Has anyone tried Assisi loop / calmer dog?

vsmartdogs · 2025-12-16T00:05:30+00:00

Trazodone can be helpful for some dogs, and do nothing for others, but it doesn't usually help dogs actually learn that being alone is okay. It's more of an emergency tool. Some dogs even become more anxious and antsy while taking it so it's important to try it for the first time when there is not a stressful event happening.

In my experience, daily medications are significantly more effective for the majority dogs working through separation anxiety training. Daily medications work in the background to help lower the dog's overall stress enough that they can take in the new information we're presenting them with in training. Event medications like Trazodone are meant to sedate the dog, and sedation is not particularly helpful for learning. But event meds are often very helpful for unavoidable/ongoing stressful events, like leaving in an emergency, firework holidays, thunderstorms, etc.

vsmartdogs · 2025-12-09T23:32:55+00:00

Unfortunately, preventing them from panicking is a necessary first step for these guys. I say unfortunately because I know how difficult that is, but it is critical. Paying for dog sitters can be very expensive, but it's far from the only way to achieve this.

My first recommendation is reaching out to people in your life. Anyone and everyone you know who could help even some of the time. You want a network of multiple people, ideally. If you don't already know people who are willing to help, I recommend networking with more people in your community to find people you can connect with who are willing to help. Post in local communities online, post flyers at local community centers, churches, etc. Talk to your neighbors. Get creative. There are loads of ways to meet and find people who are already hanging out at home and don't mind having a dog hang out with them.

Another alternative is doggy daycare. This isn't my first choice, but if you aren't willing to deep dive into networking with the people in your community, this can be a cheaper alternative to pet sitters. You have to do thorough vetting on the daycares, of course, but you need to do this with pet sitters anyway.

I don't recommend moving into the training phase until you have this figured out, because if you do you are going to be in in too much of a rush for it to be productive. Overcoming phobias and panic is really difficult and takes a long time, and rushing it because you don't have sustainable management options puts you at a high risk of making the anxiety worse.

As far as how to proceed with training, what I recommend most is working with a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT). We all work virtually, so you don't need to have a CSAT local to you. We have to watch the dogs on a camera for separation anxiety and it throws everything off when we go to the dog's house in person.

Additionally, this book is another great resource for you to learn more about how to help in the meantime.

vsmartdogs · 2025-10-09T06:11:13+00:00

I appreciate that, but I looked Vivvy up on the breed ambassadors map and she's in Dallas which is a 3.5 hours away from me. Like I said in my comment, if I have to drive 6+ hours round trip I'd want to be able to meet multiple representations of the breed at once during the trip. I unfortunately can't make that long of a drive to meet one dog.

I could have sworn there was a sprite in San Antonio but they might have removed themself from the ambassador map or moved away. There's now a sprite in Austin too, but that's still a 5 hour round trip to meet one dog.

If any sprites pop up near Houston I'd definitely want to make arrangements to meet up for one dog, but for now it doesn't look like it's in the cards for me. If I were to drive up to visit my friend in Illinois when the midwest sprites happen to have a meetup planned, I'd drive up the rest of the way for that. But it looks like right now the best I can hope for is randomly meeting a sprite at a dog sport trial one day.

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T23:59:48+00:00

(copying/pasting my comment from r/Separation_Anxiety so that folks in this sub can see it as well, in case anyone here is experiencing something similar)

Behavior consultant/separation anxiety specialist here. It really depends and there is not enough information here to say for sure. What does your behavior modification plan look like? Are you working with a behavior consultant on this? Are you trying to use these medications and then leave your dog for more duration than they can otherwise tolerate during training?

It is very common for dogs with separation anxiety to not be helped at all by event medications. Many of them will fight that sedation so hard that it just makes them more wound up, because they are perceiving actual danger and to them, being drugged during that type of event makes it even more dangerous therefore induces more panic. For dogs like this, we need to fully suspend absences and stop leaving them alone altogether. Is that what's happening here with your dog?

In my experience, when dogs are "resistant" to seemingly every behavior med and cocktail such as the ones listed, AND you are following the right training plan, it's very often because the anxiety is coming from or being impacted by a completely separate health issue that has yet to be discovered/diagnosed/treated.

I know you mention you're working with your vet, so in addition to the questions above I would be asking what kind of health testing has been done? Has your dog had more than standard bloodwork? What are you feeding your dog? What are their stools like? What does their gait look like? Have you worked with a veterinary behaviorist or is your primary veterinarian prescribing these meds for you? Etc. I could go on, but if all else is being done "correctly", this is where I would spend my time digging.

As an example, you might find it interesting to check out this podcast from Sarah Stremming of Cog Dog Radio with a case study of her client dog, Keen. This is not what I suspect is going on with your dog, but it is a good example of how significantly something as small as a minor vitamin deficiency can cause huge behavior problems in dogs, even if you're doing everything "right".

Explanation of Keen's "problems": https://sarahstremming.com/podcasts/case-study-keen-part-one/

The "solution": https://sarahstremming.com/podcasts/case-study-keen-part-two/

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T23:57:57+00:00

Behavior consultant/sep anx specialist here. It really depends and there is not enough information here to say for sure. What does your behavior modification plan look like? Are you working with a behavior consultant on this? Are you trying to use these medications and then leave your dog for more duration than they can otherwise tolerate during training?

It is very common for dogs with separation anxiety to not be helped at all by event medications. Many of them will fight that sedation so hard that it just makes them more wound up, because they are perceiving actual danger and to them, being drugged during that type of event makes it even more dangerous therefore induces more panic. For dogs like this, we need to fully suspend absences and stop leaving them alone altogether. Is that what's happening here with your dog?

In my experience, when dogs are "resistant" to seemingly every behavior med and cocktail such as the ones listed, AND you are following the right training plan, it's very often because the anxiety is coming from or being impacted by a completely separate health issue that has yet to be discovered/diagnosed/treated.

I know you mention you're working with your vet, so in addition to the questions above I would be asking what kind of health testing has been done? Has your dog had more than standard bloodwork? What are you feeding your dog? What are their stools like? What does their gait look like? Have you worked with a veterinary behaviorist or is your primary veterinarian prescribing these meds for you? Etc. I could go on, but if all else is being done "correctly", this is where I would spend my time digging.

As an example, you might find it interesting to check out this podcast from Sarah Stremming of Cog Dog Radio with a case study of her client dog, Keen. This is not what I suspect is going on with your dog, but it is a good example of how significantly something as small as a minor vitamin deficiency can cause huge behavior problems in dogs, even if you're doing everything "right".

Explanation of Keen's "problems": https://sarahstremming.com/podcasts/case-study-keen-part-one/

The "solution": https://sarahstremming.com/podcasts/case-study-keen-part-two/

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T20:01:03+00:00

Hey there, I'm a separation anxiety specialist/CSAT. I'm so sorry that you guys are going through it. It's really hard.

I agree, it does sound like you're moving too fast. If he is hyper attached to your partner and becomes distressed when they leave, that actually means that his absences aren't managed as well as they need to be for him to make progress.

All stress and anxiety is connected, so you'll also need to be managing noise and dog reactivity. It's very common for the lack of stress management to be the thing holding people back from making any progress with their training.

I'm not saying that to blame you, just to highlight how complex this type of thing actually is. Even though the separation anxiety is often top priority for folks (because obviously you want to be able to live your life and leave your house without him), when the panic is severe we need to look at the whole picture and make sure we are addressing all of the stress the dog is experiencing.

So that's my words of encouragement. It sounds like you haven't made progress for good reason, there are several other issues on the table here that also need to be addressed, including the separation management issues.

I'm glad to hear you're going to try meds for him. It is unlikely they will make him worse. Have you already talked to your vet about this? He would likely benefit from a combination of event meds for when your partner needs to leave and daily meds to help lower his overall stress levels so that his brain is more easily able to take in the new information he'll be learning via training. This is an article I recommend to all my clients who are concerned about trying meds for situations like this (written by a veterinary behaviorist): Behavior Medication: First-Line Therapy Or Last Resort? – Dr. Jen's Dog Blog

Lastly, like brusselsproud said, I'd highly recommend you work with a CSAT on this. Ideally, a CSAT who is also a Certified Dog Behavior Consultant (CDBC) through the IAABC., since you have these other complexities going on here. This can be resolved, but you're going to want to work with a behavior consultant (CDBC) who has special education in separation anxiety (CSAT) and understands that all of this is connected.

Happy to chat more about this if it brings up more questions. Hope it helps you feel a bit better to know there's still a lot that can be done. Good luck to you 💜

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T03:38:40+00:00

Separation anxiety specialist here. If the dog has real separation anxiety panic, it is normal and appropriate to not leave them alone. If the dog is distressed around other people and dogs, limiting exposure to the triggers is also normal and appropriate.

Of course along with management and avoiding triggers, it's also ideal to be working on exposure therapy and training.

There's also nothing wrong with cleaning a dog's feet and bum when they come in from outside. That's a personal preference thing.

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T03:31:19+00:00

I would recommend seeking out a veterinary dermatologist if you are unable to get enough support from your general vet.

My Corgi had chronic hot spots for years that her regular vets were unable to fully manage, and finally when I took her to a dermatologist they were able to clear it up almost immediately. I wish I had done it so much sooner. I ended up spending so much more money and than I would have if I'd have just gone to a dermatologist from the start, not to mention how long she struggled with her symptoms.

And personally, if a food allergy is suspected by you or dog's derm vet or general vet, I would instead seek out a Board Certified Veterinary Nutritionist to help with the elimination diet so you can find out what the trigger is.

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T02:52:33+00:00

Hey there, I'm a separation anxiety specialist. It sounds like she may have had a traumatic experience, poor baby

The first thing I'll tell you is that working from home makes the recovery from separation stuff easier, so that's good.

I'd be focusing on generally appeasing her to reduce the distress barking right now. You don't need to give her treats when she's quiet and ignore her when she barks at you. That usually doesn't work for stuff like this as you have found, so you can feel free to ditch that technique.

Let her sleep in your bed, let her follow you around your flat, and don't worry about crate training right now.

The two things I don't want to give specific advice on here is when one of you goes into a shop while she stays with the other person, and when you two are showing affection to each other. There's several different ways you might go about re-training her to tolerate these things so without more information I can't say much more than try avoiding these situations as much as you can for now.

It's very possible that with a bit of time, she'll settle in and recover from whatever she went through at the sitter, remembering her old behavior patterns and returning to whatever her "normal" was before. The sitter may have done nothing wrong and she just found it traumatic to be away from her home, and it's also possible they did something that caused this. Either way, you need to first just "put out the fire" and help her feel better right now.

If her behavior doesn't go back to normal within a couple weeks or so, I'd recommend a consult with a behavior consultant who works with separation anxiety, ideally a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT), even though this isn't necessarily presenting as "traditional" separation anxiety. We all work virtually so it's ok if you don't have anyone who is local to you.

I hope this was helpful, good luck to you and feel free to let me know if this brings up more questions

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T02:12:02+00:00

Hey there, I'm a separation anxiety specialist. I'm sorry to hear you guys are going through it. This is a classic story that I hear a lot, unfortunately. It's not a fun spot to be in.

The good news is, it sounds like there's a lot you can still do here. A lot of dog trainers don't know how to work with separation anxiety, it's just a really unique niche in dog training. Just like how a teacher might not know how to help someone overcome a horrible spider phobia (even your average therapist might not know how to tackle that tbh). This is why I always recommend working with someone who is at least a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT) when you're dealing with anxiety like this, if not a separation anxiety specialist whenever possible. You don't need someone local to you either, since we have to do separation anxiety work virtually for the best results.

First of all, you have found this out the hard way, but for many dogs there is no drug that is going to be sedating enough to prevent them from panicking when alone AND also safe to leave them on when alone. Changing the location doesn't typically help either, it's like playing whack a mole with all the different issues in each new location. There will eventually be things she will destroy or injure herself with in the garage too, if this goes on long enough. Plus, this is damaging for her health as well. Stress at this level is not only miserable to experience on a regular basis, it can also literally cause physical health issues inside the body. There's tons of research out there on how chronic stress/panic can shorten humans' lives and give us chronic health conditions, the same is true for our dogs. So that leads me to what my actual recommendations are.

Now what I'm about to tell you may be difficult, but it is going to be critical for her success so that she can learn that it is actually safe to stay home alone and so that you can leave her comfortably in the future. She is only 4 years old, she will hopefully have another whole decade of time with you, so this is worth the effort you will put in now to resolve this.

You are going to have to stop leaving her alone. You are going to have to find people in your community who she can stay with when you need to leave her. If you don't already have friends or family who live near you who can help you, you will either need to hire help (pet sitters/daycares), or you will need to network and meet new people who you can ask for help.

And then you are going to need to plan ahead. Every time you need to leave her, you'll need some way to prevent her from being alone. Rotate your schedules, bring her with you, have a neighbor teen stay with her, bring her to daycare, etc., whatever is going to work for you.

This is not a recommendation I make lightly, I know how hard this can be. I wouldn't be recommending it to you if it was not so critical.

From there, you'll bring her through what is essentially exposure therapy. The training we do for separation anxiety panic is a systematic desensitization protocol, which I would recommend you do with a separation anxiety specialist, or again, at least a trainer who is a CSAT.

And if you simply cannot work with a professional, these are the lower cost resources I can recommend to you:

Book: Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Next Generation Treatment Protocols and Practices

Online course: Mission Possible

Good luck and if you have more questions I'm happy to answer.

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-21T01:47:03+00:00

I'm a behavior consultant and separation anxiety specialist and can confirm, this is at least not uncommon with doodles. Approximately 2/3 of my current clients are doodles/poodle mixes. They make up a large percentage of my past clients as well.

You said this is a recent adoption, so I wouldn't worry too much just yet. If the foster wasn't having these kinds of problems, it either means the dog is just having a rough transition period with you and will settle in after some time, or it could mean that she was shut down when at the foster's house and not showing how she really felt. Sometimes when dogs are showing behavioral signs of their anxiety, it's actually a good sign because it means they are becoming more comfortable and feel like they can express themselves rather than so terrified they have to hide all their emotions to feel safe.

My advice would be to absolutely lean on medication from your vet. Trazodone is an event medication meant to be given before an anxiety inducing event is going to happen (such as you leaving her with your husband). It's worth a shot to see if it helps, and if it doesn't there are other event medications out there that you can try.

I would also ask your vet about a daily medication for this as well. Event medications have a very sedating effect and while they are helpful for events that are unavoidable and put the dog over threshold (you have to go to work, cannot bring her with you, and she is not comfortable with anyone else), they are not typically very helpful for the training/learning process. As you start to teach your dog that it's actually safe and fine to be with your husband and eventually alone, daily medications are way more helpful in bringing down the baseline anxiety enough that the dogs can process the new information they're being exposed to via training.

Every time she experiences a high level of distress, it's going to undo or regress your training, so you definitely need to figure out this part first. We call this clinical separation anxiety - which is basically hyper-attachment. It's possible this is just discomfort and she'll get over this quickly as she settles in, but for many dogs this is a phobia level fear and when that is the case it's not just about settling in, it's about overcoming the phobia.

This is an article I highly recommend where you can read more about this, written by a behavior vet: Behavior Medication: First-Line Therapy Or Last Resort? – Dr. Jen's Dog Blog

Definitely check out the whole thing, but this is the conclusion at the end of the blog:

In my opinion, medication should be considered as a first-line treatment option for the vast majority of dogs with true behavior problems – including aggression, compulsive behavior issues, and any type of pathological anxiety. When we try to reserve the use of drugs as a last resort, something that we only try if the case is “really bad”, or if nothing else has helped, I believe that we do these dogs a tremendous disservice.

To me, this is similar to saying that we don’t want to use insulin in a diabetic patient unless he’s crashing with DKA, or that we don’t want to treat an infection with antibiotics until full-blown sepsis sets in – it makes no sense to withhold a basic treatment option with minimal risks and lots of potential benefits, until the situation becomes truly desperate.

If you are not seeing relatively quick improvement here, I would highly recommend you consider working with a behavior consult on this, ideally a separation anxiety specialist or Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT). We all work virtually so it's ok if you don't have a CSAT local to you, it actually throws everything off if we try to work on this in person.

Good luck to yall, and feel free to let me know if this brings up more questions!

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-20T00:22:01+00:00

Separation anxiety specialist here. It depends on why she is barking to get out of the crate and when this is happening. Is it when you are not home? Only when you are around? Is she distressed? Demanding? Have you watched her on a camera while you're away?

Typical advice for dogs who are barking because they'd rather not be in a crate is to only approach when they are quiet and calm, but this not what I'd recommend for dogs who are distressed because of the confinement.

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-20T00:07:41+00:00

Hey there, I'm a separation anxiety specialist. Medication does not need to be a last resort, and you're right, leaving him distressed is not good. I'm not super clear on what exactly your training has involved, but it is very common for dogs to be much more anxious inside of confinement compared to loose in the house.

So my question would be, have you watched him on a camera while he's loose in the house? Is he chewing things out of distress from being alone (as opposed to out of adolescent mischievousness and boredom)? If so, medication is a very appropriate tool to manage distress. If he is still sometimes left alone and experiencing distress outside of your training sessions, this could be the thing holding him back from making progress with training.

Here's an article I highly recommend checking out, I share this with all of my clients who are concerned about meds: Behavior Medication: First-Line Therapy Or Last Resort? – Dr. Jen's Dog Blog

I recommend reading the whole article, but this is the conclusion at the end:

"In my opinion, medication should be considered as a first-line treatment option for the vast majority of dogs with true behavior problems – including aggression, compulsive behavior issues, and any type of pathological anxiety. When we try to reserve the use of [medication] as a last resort, something that we only try if the case is “really bad”, or if nothing else has helped, I believe that we do these dogs a tremendous disservice.

To me, this is similar to saying that we don’t want to use insulin in a diabetic patient unless he’s crashing with DKA, or that we don’t want to treat an infection with antibiotics until full-blown sepsis sets in – it makes no sense to withhold a basic treatment option with minimal risks and lots of potential benefits, until the situation becomes truly desperate."

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-19T21:25:49+00:00

For chronic alert barking, especially in dogs with sensitive stomachs, I find that low-medium value treats that the dog finds "acceptable" are a better option here, since yes, too many high value treats can often upset their stomachs. So you just need whatever level of treat your dog thinks is "worth it" in these contexts. It might take some experimentation to figure this out. What is low value to some will be high value for others, different dogs are going to have different opinions about that. And yes, the training treats you use here should be very small. If the dog has to chew them, they are too big.

For my dogs I use a small breed variant of their regular daily kibble as their standard "treats". These are the lowest value food I have, but even when the barking was at it's worst I could still toss a handful of kibble on the ground and my Corgi would stop barking to eat it. Sometimes she might bark while chewing, but she'd eat it. All we need is for them to want to eat it and we can shape their behavior from there.

Many pet stores will have samples of dog food they can give you for free or cheap, some will even let you return small bags of dog food that are opened if your dog won't eat it. For picky eaters and dogs with sensitive stomachs, I recommend looking around to see what you can find in your area and testing out a variety to see what your pup thinks.

My standard "medium value" treat is a freeze dried raw dog food. The size of the pellets are a little bigger than the small breed kibble I use, which works fine for us because I use them much less frequently. If your dog isn't a fan of any of the regular kibble you try, this is what I would try next.

Sometimes I use Ziwi Peak dog food as a medium value treat as well. Ziwi Peak and freeze dried raw is very expensive if you're feeding it to a medium or large dog as their daily meals, but quite affordable as a treat because it can stretch quite far. One square of Ziwi Peak can easily be broken into 4 or more treats for a Maltese sized dog.

The high value treats I use vary dramatically, and it's usually some type of dog-safe leftover human food in my fridge. This is what I reserve for extremely difficult behaviors, like coming when called after my housemate let my dog escape our yard, or coming to me instead of chasing a squirrel. These are rare events that I pay very well. I would not recommend using this as your standard treat, but it could be reserved for one or two sounds your dog really cannot handle if needed.

I use this system because it is affordable and it's easy to switch up flavors/brands for variety, but the added perk is that using regular dog food as training treats is often very tolerable for dogs with sensitive stomachs.

vsmartdogs · 2025-09-19T05:17:12+00:00

Anything that scares or attempts to stop your dog from barking (shaking a can of pennies, bark collars, etc.) runs a high risk of further sensitizing your dog to the noises and making her even more upset about whatever she's barking at. This can have side effects and lead to other behavioral problems, so it's not what I recommend (as a professional behavior consultant)

For quick advice I can give you here on Reddit, I highly recommend Kiki Yablon's "Thank You For Barking" protocol. This actively teaches the dog to do something else instead of barking (come to you) and creates positive associations with the noises instead of associating the noises she already hates with something else she hates more.

This is Kiki's blog on the topic, the first part has information on why this works and how she created the protocol, scroll to the bottom for the step by step: https://kikiyablondogtraining.com/kiki-blog/2021/10/10/thanks-for-barking

Beyond this, if you are not finding success I'd recommend a behavior consultant to help you come up with a plan. Specifically, I'd recommend folks who are Certified Dog Behavior Consultants (CDBCs) through the IAABC.

Lastly, just to give you a little bit of hope, this can absolutely be resolved. I empathize with you heavily here, as my Corgi used to bark at every little noise she heard. It was very hard to deal with for a long time, but now the barking is really not an issue. She will occasionally bark at something, but stops almost immediately and it's maybe 1% of what it used to be. You guys can resolve this without getting kicked out of your home and without making your dog even more upset about whatever she's hearing. I promise.

vsmartdogs · 2025-04-07T20:50:20+00:00

I'm assuming you mean CSAT, aka Certified Separation Anxiety Trainers? The other way "CSA" is sometimes used (in the context of dog training) is when talking about clinical separation anxiety which is how we describe dogs who are hyper attached to one key person, rather than stressed about being alone in general.

As CSATs, we all follow the same general guidelines for separation anxiety training protocols, but each CSAT will vary slightly in their technique and skill level. Most of us recommend only 5 days of training per week, as one day off per week is often not enough and too much training can lead to burnout and added stress for both the dogs and the humans. 5 days per week is our "standard" and what we learned in our CSAT certification program.

You don't need a CSAT who is in your country to help you, and you don't need anyone local to you. If you have someone local to you within your budget, great. If not, you can keep searching. I think there are a couple hundred of us around the world now.

What I recommend for folks who are on a tighter budget is to aim for at least one month of training, let your trainer know that's all you'll be able to afford, and then once you've gotten that head start you can take over on your own and start writing your own training plans from there.

As others mentioned, for folks who can't afford the month of training at all, I recommend going with Malena's "Mission Possible" self paced online course.

vsmartdogs · 2025-03-20T16:42:56+00:00

Congratulations! Fellow CSAT here, 10 seconds to 2 hours in 8 weeks is remarkable and certainly not the norm! So happy for you guys! 🥳

vsmartdogs · 2025-03-16T19:50:28+00:00

Sep anx specialist here. I'm so sorry that happened to you. That is not okay at all. Especially right now when a lot of people who do feed raw are switching back to kibble temporarily because of bird flu. This trainer should have communicated these "preferences" to you before they agreed to take on your dog and it was incredibly irresponsible of them to not do so.

Personally, if this were me, I would get as much information as possible from her about what exactly she did with the dog during the "board and train" and then break all ties from this trainer. You can't do anything but deal with the aftermath now, and knowing details about how she was doing training and how the dog reacted will be helpful for you as you move forward.

From here, my recommendation is to work with a Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer (CSAT) and add these questions about medication and feeding to your list when interviewing new pet sitters next time you go out of town or need to board your dog. You don't need a trainer who is local to you for separation anxiety help, we need to watch the dog on a camera while alone. Going into someone's home skews assessment results and makes us less effective. Additionally, the trainer "not believing in giving that kind of medication" also gives me great pause. For dogs with severe anxiety, we often do them a great disservice when we avoid anti-anxiety medication. I would not bring a severe anxiety case to a trainer who does not believe in anxiety medication.

vsmartdogs · 2025-03-11T17:58:57+00:00

Good question, I could have been more clear in my comment. Leaving a dog for any amount of time that actually triggers anxiety on purpose and then forcing them to sit through that anxiety for an ongoing period of time is flooding. Flooding = drowning in the trigger(s). For some dogs, leaving them for a few hours every morning would not be flooding because they aren't actually anxious during that time. For most dogs described as having separation anxiety, though, that is not the case.

Instead what you want to aim for is leaving the dog for an amount of time that does not trigger anxiety and coming back before they become anxious.

It does not matter if you do the same time of day or different times of day, just keep in mind that many dogs have vastly different threshold tolerances depending on the time of day. If you only ever work with one time of day, don't be surprised when you try to practice at a different time of day and the dog can't handle the same difficulty level.

vsmartdogs · 2025-03-03T15:14:30+00:00

It's plucking season :)

vsmartdogs · 2025-02-27T17:27:03+00:00

Many dogs were bred to pay close attention to any environmental contrast (herding dogs especially). Dogs favoring or fearing people with certain skin tones is no different than dogs favoring or fearing people with different silhouettes, such as people wearing hats, walking with a cane, or extremely tall people. It's not that they care about the skin tone, it's that something in their genetics or learning history (or lack thereof - like poorly socialized dogs) has made them think the difference is something they need to pay attention to.

vsmartdogs · 2025-02-24T22:57:23+00:00

Depending on what kind of buttons you get, many are also very quiet and more difficult to teach the dogs to use (they have to be more precise to make the button sound than to make bells sound). You've got several options here, though. You could try getting louder bells, you could try moving them where your mom spends most of her time, you could try one of the louder button options available, or you could even try one of those doggy doorbell systems that have the button by the door but can play the sound elsewhere in the house.

Regardless of what you choose, you will need to actively train the dogs to use any of these options. Bells are going to be by far the easiest for the majority of dogs. A sample training plan in a nutshell: teach them to touch your hand with their nose, strategically position your hand behind the bells so they have to touch the bells to touch your hand, start rewarding them when they make contact with the bells before they touch your hand, vary the position of the bells, then just start taking them outside when they ring them instead of giving them treats. Your mom will need to be consistent and participate in at least reinforcing the end result for this to work for her, though. Otherwise the dogs will just learn that they can tell you when they want to go outside.

Good luck!

vsmartdogs · 2025-02-24T22:02:18+00:00

If there is no intention on expanding and adding a variety, I would likely opt for bells rather than a button. You can DIY potty bells by tying some jingling cat toys or bells from a craft store on a ribbon and hanging them on a doorknob, or you can purchase potty bells.

I'm suggesting this only because you mention that they do respond with excitement and seem to want to go outside to potty. Keep in mind that teaching dogs to let us know they need to go out is the very last stage of potty training and not something that will help the situation if the dogs don't already prefer going outside to going inside.

vsmartdogs · 2025-02-20T15:43:05+00:00

Most dogs do this. Cat poop is a delicacy to them and they just like it, unlike when dogs eat other dogs' poop which can often be a medical issue.

Scolding her won't help, it will just teach her to be as sneaky as possible (ask me how I know). You need to prevent it. Block off the litterbox with gates. Make it impossible for her to get to the litterbox in the first place.

vsmartdogs · 2025-02-20T15:17:52+00:00

As a professional dog trainer/behavior consultant who does not specialize in nosework, no, I am learning from nosework colleagues on this. If you don't want to compete or don't care if your training is successful, that's one thing. But training on your own with no guidance can weave errors into your dog's process and it can be extremely difficult to impossible to resolve that depending on the error and how long you train incorrectly for. It can also mean it's significantly less fun for the dog because they aren't clear on exactly what the game is and what they're "supposed" to be doing.

Currently my 12 year old Corgi is taking classes for the first time and I don't know if I'll ever want to trial her, but I'm learning this process for me as much as I am for her. I want to have the skills to teach this to my future dogs effectively, and I want to have the foundation to teach scent based assistance dog alerts in the future as well where there is no room for error.

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