Good evening, everybody, and welcome to tonight's webinar. My name is Bruce Stevenson and I have the honour and privilege of chairing this webinar this evening. Before I get started, I'd just like to say a big thank you to our sponsors, Fort Healthcare.
Without their generous sponsorship, we could not be here bringing you this wonderful topic this evening. Little bit of housekeeping for those of you that haven't joined us before. If you have any questions for our speaker, if you just move your mouse over the screen, the control bar, which is normally a black bar, pops up at the bottom.
You'll see a little, Q&A box there. Just put your questions in there, and we will hold those over to the end. We are not able to go backwards and forwards in slides, based on questions, but we do record these webinars, and it will be up on the webinar vet website in the next 24 to 36 hours.
So if you want to re-look at something, then please go back and look at the recording, and you can fast forward and rewind and stop it and, manipulate it as you want, but we will not be able to do that, during the course of the webinar this evening. Just, a little heads up as well. Tonight's webinar is mostly on the development, of the separation-related problems.
And on the 12th of November, we will be having a related webinar, which goes more into the treatment of this, Shall we call it a challenging condition sometimes. So it is my absolute pleasure this evening to welcome Gon Carlo to us. Gonarlo is a veterinarian with a PhD in veterinary science and EBVS specialist in behavioural medicine.
He's also a diplomat in animal welfare science, ethics, and legislation. Currently secretary of the EBVS Executive Committee, and vice president of the ESVCE. He's a former president of the ECAWBM and founding president of PSI Animal, which is the Portuguese Association of behavioural Therapy and Animal Welfare.
Go Carlo has extensive international experience as a lecturer and author in animal behaviour and welfare. Gon Carlo, welcome to the webinar, vet, and it's over to you. Thank you so much, Bruce, thank you very much for everyone that decided to attend this webinar.
It's a great honour to be here tonight with all of you, and I hope that you find useful because, I think, I think that to do a proper treatment, which will be the following webinar with a great speaker. I, I think that we need to do a proper and a confident diagnosis, and for that we need to understand what are the steps that we are going to do to do this accurate diagnosis. So before starting, I would like to thank you, the webinar vet, for this kind invitation and for 40 Healthcare for.
Making this happen, it's always a great pleasure to be next to you, Forte, but I have to, to make a disclosure that, all the opinions, and visions expressed in this webinar, are not, from 40, are mine. So to protect our sponsor, I have to declare. Thank you so much once again and looking forward, to, to have your questions by the end, of the webinar.
So, first of all, let's go through a plan of our lecture. We're going to review the background, understand why we are here, why it is so important to, to speak about this issue, the risk factors that we know nowadays, the. Different theories, present and from the past for the development of this disease, which are the signs that we are looking for to do the correct threshold diagnosis, which is very, very important, and finally how to do the accurate diagnosis protocol, OK.
So starting from the first point, we're going to review the background and the first thing that I would like to mention to you is that about, according to studies and studies that started already on the 80s, 20 to 40% of the cases that are attended in a referral service of behaviour, they can be somehow related with separation related problem. OK, but, but for all the GPs, all the general practitioners over there, and he's in the other side of the screen, about 14 to 17% of the cases attended by the general practitioner have at least, at least one sign. Of a separation problem, which we need to understand that this is is a massive expression of this disease, which means that we are probably misdiagnosing many of those dogs that are suffering from this disease, and this is something very important that we are going to understand during our, our webinar that many things, Everything is hidden and we need to tackle everything very well.
So those are the cases that we frequently see, so, these caregivers, they had cameras and they were, At their own work. Seeing the dog. Doing a new decoration of the house.
OK. We're going to to see some of those videos again by the end, the last one from the same doggy. And this can be one presentation, and the complaint can be about destruction, OK?
And we have other situations like this. As you see That As you see, it's a couple of dogs, a male and a female. The male is the, the, the white one and he's responsible for all the destruction that you can see over there, so you see holes on the door, on the left, on the bottom, you see the electric device is completely broken, you see.
See that the floor is pulled away, OK, so caregivers when they came to this consultation they were keeping both dogs in the hole as you can see closed during the working day over here and as you see in continuation. Apart from this doggy, there is the female one also here. So we have two situations that we need to address, and if we continue, time after time seeing videos after videos, you can see.
That at this moment of the the consultation, there's already other behaviour problems apart from the separation related problem. So these are just a couple of different presentations that can come to us as a separation related problem, and we are going to to need to treat them all and probably the treatment for each of them is different, OK. And the way that you're doing your diagnosis is what is going to make the treatment become effective.
But why is this problem important? So the first thing is an economical problem. In fact, the dogs are destroying the houses, are breaking everything.
I remember one case. Several years ago when the plasmas, the LCDs became common, a gentleman bought one LCD, the biggest at the market, on the day that he bought and brought the LCD to the house. The dog has immediately broken the LCD.
So apart from these, they are destroying the floor, the doors, everything, and it's an economical problem. It brings lots of problems with neighbours. There are complaints, many times there is police involved.
According to different legislations in each country, other issues can come, going to the courts, taking the animals away, there are many things happening, and sometimes we have also problematic neighbours. I remember 11 case, and you're going to see that I'm going to mention this a lot during the webinar, the importance of recording and filming, and I remember one situation which the, the neighbour, The neighbour was telling that the dog was barking during the day and in fact when the caregivers left the camera recording, they noticed that the neighbour was knocking on the door. To promote the dog to bark, so there are also very complicated neighbours that we need to to to to to have in mind.
Then frustration. It's a frustration for the animal, the animal is not understanding, the, the animal don't like to stay alone, they are a social species, dogs like to be with the family, with the group, OK, and it is, it is also frustrating for the caregiver because the caregiver is not understanding what is happening. They are doing the best and they are doing everything that everyone is telling them, except me.
Times the veterinarian because before coming to the veterinarian, they go, they do what they saw on the television, they go and they do what they saw the neighbour doing. They ask to the waiter in the pub and after everything has been done, then they come to the veterinarian because it's the last chance for the dog. OK, this is very common, right?
And there is a negative effect in the welfare. There is a chronic stress and we know the impact of the chronic stress in the body, in the physical parts of the health, and we are going to have secondary diseases to chronic stress. There is a negative emotional state.
There is an a cognitive bias where those animals are always seeing and feeling the negative side of life. OK? Is the present, the glass is half empty or half full, and in fact those animals, they have a negative, cognitive bias, which means that they always feel more down than they should.
And then those animals are in the high risk of euthanasia and abandonment, OK? We know for from many, many studies that behaviour problems are in the top causes of euthanasia and abandonment. So when we do prevention, we are fighting against abandonment as well.
What are the risk factors that we can know nowadays from several studies. The first, according to several studies, males are more prone to develop this disease, OK? Of course.
You can find different studies, of course, for me, the gender is not the most important thing, OK, but there are studies telling us that males are more prone to develop. Then other studies are mentioning about crosses, crossbreeds, cocker spaniels, but I'm sure, I'm sure that if we start. Looking and doing a scientific review, I'm sure that you will find different studies because this is also related with the quantity of, of specific breeds that each country has, OK, and the year and we know about brands, OK, and nowadays, I remember in the past the the the the time that everyone, Wanted to have a Dalmatian and then came Marley and me and everyone had a golden, and so on and so on and so on, so of course this is going to influence all these studies.
There are, there is one study mentioning that dogs that are living with one single owner, they are more prone to develop separation related problems, and we're going to address this later on, OK, I'm not saying that it's Like a rule, but we're going to see that there are other psychological issues that are involved here that are going to help the development of separation related problems. There is one study, and I'm going to be back this when we're speaking about where did this disease started, but there is one study mentioning that dogs that suffer from sound phobias or sound issues, sound reactivity, OK, those dogs suffering from sound sensitivity. They can be more prone to develop separation related problems as well, OK, so it's very important for us when we have a specific diagnosis, remember about comm comorbidities, because in fact, the same animal can have more than one behaviour disease as well, OK?
There are some studies also mentioning that dogs that are bought or passed through a pet shop, or dogs that passed through a shelter, they are more prone to develop separation related problems. But there are two ways possibility. We don't know if these.
Problematic behaviour, it was the, the, the cause for the leaving the animal in the shelter, OK, or, or if the animal developed this disease while he or she was in the shelter. So we always have two ways possible and we need to keep in mind that we need more studies, more studies to be done, OK? Also grief is mentioned by several authors, and when we look for the signs of grief, apart from social avoidance, increase of sleeping, agitation, seeking behaviours, appetite loss, reactivity, we also can.
Find separation related symptoms in animals suffering from grief, OK, when one loses the other member of his group, OK, and this is something that we need to address because if we're speaking about grief, we are going to need also other treatments. So, we know now the risk factors, and now I would like to drive you through different theories of how this disease started. How this disease developed, OK, and the first thing we need to think about is, why do dogs present these problems so frequently?
Why does it start? How did it start? Because in fact, We must always keep in mind that dogs are social species, and they like to, to have companion, a company of others from the same species or other species, so company is very important.
And we are speaking about something that usually we call also attachment. So the first theory that came, it was the theory of hyperattachment, and the theory of hyperattachment came from also the, the, the psychiatry, human psychiatry world where the the very. First studies were very much looking for this, OK, so what are we seeing on the hyper attachment in dogs?
First of all, we have one type of hyperattachment which is the primary hyperattachment which happens in puppies, usually puppies that were separated from the mother too early and they moved. The mother's attachment into the caregiver, OK, this is one theory, OK, and we have another type of hyperattachment that we called secondary hyper-attachment, and usually the secondary hyperattachment is much more related and associated with changes in the routine of the caregiver or even in the dog's environment, OK? But But But we know that dogs with and without separation anxiety, remember, when I'm saying separation anxiety, I'm mentioning about studies from 2006, for instance, where everyone was calling separation anxiety, and you're going to understand later on why I don't call separation anxiety anymore, OK?
But as the studies are measuring separation anxiety, I'm going to keep the the the the denomination here just to be according to the studies, OK? So these studies are saying to us that dogs breed and the dog separation anxiety, they look in the same way for contact with the caregiver. And this is something very interesting, very interesting, and in fact even more interesting than than this is the fact that many dogs without separation anxiety, they show signs of hyperattachment.
Of course, if we go nowadays to analyse the theory of hyperattachment. The attachment is a totally normal bond. It's the the the ventilation between.
One child and the mother, one dog and the caregiver, and it's the attachment. In fact, nowadays nobody's speaking about hyper attachment, but we are speaking about different types of attachment that that I'm going to speak in a couple of slides, OK? But in fact here what is very important for us is the fact, and I'm sure, and I'm sure that many of your own dogs for.
Those seated in the other side of the screen, I'm sure that many of your own dogs, they show signs of hyper-attachment, OK? I'm sure that they show signs of over between brackets, over greeting when you arrive home. And they are not suffering from separation related problems, right?
OK, so. OK. Can we have a deal that's probably hyper attachment wouldn't be.
The real cause for the development, OK. Can we agree with that? I hope so.
So what else can be conditioned fear, conditioned fear, an animal that during the period that he was home alone. There was a storm. There was a, a, a, a strong noise, constructions in the floor underneath, .
Anything And remember always the perspective of the animal, OK, and the animal started being conditioned to the fact that he was home alone, and he starts associating being home alone with the fact. That something scary is going to happen and in these cases, we need to understand. What are the triggers?
And we're going to speak later because this is very important for our diagnosis, OK? And the other theory or the other possibility for the development of this disease can be related, not with the hyperattachment, but with the inappropriate bond. And where does come this theory, it comes also from children.
We know that parents. With there are different types of attachment and there is the avoidant attachment, OK, and parents that have avoidant attachment, they are raising children with an inappropriate bond, with unsecure bonds, and these children with inappropriate bonds, they feel insecure and they are more able to show separation anxiety, OK. And our following question is about dogs, is happening with dogs can have something similar to dogs.
So Scientists, researchers, they went to check and they asked, they used the same profile. To assess the attachment, and they realise that caregivers, with a specific attachment, yes, they can have dogs with separation anxiety. In fact, we know that owners with a high score once again of avoidant attachment are more prone.
Are more able to have dogs with separation anxiety, OK. And this is very much related that with the fact that these caregivers, they are less aware about the dog's needs. They don't understand what a dog is, and this is the reason why the puppy classes are so important for caregivers to understand what dogs really need.
For instance, consistency is very important, is very important, and many dogs, they have lack of consistency, which means that those dogs, They have an unsecured bond and due to this fact. They are more prone to develop separation related problems, but we don't stop here, my dears. We have other issues, and the other issue is coming, it's not yet published, it's already submitted.
I know that there is many people already reading something here about this unpublished. Data, but I want to share this with you because this is from the PhD thesis from one of my PhD students. She's an amazing researcher, she's a psychologist, Maria Battista, and, one of the things, among many others.
They realised, she realised, according to all the data that she collected, that not only caregivers with avoidant attachment profile, they have dogs more prone to develop this disease. But it probably. Probably in this model that she's presenting, more important than the type of attachment profile.
Is the emotional way that the caregiver having. Is having regarding his own animal, so caregivers with an exacerbated needs of emotional proximity. Are those that are going to develop more separation related problems in their dogs, OK, and this is a very important data because that's something that we need to work on, which is also the caregiver because we are speaking about one health, we are speaking about one welfare, and of course when we have.
Lack Of emotional health in the caregivers, this is going to impair and create more difficulties in the emotional health of the dog, and that's probably the reason why when we spoke on risk factors. Being a single caregiver. Can be an issue, can be a risk factor, because probably the, the single person, I'm not saying that all the single person needs an emotional proximity of his or her dog, but in fact, it can be somehow justified, right?
So, what are the signs and symptoms that we can see in our animals? So, according to recent studies from 2020, vocalisation comes in about 78% of the cases, OK? House farming, urine, almost 30% of the cases and faeces, .
20% and some of the faeces can also be diarrhoea, OK, because of the chronic stress that I already mentioned, destructive behaviour in 45% of the cases, and this destructive behaviour can be toward, clothes, shoes, items, personal items from the caregiver, or can be what is, Breaking the chance to see the caregiver, it can be the door because it's the door. He or she goes out from the door and he or she came in by the door, which means that the door is responsible for the separation from my caregiver. OK, so this is something very interesting, but all these signs.
Only appear when the dog is left alone, OK, so, when left alone in a complete or partial absence of the owner can be, OK, the caregiver went in a trip or in a working day, or sometimes even if the caregiver goes to the toilet and close the door. OK, and this is something very tricky because people sometimes don't understand the signs that the dog is giving, OK? It starts immediately after being left alone, even if it is for short duration, OK, oh, I'm just going downstairs to leave the garbage in the bin, but it's, it's.
Enough for the dog to start showing the signs and starts always or almost always when left alone, but something is important, is that many times, and we saw that about 80% of the dogs, they present vocalisation, but imagine that that the caregiver lives in the house and not in a flat, there's no neighbours, that the only sign that the dog is giving is barking. Probably the caregiver doesn't know about that. Usually many caregivers only knows about this behaviour problem because the animal is creating problems with the neighbours.
Otherwise, many times nobody would know about that. So no registration doesn't mean that nothing has happened. And once again, here's the importance of recording while the dog is alone.
And my dears, I have to say that one of the things that I love in webinars is the fact that I can be bare feet, and nobody knows because it's hidden, OK, underneath, nobody knows if I have shoes or not, OK? But here in our disease, there are also many hidden signs, very subtle. Some of them can be less subtle, like looking for contact before leaving, pacing, trembling.
Some dogs can show conflicting behaviours like I put between brackets, aggression, or more correctly, repulsion. Because in fact they are trying to avoid the caregiver to leave the house. They are feeling frustrated frustrating, they are feeling anxious and there is a conflictive behaviour and at that moment the animal can show.
Repulsion, OK. On arrival, it is described by many authors excessive greeting, but my dears, what is excessive greeting? OK, where can we find the limit?
Oh my God, this is over greeting. Oh my god, this is low, lower greeting. It's very difficult.
It's very difficult, especially for human beings. We love to be loved, so we love to, to, to, to be welcomed when we arrive home. OK, so it's good for us, we like these excessive greetings.
So could this be a sign or not? I'm bringing everything, so this is a brainstorming for all of us as well, OK, and. When the caregivers are at home, usually this is a perfect dog, and it's what I call the shadow dog, because most of the times, if I go to the toilet, the dog comes with me, if I go to the kitchen, the dog comes with me.
So it's the, the, the, the stick, the glue dog, OK, this can be a sign, but. This can be a sign of something else. OK, can be a problem with the attachment, can be, many things can be happening, OK, what other signs can we find?
We can find anorexia, usually those dogs, they, they have periods of anorexia, excessive salivation, many times people arrive home and they think, that the dog peeds and in fact it's, it's saliva, changes in the activity levels, vomits and diarrhoea that I already mentioned, self-mutilation because it's the way that the dog is trying to, to reduce his own anxiety or stress through grooming, that's why many times we have over grooming, because during the grooming there is a release of dopamine and this is going to be Self- appeasing and the animal is going to start this auto reinforcing cycle until developing mutilation, and according to the same study that I mentioned earlier, in 53% of the cases there is depression signs as well, OK. So what about the differential diagnosis? Let's go through it.
First, vocalisation. There are many reasons for dogs to vocalise. It can be a response for another dog barking outside, it can be a social facil facilitation with the other.
Dogs that they, he or she is smelling outside can be a call to play, can be a defensive, behaviour, can be associated with pain or any other pathology. The dog can start vocalising because he's on the pain, OK. Elimination, could it be related with the hygiene training, could it be an incomplete hygiene training?
Can it be failing the access to appropriate place, can it be marking, and marking can be related with many other issues, can it be urinary, gastrointestinal pathology, can be an endocrinopathy, can be urinary incontinency, and we need to rule out all these other possibilities. In terms of destruction. And we're going to to to be back to these as well, can be an exploratory behaviour.
The sometimes the the animal has nothing to do while he's at home, so he starts exploring the environment, playing can be in puppies or teeth changing, can be in pseudo pregnancy, the, the preparation of the nest can be frustration or can be related with flight behaviour, OK. So, Shall we continue calling this separation anxiety or problems related with separation or separation related problems, OK. Because it can be somehow related indeed with anxiety, but can be fear, can be learning problems, can be lack of stimulation, can be frustration, can be so many things, and the problem with this is that if we call separation anxiety to all these cases, we are going to impact, to have a huge impact in the, Dogs and caregivers's life because we are giving incorrect perspective and expectations and we're going to deal with the inadequate protocol of behaviour or emotional modification plan, OK, and this is something very important because that's the treatment, that's what we're going to do.
We're going to use medication to support the treatment. To, to, to and, and this emotional modification plan many times is going to depend on medication, but if you don't do the proper diagnosis, then you can give medication, you can give whatever you do, you give, but you're not going to treat the animal, OK? So what usually I say is that we need to, to, to pay attention to the signs and symptoms that we already mentioned.
And then we need to address what are the emotions and motivations behind the case, because we are not going to treat signs or symptoms, as I usually say I'm not going to treat aggression, aggression or repulsion is a sign or a symptom that something in terms of emotion or motivation is, is not understandable, and we need to address. Emotions and motivations behind and in fact in many of those cases we can have panic behind, we can have fear, anxiety system behind, we can have desire, frustration, or it can be a play behaviour. So, for our accurate diagnosis protocol, we need to take a great behavioural history.
To address all those emotions and in in in in the last editions from Doctor Gary Landsberg's book, he presents also, several steps that I'm going to use here today for you as well to take a great behavioural history, and the first one that we already spoke about is the clinical signs, the second is the frequency, the third one is the latency, the 4th, Are the triggers, and we need to address all these 6 steps. The, the 5th step is intensity, and the last step is the recovery time. And these 6 steps are going to help us to do the accurate diagnosis.
So let's start by the clinical signs, and then we, when you, we're speaking about the clinical signs, the first thing we need to address is what behaviours is the dog actually displaying. Because one thing is what the caregivers are describing, and another thing is what the dog is actually displaying, and we're going to see some of the videos again, and we're going to understand that the dogs, the dogs that I showed in two different scenarios. They are displaying different patterns, OK.
What is the body language? And the body language here is very important for my understanding of the emotions and motivations, OK, where in the in the house, it is the door, as I mentioned, that the caregiver is using to leave, or it's the window or the back door where he is listening other triggers as other dogs barking. What are the targets of destruction?
Is this dog eating, because once again, remember, if the dog is really stressed, anxious. His body is not asking him to eat because he's in he's, he's in a fight or flight response, OK, so eating is not something important. So, can he eat?
Yes or no? Can he eat something very valuable, because this can be very useful for the treatment as well, OK? Frequency, what is the frequency of occurrence?
For instance, when we are speaking about true separation distress, should be almost 100% of the departures. Otherwise, we should think about other diagnosis. How frequently is The animal left alone or separated from the caregiver in that context because this is going to be important for the treatment as well and how long is the dog left alone or separated from contact, OK?
In terms of latency, when did the first behaviours. Game, when did the problem start? And currently, when do the the behaviour start?
It's when the caregiver is leaving, is 10 minutes after leaving, is 5 minutes after leaving, is 1 hour after leaving, only when the caregiver leaves, or when the dog understands the cues or rituals that predict the departure, OK. So it's very important for us to understand this and what are the triggers? What are the conditions where the problem can be identified, what are the contexts that the problem is identified.
It's only when one specific person leaves, it's only with that person, or if other persons stay at home, that's fine, it's only when I'm, Completely home alone, OK, or the trigger is when I'm confined in the crate or I'm confined in the kitchen, OK? Intensity is getting worse, is getting better. It is in a plateau level.
It's a mild, and this is going to be very important for also for the medication selection, OK? It's a mild situation, it's a moderate, it's a severe intensity, OK? This is, this is going to be very important for our treatment.
And then recovery time. When does the animal calm down again? After 5 minutes of the caregiver arriving.
Only when that specific person returns to his contact, it's after 15 minutes, 30 minutes, 1 hour, 5 minutes, it's very important for us. Also for the medication, OK, and what are the patterns of, of, of, of behaviour, and as I mentioned, this is very important for comorbidities, OK, for noise reactivity, for instance. So it's very important because the treatment is going to depend, once again, in our diagnosis, OK?
Apart from this, we need to understand the client's needs. And in fact, when we're going to do the, the, the treatment plan, we need to understand how many departures are happening per day, per week, how long each of them, what are the resources available to avoid the distractions, it's. Missing here, a word, avoid distractions, OK?
Are there ways to avoid distraction? What are clients thinking about that? Can they give premedication before leaving?
Do they have financial constraints? What is their emotional state as well, because remember, we need to have people doing the treatment. Are they open to behavioural therapy?
And finally, the last and for me, one of the most important one, can they film and record the animal? Because recording the animal is going to be very useful to confirm how we diagnosis. It's very important.
Because sometimes caregivers are looking to one thing and they think it is one thing and they are describing in their own way, but the way to assess the anxiety level is through the videos, and it's very effective for our follow up visits, OK, because it's going to help us, because if the dog continues vocalising for caregivers, the problem still the same. But it's the type of vocalisation, the duration, everything is very important, to see if the treatment is being effective or not. So if you look to this dog, I am sure that you can realise that this dog is very different from this one.
OK You know, many times some dogs are totally inhibited while the caregiver is at home, and then when the caregiver leaves, they start exploring, they start destroying, they start having fun. I'm not saying that's the case, OK. But it can be, and that's why it's so important to, to do the threshold diagnosis, OK.
And of course, we need to do. Because we are veterinarians. And when we are facing a behaviour problem.
That means that you can have other diseases, and remember about the health triad, and the health triads, you have the physical health, you have the cognitive health, and you have the emotional health, and the three parts of this triangle are going to be influencing each other. So we need to do a medical exam, we need to do a proper physical exam, check and rule out pain. We need to do neurology exam.
We need to do urinalysis, faecal, blood count, we need to check liver, we need to check kidneys, we need to check glycemia, OK? Because we need the, the, the approach. In a behaviour case is the same.
As we use. For internal medicine, OK, so we need to rule out many things, OK? That's the beauty of behaviour, and for many years, behaviour was not seen as part.
Of medicine, but yes, it is part, it is our duty as veterinarians to take care of the emotional and cognitive health as well. So in conclusions, separation related problems can be very complex, often misunderstood and misdiagnosed. Taking a great behavioural history together with videos, and I highlight the importance of videos combined with a medical exam, allows us to reach a confident diagnosis.
And a confident diagnosis, spotting the signs permit to distinguish between different conditions. An accurate diagnosis ensure animals to get the adequate treatment that they truly need and they truly deserve, OK. Thank you so much once again for the invitation coming from the webinar vet and for 40 to trust on me and to inviting me to be here speaking about this amazing topic.
Thank you for all of you that decided to be with me in, in, in the end of this day, and you can find the care codes for. Social media, I always say, that it's, it's very, very, good to have virtual friends, but I always prefer to have real life friends. So whenever you see me in the Congress, please don't be afraid.
I don't bite. Approach me and it will be amazing. And this is my doggy that passed away, about 1 month and a half ago, and I'm still, grieving a bit, but, having here with me is, .
Keeping him alive. Thank you so much, Bruce. Karlo, thank you so much for your time, and we are sorry for your loss of your baby.
It's, it takes a long time to, I don't think we ever get over it. I think we're more adapt to it rather than getting over it. So, thank you for your time and your insight tonight, and a big thank you to Forta Health Care as well for their generous sponsorship of this evening.
Folks, thank you for your time in attending this evening, and I just want to point out to you that, Becca has put in the, chat box, the, link for the registration for the next part of this, in the treatment of the separation-related disorders, because a lot of the questions that have come through are about the treatment. So, we're not gonna get into that tonight because that's a whole separate topic and may end up being more than one webinar. So, just if you're interested to take this further, click on the link in the chat box.
But Gongala, we have had, quite a few interesting questions come through. Fiona, early on that first video you showed with the two dogs, she said she was quite surprised to see that the companion animal was actually quite calm. Is that, usual or do they wind each other up or calm each other down?
In fact, she was not calm at all, she was totally inhibited and frustrated, and if you remember in one of the 2nd or 3rd video, I showed her already trying to bite the dog, the one that was with separation related problem. So in fact that dog, she was inhibited and time to time she had an explosion. Oh bless her, yeah, so, so she was just being over dominated or overshadowed by the other one.
Yeah, she was completely, and, and, and, and that poor one also had to do treatment, OK, so, but this is common, because many times people, they get a second dog to help solving the separation related problems from the previous one, and at the end, they, they, they, they, they, they end their lives with two dogs with behaviour problems because they are learning with each other. Yeah. One of the other threads and themes of questions that are coming through is, is it possible that, as it can be in human medicine, that the animal's behaviour of destructive behaviour is actually attention-seeking.
They're doing these, let's call them naughty behaviours so that the owner pays them more attention. Bruce, in fact, in fact, we always try to compare our ourselves, the other species with ourselves, OK, if can be in some circumstances it can be, but this should be while the caregiver was at home, OK? If the caregiver is not at home, it can be frustration, for instance, it can be lack of stimulation.
It can be anxiety, it can be pain, and that's when comes the videos to help us to distinguish, because when it is a way to grab your attention, I'm doing this when you are with me and not when I'm alone. OK, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it, it, as you said right in the beginning, this is a very complex issue, and it's not just as simple as calling everything separation anxiety and, and videos nowadays, you know, are a great aid to this, rather than just, believing what the owners tell you.
Not because they are lying, but because of their bias in believing what they, what they want to. And, and in fact, is, is their own perception. It's their own perception.
It's not because they are lying. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Eileen asked an interesting question. Can obesity and obsession with food, struggling to lose weight, etc. Be mechanisms to cope with distress associated with separation?
OK, great question, and I love those questions, . Let's, let's say one thing, . Depending There are, there are two very important hormones released, in stress moments.
They are the cortisol that is known by everyone, and there is the CRF, and the CRF, is going to decrease your appetite, OK, and cortisol increases your appetite, OK. However, CRF is about 5 times stronger than cortisol, OK, and cortisol halftime, the duration of the the, the, the half-life is much longer than CRF. What is happening is that in situations of chronic stress, what is happening is that the animal is releasing both CRF.
And cortisol, but CRF is much stronger and is going to decrease the appetite. So in situations of chronic stress, continuous stress, as well as acute stress, there is a decrease of the appetite. What is happening, and this is for instance very common in cats, they, they, they, they have peaks of stress time to time during the day.
OK, so, for instance, imagine that the peak of stress of a dog is the caregiver getting away and the caregiver get away for 2 hours in return, 2 hours in return. Imagine I'm giving an example, I could give other examples with cats as well, but let's keep, keep here in this, in this theme for today, OK? And in fact what is happening when you have a peak of stress, time to time.
Remember, both are released, CRF and cortisol, but a cortisol is the one that has longer half-life time, OK, which means, That cortisol is going to continue there longer and it's going to increase the appetite. So in my humble opinion, but we need more studies, obesity can be related with stress as well. So exactly as the question, I do believe, depending on the type, the type of tri triggers that is creating the separation related problems, it can, it can absolutely lead to obesity.
Excellent. You, you've touched on, the next question, or range of questions, which is, of course, but what about cats? By the sounds of it, we need to have a separate webinar.
You need to go and talk to, Forte Healthcare and ask them to, to sponsor, to get you back again to talk about cats, cause I'm sure that's a whole separate webinar on its own. But I'm going to tell you, the problem always with cats is that they, they are, very subtle in their science, Bruce. I think, I think, I think, I think the topic here.
I have a couple of cases that it was identified as separation related problems because in fact it was associated with the fact that they were left alone and I had two cases with anorexia, so they stopped eating, they were hospitalised because the one of the caregivers were air attendants, so when she was in a. Long flight away from home, then the cat needed to be hospitalised with with liver issues, OK, and and and the the issue is that many cats, for instance, they hide themselves, sometimes they can eat more, sometimes the, the, the, the question here. Is that for dogs, we have identified already that the couple of signs that we are looking for and we can address it in our consultations, when we're speaking about cats, they are very subtle, and each cat is a cat.
That's the difficulty. That's why we love them because they are so absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely.
I totally agree, Bruce. I'm going to combine a couple of questions, together here, and that is about prevention, puppy classes, and is this something related specifically to age? Do you see it more in young dogs or older dogs, and can it develop in later life?
Great, great question. So first let's go to prevention, in terms of prevention, yes, puppy classes, well organised because all over the world, I'm seeing many things which are not the best, so many people are doing puppy classes, which is, Putting puppies together and and that's not the concept of a puppy class, OK, this can be the source of many other behaviour problems, so very important, but puppy classes is also to educate caregivers, OK, it's about giving skills for the puppy to. Enjoy being left alone because those puppies they never pass through the the the the pleasure of being home alone, OK, so it's very good if if if puppies starts to be .
Well trained to be left home alone and enjoying being left home alone, so puppy classes can be very useful and also very useful for the puppy and also very useful for the caregiver because it's going to give the education, because people don't know, people don't know they are going to do mistakes, we do mistakes with our babies. How can't we do mistakes with other species babies, right? So we're going to do, so it's very, very important, I totally agree.
The other question was about, can it develop later in life? Ah, yes, yes, yes. In fact, one of the signs of what we generally called cognitive dysfunction is also associated, or dementia or whatever you want to call it.
Is also associated with social lack of social or or impaired social skills. Some, some of those dogs, they forget about what they are doing, they don't know where they are, and it looks like, but this needs another webinar for this one I need another webinar, which is, which is, some of them, they are suffering. Bring a lot, very anxious when left alone, they become the shadow dogs because they don't know where they are, but they, they have the reference of the caregivers, so they get lost in their own house and this is very, very stressing, OK, so many times this can be a sign of cognitive dysfunction or even other disease in neuro neurology and we need to rule out many others, of course, the.
A common theme that's come through on quite a few of the questions is people are asking where they can get more information and find the references you were referring to and that. Obviously, they can go back and, and look at the recording to pick up the references, but what what would be your advice for the best place to To get more information and learn more about this topic, you know, I'm going to tell you, 40 has amazing, amazing materials, very easy to read, it is, it is also prepared by one of my, my, my favourite colleagues, Sarah Heath, I love her, and she prepared amazing materials together with 40, so, I, I simply. I, it wouldn't be ethics for me to recommend one or another book, OK, because there are so many that I'm sure that I'm going to forget some of them, OK, but I would recommend to, to check all the material from 40 because it is amazing.
Yeah, that's fantastic, yep. And as I always like to say, support the sponsors that support us, so there's a good plug for . Their website and their information.
Last question and and and the sponsor Bruce in this case 40 is, is, is, is producing all this material for all veterinarians around the world, so I think it's, it's, it's very useful and I must say, of course it's prepared by Sarah, so as Sarah's name, it's already something good to read. And, and, and, and there's, I, I think I only remember Sarah's, but I, I think 40 has also other material, other materials from other colleagues, but I don't want to say other names. I leave it to 40.
No, that's absolutely fine. Go, thank you so much for your time tonight. We really do appreciate it.
We have run out of time unfortunately. Once again, a big thank you to 40 Healthcare for their sponsorship. Go and have a look at their website and pick up that information, that is, presented or has been prepared by Sarah, who is well-renowned in this field as well.
To all of you who've attended tonight, thank you so much for your time. We do appreciate it. I hope you have enjoyed it and, judging by the questions, that you have learned a lot from this evening.
Thank you so much, Bruce. Thank you. Let me just say goodbye and then you close it, OK?
No problem at all. Thank you. Thank you, webinar vet.
Thank you, Rebecca that is in the backstage as well, and thanks for everyone to stay this night with me, and I hope you've enjoyed. Bye. Thank you.
Thanks everybody. Good night.
