[yorkietalkjilly]

Sorry I've been so late in reading your previous trainer's brochure. I've never heard of such a thing as weaning a dog from its owner, have had dozens of very anxious, very aggressive and very troubled/rescue dogs in this house over the years and never needed to wean a dog off me by ignoring it or rebuffing it, withholding shows of affection, for it to come to accept my leaving it alone in the house. Not ever! It seems such a needlessly cruel way to try to get a stressed dog to learn how to control his impulse to grow anxious and whine or bark when you leave when behaving matter-of-factly upon leaving and slowly desensitizing the dog to the process of the owner leaving is a far kinder, gentler and much easier, less stressful way to train the dog.

Usually, ignoring a dog will only encourage him to seek the owner out for attention all the more and when he's continually ignored and rebuffed, he'll grow ever more determined and possibly frantic to get the attention and affection he so craves, cut off as he is from nature and his birth pack and all he's ever known. When he meets such a response for days and days, a sociable dog will likely grow stressed from his owner's behavior, sensing something is wrong between him and his pack leader and he could withdraw, isolate or work harder still to gain his owner's attention, affection and approval.

And yikes - that part about backing the poor dog into the end of a hallway and smashing its head into the wall when it tries to make a run for it sounds barbaric! Why subject a poor little dog to such awful, frightening and potentially harmful treatment when there are far more genteel and less-frightening methods that motivate the dog in a positive way to do what we want?

A highly stressed, over-anxious, fearful dog who tends to panic when forced into a trapped position could just tuck its tail, lower/turn its head away, curve its body toward the wall and totally psychologically shut down - or else totally launch itself at that trainer with bared teeth! And I hope it's the latter - they are easiest to rehabilitate from that state.

Just the initial part of that trainer's on Separation Anxiety training smacks of very old-fashioned training techniques that we've all moved on from years and years ago as we learned more and more about canines, their needs, sensibilities and intelligence and the most effective way to motivate and train them with positive reinforcement and associations.

I'll read more and report back as I am able.