Be Right Back! The Separation Anxiety Podcast

Should we worry about our dog’s happiness? Yes! Can we improve their lives and make them happier? Absolutely we can. And in this episode, I’m joined by Dr. Zazie Todd, Author of Wag: The Science of Making Your Dog Happy. Zazie explains why our dog’s happiness should matter to us. She explores what makes dogs happy, the role we play in that, how training methods can affect happiness. And she shows how science underpins all of this.Join me for this fascinating interview. 

In this podcast, I interview Jen Sadler, the owner of Gus, the amazing Shih Tzu Tibetan Spaniel cross. Jen's hard work helped Gus triumph over his separation anxiety. Their journey was not a short one. But after the span of a year, and despite the adoption of another dog with separation anxiety (!), the whole family is now in a very happy place.

Fetch gets such bad press. It’s all too often billed as an activity that does nothing but gets dogs amped-up and stressed-out. As a result, dogs everywhere are being denied access to something that’s natural, normal, and hugely enriching. I really don’t know where this all started or why so many trainers and owners state “fetch is bad for anxious dogs as it makes it hard for them to calm down”. There is zero evidence to support this.  In fact, we do have volumes of evidence that not providing animals with access to activities they are genetically wired to do (like fetch) is bad for their anxiety.   That’s why it’s time to set the record straight. Tune in as I explain why fetch is so good for anxious dogs, and how you can mitigate any concerns you might have about playing ball with your dog.

It's almost impossible to avoid not having a read an article or seen something on the news telling you your dog will absolutely lose it when you go back to work. The thing is, this might not be the case. As ever with dogs, there's lots of misinformation and plenty of myths. That's why, this week, I bust the Big 5 Separation Anxiety Lockdown Myths.

Are you worried that being with your dog 24/7 will make his separation anxiety worse? Or is your previously non-clingy dog suddenly following you everywhere? If so then tune into this episode where I'll share with you the science of what exactly is going on with your dog's brain when he's got constant company. And I'll give you some tips and tricks to help you return to normality without your dog going into complete meltdown.

What do you do when you can’t leave your dog at home but his reactivity prevents you from leaving him somewhere else? Ugh! It’s the trickiest of tricky problems when your anxious home alone dog doesn’t like strangers or other dogs. But in this week’s episode, I’m going to share how — with a bit more work, admittedly — you can manage absences even if your dog is reactive.

In this episode, I chat with the amazing Julie McKinney Miller a canine physical therapist (physio to those of us outside the US) who educates and empowers dog parents about physical therapy, massage, exercise.  Julie offers online courses and consulting to help owners help their dogs live their best lives! Julie spills the beans and busts some longstanding myths about physical conditioning, injury, exercise, and pain.  Pain and anxiety are so often linked. Tune into this episode to find out how we could actually detect and manage pain much earlier by being more aware of what to look for.

"Separation anxiety training easy? Is she out of her mind?" Okay, to be clear I'm not saying that separation anxiety cases are easy – far from it! It's just that there are some unique aspects to separation anxiety training that are pluses, and which can make the training less daunting and more effective.

What if all the training we've been doing with departure cues and triggers could be simplified? What if we didn't have to worry about departure triggers at all? In this episode I'm going to explain why I think we can make things simpler, thus setting us and our dogs up for more success.

If you're a dog professional–a trainer, a behaviourist, behaviour consultant–do you feel that separation anxiety cases are hard to resolve? If you do, know that you're not alone. It seems that across our profession separation anxiety cases are seen this way. In this special bonus episode recorded for professionals like you, I want to dive into whether they are really any harder to resolve than other cases. And I'll set out what I think we can do to change this view.