Separation Anxiety Help

As some of you may know, I did a DVD on separation anxiety. However, when I tell this to a lot of trainers they tend to flip their hand at me and say, “Yeah, yeah, I already know how to deal with that.” What they think I have done is put into one video the techniques that many people have used over the years to deal with this issue. What I actually did with the video was to use it to introduce two new techniques for resolving separation anxiety. My video does not include the use of drugs or calming agents, nor do I simply explain how to use a distraction device such as a kong. Although I have two illustrated two different ways to desensitize the dog to leaving cues, that are not the unique information this video has to offer.
    I made the video because I discovered two completely new training techniques to teach a dog to learn to calmly accept being alone. The first one is called the “I’ll be Back” technique, and the second one doesn’t have a title but was used on a more severe case that solved the dog’s issues.
    With the I’ll be Back” technique, the dog learns incrementally to relax about you leaving the dog. I started with a short distance and short period of time, and slowly increased until the dog got past that golden fifteen minutes where dogs are documented to do their most damage when stress due to separation anxiety. I’ve had a lot of feedback from people who have used this technique about how well it worked.
    I’d had the question asked by people using my video if the “I’ll be Back” technique shown on my video can “only” be trained over a weekend. Pacing the training over a weekend is done to allow for the quickest change in behavior. But, the process can also be done over several days and I have trained it this way. The key is to progress through each stage at the dog’s
pace. Once the dog graduates, people can practice over the next few weeks to secure the new habit, that of being calm when left alone.
    People who have done a lot of work with separation anxiety will agree that insecurity in a dog is at the root of most separation anxiety problems. Dog owners, although often unintentional, can interact in the wrong ways with a dog and actually encourage or even create separation
anxiety problems. For that reason, I added material on those kinds of human behaviors in the first section, and in the troubleshooting guide. I also tried to emphasize that allowing dogs to perpetuate certain habits, such as clinging to their owner when the owner is home, can set up a dog for separation anxiety issues.
    In the last segment of this video, I shared my second new technique which I had to use on a mill dog rescue to help her with separation anxiety. This dog had not yet learned to trust people, so she really didn’t care if I left her, but she would absolutely panic if I took her companion dog out of the pen. This kind of a  technique can be adapted by trainers when working with a dog who does not have a relationship with the trainer. The “I’ll be Back” technique is more intended for people who have basic training in a dog.

I’d like to invite you to read my new blog series on separation anxiety. This series will begin on July 18th, 2013

More at www.peggyswager.com
DVD: “Separation Anxiety, a Weekend Technique”
http://youtu.be/mqNl2-uywC8
Books: “Training the Hard to Train Dog” and “how to start a Home-based Dog Training Business”
Other YouTube videos: search Peggy Swager for my channel.