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A review by julis
I'll Be Home Soon: How to Prevent and Treat Separation Anxiety by Patricia B. McConnell
informative
slow-paced
2.0
(Reviewed with ‘I’ll be home soon’, same author)
These count as one book because they have a collective length of 60 pages and because they suffer from the same basic problem: McConnell is a generalist trainer writing pamphlets to provide immediate solutions to complex problems.
Which is to say, that both provide good approaches to their respective issues (stranger danger and separation anxiety) at the most basic level. The separation anxiety book in particular is far outdone by DeMartini-Price’s book to the point where I’d never recommend this one. It advises counter-conditioning and the use of crates, and there’s increasing evidence that neither one is helpful.
(Counterconditioning, even when paired with desensitization, is far, far too likely to result in accidentally ruining the positive thing you were pairing with your departures. Meanwhile many dogs with separation anxiety also have a degree of claustrophobia and will be happier with some free movement.)
Cautious Canine, despite the title, is almost entirely about stranger danger/human reactivity. It does a good job of laying out an introductory CC/DS protocol for that, but again: It’s 30 pages long. McConnell doesn’t have the space to go into the various causes (and therefore approaches to treatment) or all of the many, many variations you can make on the idea of pairing people with food. At the end she recommends a rank-establishing protocol (”Leader of the Pack”) which is radically out of place in 2021. I’m not sure I’m recommending this one either, but the majority of it is at least moderately helpful.
These count as one book because they have a collective length of 60 pages and because they suffer from the same basic problem: McConnell is a generalist trainer writing pamphlets to provide immediate solutions to complex problems.
Which is to say, that both provide good approaches to their respective issues (stranger danger and separation anxiety) at the most basic level. The separation anxiety book in particular is far outdone by DeMartini-Price’s book to the point where I’d never recommend this one. It advises counter-conditioning and the use of crates, and there’s increasing evidence that neither one is helpful.
(Counterconditioning, even when paired with desensitization, is far, far too likely to result in accidentally ruining the positive thing you were pairing with your departures. Meanwhile many dogs with separation anxiety also have a degree of claustrophobia and will be happier with some free movement.)
Cautious Canine, despite the title, is almost entirely about stranger danger/human reactivity. It does a good job of laying out an introductory CC/DS protocol for that, but again: It’s 30 pages long. McConnell doesn’t have the space to go into the various causes (and therefore approaches to treatment) or all of the many, many variations you can make on the idea of pairing people with food. At the end she recommends a rank-establishing protocol (”Leader of the Pack”) which is radically out of place in 2021. I’m not sure I’m recommending this one either, but the majority of it is at least moderately helpful.