The Dog Behavior Institute Blog
Why Separation Anxiety is one of my favorite behavioral challenges to treat
I know it sounds weird: separation anxiety and “favorite” in the same sentence. But it’s true, separation-related problem behaviors are one of my favorite types of behavioral challenges to treat. It wasn’t always this way. Early on in my career (over 17 years ago, long before I encountered Behavior Analysis), I was flummoxed by separation anxiety (SA). With the understanding of behavior that I did have at that time, it seemed reasonable that a “cry it out” approach (i.e., operant extinction) would work. I recommended the use of crates, baby gates, or pens - as many trainers did and still do - and I had very limited success. Eventually this became a behavioral challenge that I avoided as a trainer. So what changed?
Why we don’t do “one size fits all” training
We decided to take some time here to clarify: what makes poor training advice? In our opinion this comes down to two main things that I’ll outline in more depth below: 1) broad advice applied to any dogs or all dogs of a specific type, and 2) recommendations for the use of aversive procedures.
ABA & Dog Training
When it comes to behavior change and our dogs, we humans are in a position of power. We control almost every aspect of our dogs’ lives, including when they eat, when they go outside and come in, who they get to interact with, and more. It is critical that we take responsibility for our role in our relationship with our dogs.