012 4 Tips For Handling Dogs Who Deviate From Your Plan

Does your dog seem to be all over the place with training? Is he okay on Saturdays but awful on Wednesdays? Does he do well when you leave but fall apart if your other half does the training? If this sounds like your dog and heck, most dogs do something like this to a degree then you need to tune in to this week’s podcast. I’m going to share the 4 Step process I use with my clients when situations like this crop up. On this week's episode, I’m talking about something many of you are curious about. Why is my dog's separation anxiety better or worse with different people and at different times? If you have the same question, stay tuned as I'm going to explain why this happens and what you can do about it. Topics: [01:01] Dogs being fine in one context but cannot handle being alone in another context [02:10] Different variables and scenarios that affect how well your dog handles being home alone: [02:16] Days of the week [02:55] Time of the day [03:41] Who does the leaving [05:00] Changes in daylight (light vs dark) [05:45} Weather and seasons [06:50] It could be that the dog has had a worse experience at that time and on that day when that person left [07:28] Dogs are brilliant connection making machines [08:37] Dogs don’t always do things that make sense to us [08:58] Dogs have different ways of working out what's scary and what's safe [10:10] Dogs are bad at generalizing confidence [11:00] Why data is going to be invaluable to you here [12:12] How my 4 step process works for dogs whose separation anxiety seems to be different in different scenarios: [12:25] 1. Do different baseline assessments to determine when he is worse or better [12:42] 2. Decide which time of the week/days of the week matter to you most [13:16] 3. Plot all the information you got from those 2 steps onto a chart [15:00] 4. Choose those scenarios that occupy either the box which is easy and important or easy but not so important