Radio 2SM Breakfast Segment #12 with Kaye Browne

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Does your dog rely on your company 24/7?... 

So many neighbour disputes happen due to howling/barking dogs, but there are a few ways to help solve the problem. Ron's Producer Jessie's new dog Moon is a rescue. Jessie & her partner went out recently to a radio 'dinner' event - it was the first time they had left Moon by herself and were horrified to come back home with an almost totally destroyed front door!

They checked their CCTV and saw what was going on! - Kaye has a few tips for everyone to help prevent future 'separation anxiety' episodes! 


Plus; 
Do cats have the same problem?... After all they tend to sleep about 70% of the day!...
And why do cats purr?... Could it really be a way of 'self-help'? 


00'00" - Welcome Ron & Kaye
00'07" - Separation Anxiety - How Can We Solve It?
05'28" - Do Cats Have The Same Problem?
06'01" - How Cats Self-Heal Through Purring!

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
RON:
Time now for our weekly pet segment with our pet expert Kaye Browne from VetTalk On-Hold, 
Kaye good morning (good morning to you!) and Jessie's also on the line because she has had an experience recently with her dog that set us up for this first question we're going to talk about this morning... Pet Anxiety. 
I mean when you leave the home or you go away for a night or whatever uh the pets really feel it and obviously Jess just quickly tell us your story with your dog...


JESSIE:
Well we left the house for the first time so Moon our little Rottweiler was by herself completely and we came home to a front door that had been absolutely terrorized it was scratched through paint everywhere she'd even jumped up and it hit the deadbolt so it actually locked us out and we'd looked back on the cameras and we saw 2 hours of non-stop howling and barking so I felt so bad for my neighbours, but this poor girl just couldn't stand being left alone for literally just 2 hours.


RON:
Kaye... not an un-common story?


KAYE:
Not an uncommon story unfortunately and sometimes you know people don't know what to do and they end up surrendering their dog. Now you've only had your dog Moon, for a very short time (Yes) So it was the first time you left? 


JESSIE:
We've been leaving sort of sporadically but one at a time I think seeing two people her two people in her world leave at the same time I don't think she could handle that so when one of us leaves she's got at least one person but then seeing two of us leave and she was beside herself...


KAYE:
Look it's not unusual and unfortunately because you don't know what her socialization was like when she was a puppy you're probably going to have to start again and start treating her as if she is still a puppy and start getting her into the idea that "oh it's not such a bad thing to be on my own"...  and there are a couple of tricks for that that you can do and that is do you have a place where you tell her to go to her bed or... have you got a crate?  Are you doing any crate training 


JESSIE:
Listen I wish I was that organized Kaye but she's the princess around town so the couches both belong to her! (LAUGHS)


KAYE:
Okay!!, Well we might have to improvise... maybe there's like a cushion cover that could become her special place that you can encourage her to go to and then cue it with a word so that after a while she gets used to the idea that... okay when I'm on my place or you can call it a bed if you want whatever.
I get rewarded... I either get lots of pats when I'm nice and calm and when I look at mum or I look at dad, I get more pats and treats so this is good but when Moon jumps up or is barking or in this case howling ignore it because unless you're there to stop it at the time is no use sort of growling...
The whole thing with any kind of training is ignore the bad, praise the good and use my favourite the umm KFC method...
Nothing to do with chicken it's 'Kindness Fairness Consistency' - so when she does the right thing she's nice and calm and you can do some pretend 'leavings'... where both of you go out together and then come back in quite quickly but having made sure she was on her place with a Kong or a treat or a toy and sort of... do that maybe over a weekend and sort of act as if you're going out, but don't... Come back in and then just get her used to the idea oh it's okay it's not so bad.


JESSIE:
Okay, so where were you last week when my door was still intact?


RON:(Laughs!)
Look this whole question of separation anxiety can actually lead to some neighbourhood disputes because a lot of people do