u/microgreatness

Separation anxiety (SA) or the more common isolation distress (ID) can be one of the most challenging behavioral disorders to train and resolve. It also has one of the biggest impacts on owners, often leading to isolation, frustration, and guilt.

SA/ID is one of the leading reasons for failed adoptions as well as owner surrender, especially in these post-pandemic years. One study found that up to 92% of recently adopted shelter dogs showed separation-related behavioral issues.

As a trainer, how do you approach both diagnosing and training for SA/ID? How do you distinguish separation frustration or from genuine panic? What timeline do you attempt for resolution?

As an owner: how have you handled separation anxiety? How were you personally impacted and how long did it take to resolve?

[EDITED to remove some leading questions and present a more balanced topic for debate.]

In my own personal experience, I have yet to hear a balanced trainer (excluding LIMA) say that medication can be helpful for dogs who have behavioral issues due to anxiety or fear. Instead, from what I've seen, many will include +P/-R, not exclusively but as part of their training approach to manage anxiety-based behavior problems.

Is this true and representative, or are there balanced trainers who are open to the use of appropriate medication? Are there balanced trainers who avoid using +P/-R for any anxiety or fear-based behaviors?

There can be a genetic cause for fear or anxiety in dogs, which peer-reviewed studies have proven in some situations like fear of strangers or other dogs, or noise phobia. Studies have also shown the genetic area for some of these phobias and anxieties in dogs overlap with the same genetic areas responsible for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, etc in humans which also commonly include anxiety as a co-disorder. There is far more, but I won't dive into a deep summary here.

What are the ethics and efficacy of using medications to assist dogs in reducing fear versus avoiding medications and focusing on mental resiliency to overcome any genetic component?

What I'm not saying:

--I'm not saying all balanced trainers avoid medication all the time. But if you are balanced and don't, I'd love to hear from you since anecdotally-speaking it seems a rarer position.

--I'm not saying that a dog isn't responsible for its actions or can't make choices, but that management and fear resolution are the first steps before addressing behavior. Usually, once the fear is gone, the problematic behavior stops.

--I'm not saying all fearful or anxious dogs need medication.

--I'm not advocating for overmedicating or for turning dogs into zombies. If suppressed personality happens, it's an indication of the wrong type and/or dosage.

--I'm not advocating for using medication in place of training. Behavioral training should be a critical part of any treatment plan involving medication.

The has come up in quite a number of conversations...

**Actions vs Internal State**

How do you measure success? Are actions and behaviors more indicative, or the internal state and emotions of the dog? How much does a dog's joy and enthusiasm count in the measure of success?

**Defining Rehabilitation**

When we say a dog is "rehabilitated", are we talking about a permanent change in the dog's brain or a lifetime of careful management? ie, Is success a destination or a journey?

For trainers: What metrics do you use to decide a case is closed?

For owners: How did you know if your dog's case was a success or not?

I've heard some people talk about their aggressive dog being rehabilitated and allowed off leash or given full freedom. You see this in some trainer videos, too, where if a behavior has stopped (often by +P) then the dog is trusted. I also think there is a strong case to be made for a rehabilitated, truly aggressive dog being like a recovering alcoholic (and no offense meant to anyone by this analogy). An alcoholic can go through a 12 step (training) program, be sober for awhile, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea for the person to go get a job as a bartender. Is the alcoholic "recovered" or always "recovering"? Is it the same way for dog rehabilitation? Or case-by-case basis?

A side conversation about the recovering alcoholic analogy is how much genetics play into the behavior. There can be a strong genetic component to alcoholism, but environment is also a critical factor. Similarly, fear or aggression in dogs can have a strong genetic root cause, but environment also plays a critical role. How does this impact the concept of "success"?