Following on from my previous review of an episode of “Dogs Behaving Very Badly” focusing on Jax, the Belgian Malinois with separation anxiety, and having unfortunately watched another episode of Graeme Hall also “addressing” separation related behaviours, I felt it was time to metaphorically put pen to paper yet again as I was, once again, quite shocked.
Not “real life”
Again, both Graeme and the camera crew are in attendance, meaning this is not a normal dynamic for Dolly. While she does not appear particularly wary of Graeme, we cannot be certain how her emotions would have been affected, and the presence of multiple unknown people is likely to have impacted her behaviour in some way. It isnt the same as a normal day with just Laura and Dolly at home….so here is when we are not going to be getting a true impression of Dolly on a normal day.
One of the reasons I (and all other qualified CSAT’s) work remotely, is because we ensure our presence does not influence the dog’s behaviour and therefore what we are seeing is true to life.
Misinterpreting and Downplaying behaviour
Dolly is a Jack Russell x Pug who’s owner Laura leaves her at home during her work day, coming home at lunch time. Dolly was toileting in the house and engaging in destructive behaviours when left alone – she ripped up carpets, so her owner replaced carpets with laminate flooring which she has now damaged as well. She rips up soft furnishings, and rather sadly a supposedly “funny” focus was placed on the fact that Dolly “has a fetish” for ladies underwear (rather than actually the underwear just happening to be the focus of Dolly’s destructive behaviour). Graeme also informs the owner that Dolly “should have grown out of” toileting in the house, instead of taking this as an opportunity to delve deeper into things, question the owner more and educate the owner on WHY Dolly is toileting in the house when alone.
So first of all Graeme at least does acknowledge in a round about way that Dolly being left for 4 hours before comes home at lunch time, and then another 4 hours or so, isnt ideal, although his words are “I wouldn’t leave it any longer than that” (although considering Dolly is obviously not happy being left alone, I would suggest 4 hours is far too long), before then continuing to say that he doesnt think that is really the issue, and in his view he thinks its “more about she just hates to see mum go”! Now this is disapointi9ng, because he is negating canine emotions and invalidating them. He is basically saying the fact that she toilets and destroys things and paces around, only when alone (of which is a considerable chunk of each day) isnt because she is anxious (or, lets plant this seed now and address it later, due to other factors), its because she would rather her mum stays home! He is choosing to make light of what is, actually, a very serious behavioural emergency and a welfare issue.
Outdated, incorrect information
Then Graeme set up cameras and left the house to watch the routine of when the owner leaves Dolly alone for 10 minutes, during which time he does acknowledge that she “does look a bit anxious”, then watches the owner return. Then, to do Graeme justice, he does say that “this is a classic case of separation anxiety” (gold star Graeme…well done!)…BUT he then ruins it by showing he has no knowledge of ANY of the copious amounts of research that has been done into this behaviour concern over the past 2 decades and goes onto say that the owner “has over indulged Dolly and this has created an overly attached dog, and if she doesnt stop spoiling her, she’ll never fix the problem”! The narrator then (after the advert break) tells the audience that “Graeme has realised the root of Dolly’s anxious behaviour lies with Laura”. Copious research has proven ‘spoiling’ a dog does not cause separation related behaviours (S. Cowell-Davis, 2008, G. Landsberg, 2007, V. Voith, 1992).
No mention of body language, stress signs or motivators
There is NO mention of body language, of stress signs, of what ‘threshold’ means and why it is vital to keep Dolly well under threshold when working on a separation anxiety protocol (however, as I will come onto later, further questioning here should have been in place to look at whether the motivation for these behaviours were actually anxiety about being alone or other reasons).
Owner blaming
He then goes onto tell the owner that she has loved Dolly ‘too much’ and tells her that for Dolly’s own sake the owner needs to stop her eating ‘human food’ because she is creating a spoiled dog, and he “thinks” this is creating a knock on effect with the separation anxiety. Now, first of all, lets touch on the obvious here….what classes as ‘human food’ if we are being picky? Humans eat meat – so does that mean no meat for Dolly? Now obviously here I am being facetious as I know what he means. He is telling the owner that Dolly must only eat commercial foods that are specifically branded and made for dogs….because that will fix her anxiety about being alone of course!
Now I can tell you right now, yes nutrition absolutely does affect behaviour, no doubt about that, and if that was what Graeme was talking about, hats off to him! But it is not….and a dog only eating kibble and not any food that us humans eat, and us not sharing our food with our dogs, is going to make zero difference to whether or not that dog feels anxious home alone. It is FAR more complex than that!!
Graeme then goes onto discuss with the owner about her routine when she leaves Dolly, and again more ‘owner blaming’ occurs here when he tells the owner that when she is fussing Dolly before she leaves, when Dolly is already anxious (he is missing a glaring red flag here…the fact Dolly is anxious before Laura leaves!!), it “sends the wrong signals”. So here Graeme is saying that Laura could be reinforcing Dolly for feeling anxious by giving her attention. Well it has long been known that you cannot reinforce emotions in the same way you can reinforce behaviours so unfortunately this is outdated, and incorrect.
Now credit where credit is due….Graeme then raises the fact that when the owner comes in the house to find Dolly has toileted or destroyed items, she tells her off. Graeme does touch on the fact that that is not the best thing to do, although he initially focuses on the fact that she is telling Dolly off AFTER the event has happened, and therefore Dolly will not make the association between toileting in the house, and being told off…he says “all she will know is sometimes Mum is angry and shes going to be more anxious than ever before”.
Lack of history taking & prioritisation
Let me also mention here, that NO aspect of Dolly’s daily routine and lifestyle has been discussed at this point…no mention of how much exercise and mental stimulation she gets, what she eats, how her appetite is, whether she has any known medical conditions, is she sensitive to sound etc and these are just a few of the plethora of information I would want from a client before we start addressing the actual separation anxiety, because behaviour does not happen in isolation. There are always other aspects and variables that will impact it, and pain is a huge one, as is the dog not having their needs met. And I highly doubt any vet referral, or gait/posture analysis has been done here, plus I also highly doubt Dolly’s needs are anywhere near being fully met – this is not the owners fault as we only know what we know, but this should be an opportunity for Graeme to ask these questions and educate the owner on what Dolly DOES need, and why.
The issue that is ruling the owner’s and Dolly’s life, is Dolly’s anxiety about being home alone. So Graeme starts off focusing on teaching Dolly not to take a sandwich from the owner’s plate! Priorities do not seem to be in place here! Also I should add here that Dolly is displaying stress signs, panting heavily with signs of tension around her eyes.
TV “Magic” & Simplifying behaviour
And….here is another reminder that TV editing means what you are seeing is NOT the reality! The narrator tells us that in just 5 minutes Dolly is standing on the floor and allowing Laura to eat and tells us “its a transformation!”. Only about 30 seconds later Graeme mentions that Dolly hasnt had a treat for 4 or 5 minutes. So it does not take a genius to work out that the length of time that had passed in reality was much much longer than we are led to believe by the ‘magic’ of tv! It then appears to have got dark, Graeme leaves and tells the camera that the separation anxiety is something for another day, despite it being the most pressing problem for the owner!
Graeme then returns on another day. The fact that Dolly toileted in the house when left alone last time within the first 10 minutes was raised, and the narrator tells us that “Graeme wants Dolly to beat that 10 minutes without losing her nerve of going on the tear up”. He does then tell the owner that the aim is to desensitise Dolly, and teach her its not big deal when Laura goes and that she will be coming back. Absolutely…spot on! But, that takes time! IN the same way as helping a human overcome a fear of flying, or a phobia of needles involves changing emotions and time and patience, teaching a dog that it is safe being home alone also takes time! There is no way that any dog who is anxious about being home alone can learn anything in one day! Impossible! And sadly this shows Graeme’s lack of knowledge on canine behaviour, how dogs learn, physiology and behaviour modification.
Graeme mentions that “last week all it took was 10 minutes for Dolly to get excited and lose control”….but actually this entire sentence is incorrect. Firstly, Dolly was pacing around and displaying stress signs as soon as the owner left, it just took a little while longer for this to escalate to the level of anxiety that caused her to toilet in the house. Graeme then says “if we can get through that critical 10 minutes I will know were on the right track”, but my pressing question is, why is that first 10 minutes the critical time? I genuinely have no clue why Graeme is ignoring the pacing and other more subtle stress signs, and only going by the rough time that Dolly toileted, when in actual fact this is when she is feeling a significant amount of anxiety and we need to be addressing it much, much earlier.
Now at the beginning, he is on the right track when the owner is (presumably) asked to go out of the front door and straight back in again, and this is repeated in succession. Now after (in TV time!) doing this a couple of times, we are then told that the next stage is to increase the length of time that the owner goes out – to 1 minute, then soon after they increase to 3 minutes, then try 10 minutes!! Now that is a big jump in duration in the space of 2 TV minutes!!! The way to do it would be yes, to do repetitive steps, but of varying duration and some to involve not even going out of the door, so as not to build a pattern that whenever we go to the door we are going out. Plus, with the magic that is TV editing, it is most likely that they have been going back and forth doing this for a very long time (knowing people who work in TV and film, nothing is ever what it seems and nothing is ever done on one take!!), and I would put money on the fact that Dolly is also pretty exhausted!
In fact, as the programme continues you can see the light on the floor of the living room change. Interestingly, sometimes the light seems to actually move BACKWARDS too! So when it mentions about the owner leaving for 3 minutes, the light patterns changed on the floor to how it was earlier on! Never forget about Tv editing for one minute! Then when Dolly is shown lying on the back of the sofa, the light has changed significantly, showing the time of day is much, much later. Now, so many variables will affect a dog’s ability to cope alone, and I have worked with multiple dogs who’s tolerance is vastly different before exercise versus after. Now Dolly’s exercise has not even been addressed, but it is clear that Graeme (and the camera crew, remember) has been there most of the day, meaning Dolly is most likely absolutely mentally and physically exhausted which will have an impact on her behaviour. I would like to know how Dolly coped with being alone the next day or week!
Separation anxiety or boredom?
Also, again I draw attention to the fact that no discussion was entered into regarding Dolly daily routine, and whether her needs were met. Why is this so important? Well because when we are met with a dog engaging in destructive behaviour and toileting inside the house, or engaging in ANY behaviours when alone, we have to identify what the cause of those behaviours are. Now yes, Dolly MAY well have anxiety about being left, but these behaviours may also have (at least, in part) be motivated by boredom, lack of enrichment, lack of opportunities to toilet and her basic needs not being met. So if this is the case then yes, by “working” with her over and over again over a long day, and tiring her out, she WILL then be able to cope with her owner leaving….but branding that as “separation anxiety” is not only incorrect, but it is misleading to the general public who can then be under the impression that it is this easy to overcome…when sadly in reality, it is not.
Please remember that ANY reality TV show is NOT real….its for entertainment. And this is no different. Working on addressing behaviour concerns takes time…..we are changing emotions and in the same way as with humans, there is no quick fix! Separation anxiety is a very complex issue, and an owner ‘loving the dog too much” (what is too much anyway???) or ‘spoiling’ the dog has absolutely no bearing on anxiety about being alone. So many variables play a part in separation anxiety