Feb 24, 2025 · 48 min · 12 segments
Separation related problems are commonly misunderstood, and the term separation anxiety is an unhelpful misnomer. Indeed our scientific understanding of separation related problems is rapidly being…
Daniel MillsHostBeckyGuestMillie JonesHostCraigGuest
Yeah, so in the last episode, I think it was the last episode, I can't remember, you said sort of one of the big breakthroughs for you was this whole issue of realizing that this separation-related problem was actually something to do with frustration.
And whilst there's a lot of emphasis put on the relationship, and we are going to talk a little bit about the relationship later on in this episode, It is really important that people understand that how much frustration plays a role for the dog in separation related problems.
The other thing to appreciate is that people often talk about separation anxiety as if it is a thing when actually it's, well, it's a thing in so much as it's a presenting problem.
A number of years ago, you know, I had a PhD student, Luciana Assi, and she looked at hundreds of these cases.
And her job was to try and look to see if the different signs seem to come together.
Because as I say, as it stands, all separation anxiety tells us is the dog is having difficulty when left alone.
But in what way is he struggling? That was part of Luciana's question to try and sort out as part of her PhD.
But we had complete data sets on several hundred dogs, which allowed us to look at the different signs.
So we asked people, you know, the dog had to be destructive or vocalize or eliminate when left alone.
But anyway, what Luciana found was, as I say, there's four main ways that dogs tend to react in these circumstances, which the first thing that shows was just how this is more complicated.
Yeah, so in the last episode, I think it was the last episode, I can't remember, you said sort of one of the big breakthroughs for you was this whole issue of realizing that this separation-related problem was actually something to do with frustration.
And whilst there's a lot of emphasis put on the relationship, and we are going to talk a little bit about the relationship later on in this episode, It is really important that people understand that how much frustration plays a role for the dog in separation related problems.
The other thing to appreciate is that people often talk about separation anxiety as if it is a thing when actually it's, well, it's a thing in so much as it's a presenting problem.
A number of years ago, you know, I had a PhD student, Luciana Assi, and she looked at hundreds of these cases.
And her job was to try and look to see if the different signs seem to come together.
Because as I say, as it stands, all separation anxiety tells us is the dog is having difficulty when left alone.
But in what way is he struggling? That was part of Luciana's question to try and sort out as part of her PhD.
But we had complete data sets on several hundred dogs, which allowed us to look at the different signs.
So we asked people, you know, the dog had to be destructive or vocalize or eliminate when left alone.
But anyway, what Luciana found was, as I say, there's four main ways that dogs tend to react in these circumstances, which the first thing that shows was just how this is more complicated.
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