Part of a series of short training videos. watch the video then read the description for the full breakdown and training tips.
This weeks training video is on a subject that can cause may dog owners trouble and can become the reason to why people rehome their dog. Dealing with issues like these at a young age helps to prevent them becoming a real problem behaviour. And helps to set your puppy up to grow into a well balanced adult dog. You need to read carefully to digest the information properly and when watching the video you may need to pause the video to read any information shown so you can get the full picture you need to help you to train your puppy. Remember to like and share this with your friends if this video helps just one person I am happy.
Puppy anxiety is a hard one to deal with it relies on consistency and your patience, in this video is a training method to help deal with whining specifically to do with when they are left. This method can help you to teach your puppy to deal with their anxiety which will help them be able to cope better with stressful situations in the future. Puppies are a blank canvas so their anxiety comes from lack of understanding, when it comes to adult separation anxiety there are many other factors to consider but in this video, I am focusing on puppy anxiety dealing with it before it develops and becomes a problem behaviour. The first few night of getting your puppy they will whine, bark and even howl this is normal you need to allow them an adjustment period. It is important for me to mention that whining can also be a sign that something is wrong with your pup so if whining persists you may want to get a health check done at your vets, if you know your puppy is in good health and has no issues and before being left have had all their needs met like toilet, they’re not hungry and they have access to water then there is no reason other than being left to why they are whining.
As shown in the video the main tip I want to give when dealing with this type of anxiety and even in preventing it from developing is to not have exaggerated greetings and goodbyes, it’s good to remember dogs match our energy, so if you talk in an excited manor they will match that energy and get excited, the same if you greet them in a calm manor they are more likely to greet you calmly in return, this does go on your pups previous learnings as well so don’t think it’s a quick fix to teach your dog to be calm it will take consistency on every greeting to condition this behaviour in. As said in the video excitement increases their arousal state which can lead to anxiety and if your puppy already has anxiety then exaggerated greeting and goodbyes will make the proses more stressful for them. Without you knowing about it you can be feeding their anxiety. Remember this is for a healthy puppy with no other reason for this behaviour then lack of understanding, when it comes to older dogs or even rescue dogs there can be some major other factors to why they have separation anxiety it’s important for you to do your own research on this subject and even talk to your vet. This training method may help your adult dog but you need know what the cause of their anxiety stems from to deal with it properly. Doing this method with puppies with no other apparent reason for the anxiety helps to stop it from developing into a real problem behaviour.
Leaving your puppy, having a calm very minimal contact and talking goodbye well not so much a goodbye but when you are leaving keeps their arousal state low and if they are calm when you leave you are setting them up to be calm when left, if you leave with an exaggerated goodbye you are leaving them in an already excited state which will only increase when left alone increasing their arousal and anxiety.
Start of by leaving your puppy for short periods of time and build up depending on your puppy and how anxious they get start by leaving them for 5 minutes then 10 then 15 and keep building up you shouldn’t leave your puppy alone for longer the 3 hours when they are young. While doing this training I don’t like to leave them longer than they can hold their bladder unless they have an area they know they are allowed to go in. Puppy and adult dogs don’t like to be left alone for long periods of time so if you struggle with this it may be a good idea to get a family member or friend to go let your puppy out to go to the toilet and have some outside time or you can hire a dog sitter that offers puppy visits as a service.
Why this method helps, the point of not opening the door until the puppy is not whining is to only reward the behaviour I want which is not whining as I am trying to teach her not to whine. She is whining because she wants to be with me and she doesn’t understand why she can’t be, so I want to teach her to be calm so she can then make better choices as when your calm you can deal with stress easier. I don’t go into the room until she is not whining, the reward for not whining is my presence which is what she wanted so she will learn by doing this alternative behaviour (not whining) she gets her desired response.
For a persistent stressed whiner start of really small and do it in more gradual stages, waiting for just a moment of quiet like when they take a breath from whining or go to get a drink it may just be a spilt second moment of quiet so timing is key, if they are quiet enter the room but don’t greet them unless they are in a calmer manor lowering their arousal state. Then you can build up and then start only entering when they are quiet and calm which could be them in a sit position or laying on their bed not when they are rushing to the door or jumping up.
You can see in the video in one of the clips towards the end she was excited and when I tried to open the door she kept coming to the door so I closed it again this also taught her to go to her bed which you can see she did this automatically. I had to do this a few times to try and calm her down before I entered the room, but as you can see in the video, she was still excitable and also anxious so without making this proses go on for too long, I took it back a stage as she was just over 9 weeks when this video was filmed so at that age it’s important to not make the process go on for too long so take it back a step. I waited for just quiet instead of quiet and calm. You need to alter the training to the stage your puppy is at not what you would like them to be if they are not getting it your going too fast for them. So, after entering to room I waited for a calmer response as I still didn’t want to reward her for being excited, I didn’t greet her until she was calmer, I greeted her when she laid down it wasn’t a perfect response from her but its training that’s done in stages and altered to the arousal state the puppy is in. She was quiet and laid down but still quite excited but it gave me something to build on we got quiet and a lie down position which I could build on that. This training will be constant and depending on your puppy and your training ability it may be something you need to do throughout puppy hood and even into adult hood.
When you leave your puppy, they need to have a safe spot like a dog bed or cage, their own spot for them they do need to be familiar with this space before you start to leave them. If they have this safe spot, they have some kind of comfort which can help calm them as having somewhere where they know they can settle down is calming for them as a lot of anxiety comes from the puppy just not knowing how to react to being left and they don’t know what to do with themselves so knowing they have somewhere familiar and safe can be comforting. You can see the puppy in the video goes to the bed which is her safe spot and in latter of the clips in the video you can see she goes to the bed and stays on the bed when I enter the room. This took a lot of patience and consistency and is something I will be practicing for a long time. Teaching independence helps to grow your puppy’s confidence which helps them to deal with stressful situations reducing their stress response to situations. I found doing this training helped with teaching her to not jump up and it also helped her to get over stressful situations better. It taught her patience as well as she was getting frustrated with things that wasn’t happing in the way she wanted or quick enough for her liking, for example Kong toys used to really frustrate her she didn’t have the patience to work the food out of the toy its not that she didn’t know how she just wanted it quicker and easier. At one point I started using treats bull pizzles or rabbit ears natural treats that take time for them to eat so she wasn’t getting so worked up. As this training developed her patience with the Kong toy got better and she is relaxed with it now and enjoys it. Kong toys are the toys that you can fill with food and as your dog rolls them around the food comes out usually red and bell shaped, any toy with two holes in one in either end can be used in the same way.
In conclusion ignore the bad behaviour (whining) praise the good (quiet). Ignoring the bad behaviour is a training method that carries over to most training you will do, but you must always reward the good behaviour.
Deborah at Deborahs dog grooming, deborahsdogs.co.uk
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