you tell
them you have to leave your dog alone, I mean,
I don't want you to do it, like, please, don't.
(29:54):
It's fine. Your intuition was correct. What's on the point.
Let's side the one thing at a time, and it's
okay to support your dog, to empathize with him, to
give your dog love. It's not bad. You're not hurting
your dog. You shouldn't be harder and harsher and tougher,
all these things that your God does. You are correct.
(30:16):
The relaxation that that gives it's so big that you
start seeing changes happening right away without making any other
adjustments because the person relaxes and they understand that it's
fine and they can take the time they need to
help their dogs. If that makes.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
Sense, absolutely one hundred percent. It's just feeling that sense
of relief that oh, okay, I can do that. Yes,
it does a lot. And the humans are stressed too
sometimes a lot of times, you know, when our dogs
are in distress, we are too. It's not easy on
(30:54):
either one of.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Us, and there's so much conflict because we're in distress.
We don't want to see then software. But we have
been told that it's like even like the dog almost
was doing it on purpose, you know, I've been told
that we should be tougher because this is somehow arranged
(31:16):
or you know, like prepare like the dog was really
conspiring to do this. And on the other hand, we
feel like we need to support it because this is horrible.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
This is terrible.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
We don't want to see them software. So it's like
feeding the good wolf and the bad wall. Which one
are you going to feed?
Speaker 5 (31:32):
Right?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
And as as strainers, I'll help you with that and
providing that information and that peace of mind that they're
on the right track, thinking that they should actually support
them and caring for them, and that they are not
doing it on purpose. It's a big intention.
Speaker 6 (31:50):
Well, this has been just so insightful today, and I
hope you've shared so much information that's going to be
helpful for people. Let's dig even deeper and let's do
a part two about how to actually treat separation anxiety
because it is treatable, right, Yeah, So we're gonna talk
(32:12):
about that.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
So please come back for our part two and we're
gonna delve into that subject. Thanks for listening. If you
enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to my podcast, Come
back often, and tell your friends. If I can be
of any help to you and your pet, Please reach
(32:33):
out to me via my website www dot somuchpotential dot
com and for a lot more information, fun and videos,
please follow me so Much Potential on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
(32:54):
See you soon,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!