Don't Let Your Dog Cry It Out: On Training Dogs To Be Alone

In an ideal world, dogs would all be trained to be able to be alone. It would be a process of shaping a behavior, and helping your dog make good associations with being without you. But, in the real world, not everyone can take the time to acclimate a dog to alone time. Annie talks about the "cry it out" method and some of the tools that are used to punish the behaviors that can occur when a dog is stressed about being alone, and their potential fall out. She also gives a few strategies you can use when you really just have to leave your dog before you are sure he can handle it, and discusses what it means when we get rid of a behavior using extinction. Support School For The Dogs by shopping in our online store! Products mentioned in this episode. Treat n' Train - https://storeforthedogs.com/products/treat-train Treat Separation Anxiety In Dogs by Malena DiMartini Scholarship Fund mosaic: http://schoolforthedogs.com/mosaic Master Class can be found at anniegrossman.com/masterclass NYDogShare.com Also listen to: Episode 26 | Teach a foolproof DROP and COME using Classical Conditioning Episode 59 | Separation Anxiety Expert Malena DeMartini on Helping Dogs Learn To Be Alone --- Partial Transcript: Annie: I am in my neighbor's apartment. This has become my backup recording studio. And my neighbor is a wonderful man I have known my entire life. He has a lot of stuff. He has a lot of stuff. I don't think he would disagree with that statement. And right next to the desk where I've been recording in order to seek some quiet, because my apartment is not quiet very often with my little daughter, right, running around. Right next to the spot in his apartment, where I sit is a dead cockroach that's been dead on its back for, uh, the last few months and has remained unmoved. And I feel like I've been paying homage to this dead cockroach. Like we've been sharing space with him in his death, me still alive. You know, I don't think I ever saw him when he was alive, but he did live in my building. I thought about picking him up. But then I started to feel like he was some kind of symbol. Not as cute as like a rabbit's foot, but actually kind of less gross. And, you know, people have taxidermied animals that they keep around. Right now, I'm just coexisting with a dead cockroach. [Intro and music] Annie: So I've been getting a lot of questions relating to separation, which I guess could be sort of seen as predictable seeing that there's been a period of people being home a lot with their dogs. And now perhaps a period of us being less at home with our dogs. And a lot of people who have gotten dogs in the interim period, this like COVID 19 puppy and adoption boom that we seem to have seen. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about how I think about separation and the various options of how you can deal with it. And you know, I should say that separation is such a frustrating issue. And if you've listened to this podcast before you might've heard the episode I did with Malena Dimartini , who is probably the separation anxiety dog training expert out there... Full Transcript available at SchoolfortheDogs.com/Podcasts Get full access to Don't Be a Dick to Your Dog at dogtraining.substack.com/subscribe