02 JulEpisode 159 | How has quarantine changed the way we think about treating separation anxiety in dogs? A conversation with Malena DeMartini, CTC
For two decades, Malena DeMartini has been helping people help dogs who have separation anxiety. She joined Annie to discuss her new book, Treating Separation Anxiety in Dogs: Next Generation Treatment Protocols and Practices. In it, she reveals some surprising updates to the protocols she suggested in her first book (spoiler: she now wants her clients to do LESS training than before). She and Annie also discuss her virtual school for coaching Certified Separation Anxiety Trainers, her client-facing course, Mission Possible, and how quarantine changed the way people understand what canine separation anxiety really is.
Malena's course: Mission Possible -- Use code SFTD and save 50% at checkout
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Mentioned in this episode:
Dr. Kara Moore's post on The Human Magnet Syndrome
The Human Magnet Syndrome: The Codependent Narcissist Trap by Ross Rosenberg
Malena's latest book: Separation Anxiety In Dogs
The Certified Separation Anxiety Trainer training program at MalenaDemartini.com
Good Dog Training Online Course at Store for the Dogs
Related episodes:
Episode 59 | Separation Anxiety Expert Malena DeMartini on Helping Dogs Learn To Be Alone
Episode 77 | Lessons learned from foster dogs: A discussion with our apprentice Anna Heyward
Transcript:
[music and intro]
Annie:
Hi, thanks so much for taking the time to talk.
Malena DeMartini:
Oh yeah. Sorry I didn't confirm. I was like, yay, she said, yay. And we're fine. And I never confirmed. My only concern today is that my husband had to jump out on a little emergency thing for work. And normally he keeps the dogs outside playing while I do podcasts. So I hope they don't bark at anything.
Annie:
If there was ever a podcast to be on where barking dogs in the background is appropriate, I think it’s this one. No judgment. They’re dogs, they bark!
Malena:
They do. They do.
Annie:
So, I haven't talked to you in about a year, and I selfishly just wanted to hang out with you for a little bit.
Malena:
Well, I selfishly wanted to hang out with you back.
Annie:
I feel like we should be friends, but we don't live near each other.
Malena:
I this day and age, we don't need to live near each other to be friends.
Annie:
I know. So we need excuses to hang out because once a year isn't enough. I really enjoyed talking to you last time. And of course I'm a fan of your work. And yeah, I just wanted to find out sort of what the last year has been like for you in your work, both as, you know, dealing with people whose dogs have separation anxiety, but also dealing with training trainers. Because I have a feeling you've had a busy year.
Malena:
Oh boy. Have we ever.
Annie:
Yeah. Tell me about what's been going on, and maybe we can talk about the why in the future. And I guess just, for someone who's just tuning in for the first time, maybe you should just introduce yourself with a brief bio.
Malena:
Sounds good. I'll do that. So my name is Malena Demartini and I have been working exclusively with separation anxiety for over two decades now, just a little over two decades. I'm the author of two books on the topic of separation anxiety. The most recent one was released last year in 2020. And it is quite up to date with all of the research and understanding that we have about separation anxiety, which is tremendous. And it's been quite a boon that we've got so much information, evidence and research coming forward about this topic.
Annie:
Is that what separates this book you think from your first book?
Malena:
Very much so, but I will say this. My first book, even though that was only seven or eight years ago at most what was that, 2013 or 14, something like that. It was everything I knew to the best of my ability, and one of the things that was so great, so great, is that when I started training other dog professionals to do what I was doing with separation anxiety, our masses kind of grew. And then we had collective data where we could say, you know, this is not nearly as effective to do it that way as it is to do it that way.
And so this new book is what I know to be the most efficient and effective way to help dogs with separation anxiety and the previous book while still, you know, viable and certainly good information has some things in it that don't necessarily get to the end point as quickly as we potentially could.
Annie:
Give me an example of like a protocol maybe that you feel has changed
Malena:
One of the things that we used to do, which was in the first book is teach separately from the absence training. We were spending time teaching dogs to settle on a mat or go to their bed, or sort of, for lack of better term, a bit of a relaxation protocol. And that was one piece that we started to see that it actually —
I mean, there's nothing wrong with it and it's certainly beneficial for any dog, but when you're working so hard to get your dog over separation anxiety, the addition of one more piece of training that you have to do, if it's not going to produce much value to the end of, you know, to the end game we shouldn't include it. And so that was one piece that we were able to eliminate.
And we additionally started to focus, interestingly enough, on a lot less involvement of interactive feeding toys and other food involvement in the beginning of any separation anxiety protocol. And that's, I think, surprisingly has been just a game changer.
Annie:
So less work outside of focusing specifically on separation is what sounds like you're saying. Huh.
Malena:
Exactly. That's right.
Annie:
So skipping, skipping the other stuff? I mean, like you said, though, it all sounds like stuff that can't hurt. I mean, feeding your dog in a puzzle toy, it can't hurt.
Malena:
It sure can't, and we always encourage people to include enrichment in their dog's lives. But we don't need to incorporate it into the actual daily sort of 20 minutes, 30 minutes at most training sessions that we do specific to separation anxiety. And part of what inspired that, not only the collective wisdom from all of the certified separation anxiety trainers, but also there was a seminar that I gave several years ago.
It's a bit of a long story, but I'll curtail it and say that there was a gal in the audience that kept asking questions like, well, what about if we incorporate lavender oil? And what about if we incorporate relaxation training? And what about if we incorporate, you know, ABCDEF. And every time I said, well, you know, certainly can't hurt, but that means more time, more training, more maybe expense, more emotional bandwidth, financial bandwidth, time bandwidth.
And finally there was a gal in the audience that raised her hand and I said, you know, yeah, what, what do you have? You know, what's up? And she burst into tears. And she said, I just need to tell you that the question about, can you do also this, and also this, and also this…She said, I've been working so hard on my dog’s separation anxiety for the last six months. And if someone asked me to do just one more thing, I might give up.
And that resonated with me so much, to where if we can simplify this and distill it down to just that 20 to 30 minutes a day of concerted effort towards working on separation anxiety, and not overextend people's bandwidth? I think that's really important, because this is not an easy behavior for most people to become successful with. And so we don't want to overburden and overtax them with extraneous things that might not really directly affect the separation anxiety outcome.
Annie:
Wow. You know, it's shaping, isn't it?
Malena:
It is!
Annie:
I always talk about the continuum between classical conditioning and operant conditioning. I mean, it's all operant conditioning basically with, you just start out with no criteria. Like you start out at zero, right. This equals that, right? And shaping always just should ideally be starting out with as little criteria as possible. Preferably none. Cause you just want to focus on the animal feeling good before you start asking them to do anything hard.
And so it sounds like what you have hit on is that with clients, or in anyone who's dealing with a dog with separation anxiety, you don't want to overburden them with, ‘and you should do this, and you should do this, and should do this.’ But then there are of course the people who are going to just want to be doing everything.
Malena:
And it's interesting that you say that Annie, because we get people that I call keeners, you know, they're very keen on, I've got to do this as quickly and throw as much at the dog as possible. And I'm still very careful with those people because I think — I could be wrong — but I think that the expectation, if we're just doing that 20 or 30 minutes a day of training, and we know we can make a certain amount of progress, and then the client also incorporates, you know, X, Y, and Z, there may be that expectation that the process is going to be more rapidly accelerating.
And oftentimes their disappointment is palpable because they feel like, I'm doing so much, and we've only now accomplished, you know, a five minute absence, or whatever it is. Right. And so setting really realistic expectations and keeping people from burning out on the process, because they're devoting all of their time, money and emotional bandwidth towards this training effort, I think it's important to kind of protect them from feeling that.
Annie:
Have you read the book, The Human Magnet Syndrome?
Malena:
I have not.
Annie:
It's a book about — what you're talking about makes me think about it. It's a book I read about on a vet’s site. I forget which vet it was. It's not about pets though, but the vet was saying how, when you work with pets, you're working with a lot of people who have codependency related issues. And then this book is about like narcissism and codependency and how they go hand in hand.
Anyway, what's interesting to me about what you're saying is it feels like it spells out kind of the codependent, like personality of type of like I've done X and I've done Y and Z and no one else can ever do as, as much as I've done and it's still not working! Do you know what I’m talking about?
Malena:
Sure. I do. I absolutely do. And I think it's important that we remember that, regardless of how much spaghetti we throw at the wall, even if it's stuff that “can't hurt, might help” category, it adds up. And then people do have different expectations. And if we can really mitigate their understanding and their expectation in the very beginning saying, you know, this is going to be a slow process. We're always going to move at the pace of your dog.
And that dog is on biological speed. They're not on digital. They're not even, you know, on analog, they're on biological speed. And really set them up for success. And we spend a lot of time celebrating what most people would think are virtually minuscule wins, but they're not, they're huge. If a dog can go from freaking out one second after the door closes to, let's just say five minutes while being relaxed and comfortable, that's, like percentage increase wise, that's phenomenal. And also from an understanding of the dog's welfare, that is tremendous.
Annie:
Yeah. So, how has the last year been for your program training trainers? I'm curious to hear it, because I think with so many people…It seems to me like, we're in a moment, both where people are thinking about separation anxiety more, as they've had dogs that they've been home with all the time. So it's become kind of like a hot topic in a way. But also it's a moment where a lot of people have been interested, I think, in switching careers, plan B type careers. So I guess I'm asking you two questions in one.
Malena:
I'm okay with that.
Annie:
Pick your question. Like, tell me about how the last year has been for people dealing with separation anxiety, considering so many people got dogs, and so many people are experimenting with different regimens about whether or not they're leaving their dog at home or not, et cetera. And also how it's been training trainers.
Malena:
So I, in the beginning of the pandemic, I had my little spidey senses up, like, Ooh, if this lasts a long time, we could be facing some potential increases in issues regarding the number of dogs that have separation related problems. And then, when it went past six and eight and 10 months, I was like, oh my.
And we also saw the adoption or the acquisition rate, not just adoptions, but you know, new purebreds too. We saw so many new dogs. More than 50% of the households in the US added a pet during the pandemic.
Annie:
Wow.
Malena:
It’s wow, right? That's a big number. And so, all of those dogs that were acquired during the pandemic have had very little experience — not all, but most — have had very little experience with alone time.
And so there's a big difference between a dog that just needs to be sort of habituated and acclimated to, oh, this is the new norm I'm going to be left alone sometimes. And then the other dogs that really do have separation anxiety. Which could have been contributing because they've never, ever, ever been exposed to such, you know, alone time.
And so we actually don't know, you know, chicken or the egg. We're not sure, is it they're not used to it? Or is it that they already had anxiet?. We just don’t know. But we saw such an unprecedented increase in the number of people that have contacted us during pandemic times.
And I want to say that some of that is because lots of these dogs have never or rarely been left alone. But I also want to point out, I think there's a lot of other factors that are at play. One of them is that separation anxiety has gained a lot of exposure in the media. So just that new awareness that people have I think contributes to them saying, oh, maybe I should watch my dog on camera and see what's happening. So there's that.
But there's also just technology in general. You know, how few people knew of Zoom prior to the pandemic, and every person from the age of five to 105 knows what Zoom is now. And now that that technology is so available to everyone, people are using it to take a peek at their dogs, and they're surprised at what they're seeing. So there's that.
So I think there's a lot of contributing factors to why we've seen such an increase, and I don't expect it to die down any time soon. I think once we are fully established in post pandemic times and go back to whatever normal is going to be, we're gonna see a lot of potential issues.
I think there's, unfortunately, a fair amount of people that don't know that right now is the time to prepare for their dogs’ alone time. And they're just going to hope and pray and assume that when they go back to work or other life activities, that their dog's going to be fine, and they may be a pretty surprising and unfortunate awakening when they get home and find the note on the door from the neighbors, and the, you know, the shredded carpeting or something like that.
Annie:
Right. Right. Has this led, do you think, to more people specializing in separation anxiety as trainers, and/or to more people coming to you and saying, I want to be a dog trainer and this is what I want to be focusing on?
Malena:
Yeah, it really has. I was just talking to a colleague of mine this morning and I caveated this the same way with her. I am not a particularly arrogant person, and I don't like to boast, but one of the things that's been really interesting to me is, you know, there was very little if anything out there that really taught the skills of separation anxiety training and protocols prior to 2013 or so.
And when I started my program, I literally was like, I think I'll just beta test this. I bet no one will be interested. And then of course in the last seven or more years that this has been going on, the demand for this type of education has grown tenfold. I mean, it's incredible. And many of my students have started their own schools to train other trainers and to also of course train on work with clients.
And so for us, because we are sort of the premiere and the pioneer in this education we are inundated with inquiries, and we're starting to book our classes for our certified separation anxiety program into 2023 right now.
Annie:
Wow. What does the program entail?
Malena:
So it's a 14 week program and it is very intensive. And one of the things that I really pride myself about this program, is I feel very strongly that the people that are accepted into this program are already fairly skilled, maybe not in separation anxiety, but in understanding dogs, understanding dog body language, and also particularly in understanding how to communicate effectively as a behavior counselor.
Those counseling skills, from trainer to client, human clients, I think are really important. And so our protocols within our program are about — you know, I always tell people put aside at least six to eight hours a week for the 14 weeks. But I was talking to someone today that said, well, I spent at least 15 hours a week working on all the materials. And that may not sound like much, but I try to tailor it for people that are full-time professionals, so they can do this without having to quit their job or stop taking clients or something like that.
And what we do, each week, we hold the program on Tuesdays and Fridays, and each week there is a new prerecorded webinar that the students listen to. Then we we review questions and comments and kind of take a deep dive into that material. And that happens twice a week. So there's two webinars a week and two 90 minute discussion groups.
There's also quite a bit, quite a demand that we put on the students for homework, and creating protocols, and learning how to write what we call missions for clients. And we give extensive feedback individually on each and every student's homework in addition to their midterms and their finals.
So you know, it's amazing that we put a lot, a lot, a lot of effort towards our students. We want them to be absolutely the best practitioners out there. But we ask a lot of them too, and I've had so much great feedback that people are like, I've never taken a program where I was so handheld. I really appreciate those kinds of comments and feedback that I've gotten.
Annie:
Are you the main instructor, or are there other instructors?
Malena:
I am the primary instructor, but we have two other instructors. My co-instructors Tiffany Level and Maya [inaudible] both of which have incredible skills. And they really, I feel, round out what I'm able to offer, because we all have sort of different talents and abilities insofar as, you know, Maya happens to be brilliant when it comes to all the research. And Tiffany happens to be incredible when it comes to client counseling and cheerleading.
And I'm sort of the, and here's the brass tacks, you know, so I feel like we make a really great team, and that every learner has the opportunity to sort of hear all three of the different directions and perspectives that we have, so that they can absorb in the learning style that they best are able to absorb material.
Annie:
And so how many students do you have right now?
Malena:
So we offer the program twice a year. And each time we offer it, we do one program at 9:00 AM, Pacific Time and one program at 2:00 PM Pacific Time. And that was intentional because we had people in Australia, and Singapore, and you're up and, you know, all over the place. And so some times of day don't work with those other countries. And we offer the program in two different segments.
It's a small and rather intimate group in each. We take only 10 students in the 9:00 AM and 10 students in the 2:00 PM. And we're just about to start with our next 20 students, 10 in the morning, 10 in the afternoon, in a few weeks. But there are now 130 CSATs, Certified Separation Anxiety Trainers all over the world.
Annie:
Amazing. That's so cool. And tell me, are a lot of these people working exclusively virtually?
Malena:
100% are working exclusively virtually.
Annie:
That's so interesting.
Malena:
And I've been working with separation anxiety virtually for, well, let me see…over 10 years. I haven't met a client in person — unless I just want to, you know, meet up for a coffee and meet them, but I haven't met a client in person for at least 10 years. And separation anxiety is one behavior — I think many behaviors are this way, but particularly separation anxiety really lends itself to being way more effective through virtual training.
Because if I come over to your house and sit in your living room and talk to you about what we're going to do, and then we walk out the door together, that changes the dynamic of a normal absence. And so if I can just watch you exit the home and see all of the things, all of the nuanced body language that your dog is expressing, that's a real absence. So we get such a better read while working virtually.
And that's why we're so fortunate because we have clients in every hemisphere that you could ever imagine. We have clients all over the world. It makes it hard on the schedule, sometimes, I have a very early start to my day and sometimes a very late end to my day, but it's a good thing.
Annie:
But do you have trainers who work for you now? Or are you doing all the training yourself under your brand?
Malena:
Yeah, no, I have — we just added a couple, so I think we've got 15 or is it 16? I have to count, CSATs that are directly working for me, and all of the clients that come in through my brand, through Malenademartini.com are funneled to those employees. And because of these times with such a prevalence of separation related problems, all 15 or 16 or however many they are, really can't remember at this moment, are at capacity. So we're actually trying to add a couple of more people to pick up the slack on the waitlist that we have.
It's just, it's amazing. But there's also, obviously, there's a ton of CSATs who work for themselves. And it's been a really interesting journey for me to watch many of them come in and say, Hey, I just wanted to learn a little bit about separation anxiety, cause I get the occasional case. And so many of them have transitioned their entire businesses to be 100% separation anxiety only.
Annie:
Well, I'm excited, I'm interested in doing it.
Malena:
Yeah, Annie, you better get on it! We want ya. We need ya.
Annie:
Are there, I'm just curious, are there other programs for people interested in specializing for separation anxiety? And do you think any of them are worth mentioning? I mean, I guess they might be your competitors, but I'm wondering if there's anything that you think is any good,
Malena:
You know, unfortunately I'm not particularly impressed with the couple of programs that are out there. I feel, I'm so passionate about separation anxiety, and I feel that a couple of the programs that are out there are very much about, sort of, flash, and here's a shiny object. And you know, we'll give you some information with a bunch of handouts, or those sorts of things.
But they don't really teach the students, how are we dissecting every little bit of this? And how are we going to support the clients through this process? And how on earth do we determine what the pace of the dog is? And we go through creating all those levels of criteria and truly dissecting every sort of bit of granular information so that people understand, not just like, okay, this one sort of not very intricate case, eh, I can do, but anything that's outside of the simplest I'm not sure how to tackle.
And I think people that graduate from our program are ready to take on just about any dog that is experiencing alone time anxiety.
Annie:
How many sessions do you and your trainers generally do with a given client? Like, what's an average?
Malena:
Yeah, that's a great question. So I'll tell you the way we have our sort of packages set up. We work in four week increments, and so minimum to start is four weeks. We work five days a week with the client, so it is 100% hands-on, and it takes all the guesswork out of it.
Annie:
So every client you work with, you work a minimum of four weeks, and over those four weeks, you're meeting five times a week?
Malena:
Well, we meet one time a week in Zoom, and then the other four or five days. So it's, you know, it's five or six days a week really, but the other four or five days we have shared documents and spreadsheets that we go in and we say, this is exactly what you're going to do today. And then that same day the client goes in and says, this is what I observed for each and every one of the individual steps that you told me to do.
And then based on their input, we create the very next day's worth of training, which we call missions. And so that's how we work with them five days a week. It is, I mean, they get so much support.
And one of the things that I felt was really revolutionary for me, because, you know, having done this for over 20 years, when I started, I was doing the sort of typical model. We meet one day a week, or, you know, something like that, once every seven to 10 days. And we talk about what you did and what you're going to do next. And that may work okay for teaching someone to, I don't know, put a recall on their dog or something like that.
This is far too intricate for that. And so we want to take a hundred percent of the guesswork out of it for the clients and say, this is exactly written out in extreme detail, what you're going to do today, and no wiggle room. It's Simon Says. I say, you do this, and you do that.
Annie:
It's funny to me, because it's just like, you're applying the dog training principles of, you know, set criteria and shape behavior and you know, create a richly rewarding environment, et cetera, et cetera, to your students.
Malena:
That's right.
Annie:
I guess that’s the key to your success, or one of them. And do you think most of the people then who are going out and then doing their own thing are working a similar syllabus?
Malena:
I think almost all of them are. I think some people have made their personal modifications for whatever their reason may be. But we have a very, very involved and interactive group, private Facebook group that the CSATs are involved in. And from what I see, you know, most of the 130 are doing this exactly the way that we are doing it. Yes.
Annie:
And you also have virtual courses for non-professionals. Tell me about those.
Malena:
Yeah. I can't even express how surprised I was. I created a course called Mission Possible. It's an online self-paced course. You get lifetime access to the course, and it's over 30 modules or lessons filled with video and written information and handouts and manuals and the whole nine yards.
I intended it initially because I thought, well, there are those people that for whatever reason, even if it's just they don't have the financial means to work with a trainer one-on-one, I want them to still have the right information. And so I developed that course with that in mind, and I thought, oh, you know, it's going to be the little train that could.
But it has grown substantially. And what has been such a, like makes heart go pitter patter, is that we've got a lot of people, a lot in that course, and so many of them are really successful. And it's it still, to this day, every single time one of the students in that course, you know, makes a post that says, my dog just made it to four hours today. We’re finally graduating! Or whatever. I just I'm so blown away that people can take on this very, very nuanced process and sort of DIY it through our program.
And yeah, it's, it's been a wonderful, wonderful journey. And I think there's a lot of professionals that also take that program, that course, just to kind of get their feet wet on how to understand what's going on with separation anxiety. So we've had great reception, and I love going in, I go in seven days a week, I know, I should take two days off Annie, don't shake your finger at me, but I go in seven days a week to that course. And I answer everybody's questions and comments, so people are not alone in that course. And it's been, it's been really wonderful and eyeopening.
Annie:
I’ve recommended your course a bunch of times to people. Cause like, you know, like you said, sometimes you need, like some people and, I mean, I'm like this in a lot of areas of my life. Like I need to have an appointment to someone if I'm going to get myself to work out. Like I need that accountability even though I could probably figure out doing that stuff on my own.
And I think dog training is the same where, if you can get that kind of coaching, that's great. But some people are going to be able to do it without it, whether that's because of desperation or just, you know, good motivation at a lower price point. It's great for people to be able to do it.
Malena:
Yeah. And actually the other thing that we've been finding, which has been really cool because we've had a little bit of a waitlist for a while, what we're doing is asking people to, you know, go into the course while they're waiting for their one-to-one training. And what we found is that those clients are so much better prepared.
Because when we start our one-on-one training on day one, they have all the right questions, they know exactly what's going to happen, you know, and they're like, okay, maybe I can't self-motivate and maybe I'm a little nervous about writing my own criteria. So I want to have you as a one-on-one trainer. But I know what we're doing, and I know which questions to ask, and I know how to observe my dog's body language. I know what is entailed with, you know, what their panic point is, what their threshold is, all that kind of stuff.
So it's actually a really good educational base even if you do want to work individually with a dog trainer.
Annie:
That's interesting, cause I say the same thing about our Good Dog Training Course. It's like, you can do this and you're just going to start that much farther ahead when you do sit down with a trainer, because you’re not going to have to be playing catch up on understanding how dogs learn and that kind of thing.
So do you think then, like this last year has been a good thing for separation anxiety? Well I mean, a good thing for separation anxiety with dogs, or a bad thing? Like, do you think it's made more dogs who are going to have separation anxiety, or do you think it's brought more awareness to people about what it is in order to help them treat it?
Malena:
I think it's been a little bit of both. I don't think that we have like created separation anxiety in dogs. As a matter of fact — well, you'd have to kind of have the perfect storm, and I guess we would say this pandemic has been a little bit of the perfect storm, but you’d have to really try hard to give a dog separation anxiety. But there are a lot of dogs that have been acquired during the pandemic that just have zero experience with alone time. And so —
Annie:
Well, to be clear, I'm not saying we like gave it to them, like we give them a vaccine or something —
[laughing]
Malena:
No, exactly.
Annie:
Or the opposite. I mean, have we brought dogs into homes that they’re maybe ill fit for, at too great of a pace?
Malena:
Boy, that's a big, big question. I don't honestly know the answer to that, because there's a part of me that feels like, wow, what a beautiful thing this pandemic has brought forward, insofar as, you know, tons more fosters available, way more people adopting and acquiring animals, not just dogs. So how awesome that we have all of these new homes.
But you're right. Was there a lack of preparedness, or maybe understanding would be a better way to say it? And is there going to be a big concern as people return to work and other life activities where they'll say, oh, well now I don't have time for this dog. And I also have a dog that's barking all day. So are we going to see some relinquishment numbers go up? I don't know.
But I do feel like awareness has become so much greater, and for that I am ever so grateful. Because I think there's a lot of people that have just no idea why their dog is barking or chewing stuff up or eliminating in the house when left alone. And obviously there's differential diagnoses there that it could be boredom or something else, but for a lot of the dogs that do have separation anxiety, I'm so grateful that people are aware and can now literally jump on Google and find some resources.
Annie:
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So it's been a good thing and a bad thing maybe.
Malena:
I think so.
Annie:
Well Malena, thanks so much for talking. And I'd be interested in doing the professional course at some point, because I don't see myself going back to the studio anytime soon with two little kids.
Malena:
I know! Annie, like, I used to, in the very beginning, when I first started the program, I used to like try and reach out to parents that were dog trainers that are like, well, I'll get back to it eventually. And I'm like, no, this is the perfect profession for you. You know, when your kids are taking a nap or your mother is able to watch the kids for two hours, and you're like, I'll do a couple of clients and bada-bing! So how old are yours?
Annie:
I have a two and a half year old and a two week old.
Malena:
Two weeks! You're doing a podcast and you only have a two week old. Oh my gosh, Annie, you're amazing.
Annie:
She is strapped to my chest this whole time.
Malena:
Oh, that is the most beautiful thing.
Annie:
Yeah, she’s like super sweet and easy and quiet and lovely and adorable.
Malena:
Congratulations!
Annie:
I put a photo, right before we started talking, I put a photo on Instagram, so you can see her.
Malena:
I’ll go check it out.
Annie:
Yeah. She’s um…I don't know, two and a half year olds are a lot harder than two weeks old.
[laughing]
Malena:
Well, yeah, there’s a lot more going on! Yeah. We need to get you into our certification program because I bet you would enjoy it. I know how much you geek out on stuff and I, I think you would really enjoy it.
Annie:
Yeah. All right. I'm excited. Well talk to you soon, Malena. Thanks again for taking the time.
Malena:
I will definitely talk to you soon and let's stay in touch and we can be virtual friends. We don't have to be just meeting for podcasts!
Annie:
I'm into it. Okay. All right. Take care. Bye.
If you are dealing with separation issues with your dog, or just want to learn some more, you can do Malena’s Mission Possible online course and get 50% off if you use our affiliate link, just go to schoolforthedogs.com/mission and use the code SFTD at checkout.
I also suggest you go back and check out the episode I did with Malena a year ago, which talks about her entry into the world of separation anxiety, and also gives some really good tips which I think are especially useful to those who are going back to work, perhaps after just getting a dog in the last year. I will put a link to that episode in the show notes.
