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 enlarge | Author: Patricia B. Mcconnell
Publisher: Dog's Best Friend, Ltd
Category: Book
List Price: $7.95
Buy New: $6.45
You Save: $1.50 (19%)
New (2) Used (3) from $5.81
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 9231
Media: Paperback
Pages: 36
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5
ISBN: 1891767054
EAN: 9781891767050
ASIN: 1891767054
Publication Date: June 1, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Condition: Brand New Booklet by Patricia McConnell, in stock and ships immediately! Thank you!
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 11-15 of 22
 I'll be home soon January 9, 2007
Teacher Lady (Pennsylvania)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
An excellent resourch for anyone who has ever experienced a dog with Separation Anxiety. The infrmation is complete and correct . I would recommend this to trainers and families who are about to get a dog. Prevention is FAR better than CURE!!!
 Anxiety or a training problem? January 6, 2007
a. write (new york)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This book was very helpful in determining if your dog has actual separation anxiety or if the problem is more of a training issue. It's not as black and white as I would have liked, but neither are pet problems all the time.
Gives ideas and step-by-step plan of how to deal with either problem. Recommended to figure things out either way!
Great! November 3, 2006
K. Laplace (South Bend, IN United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A great booklet for telling you what seperation anxiety isn't and a great place to start if your dog truly has seperation anxiety. Dr. McConnell is a name you can trust!
Effective! Intentionally short. March 14, 2006
J. Jardell (Colorado Springs, CO)
26 out of 26 found this review helpful
Patricia McConnell knows how little time many of us have which is why she makes this series of books only 30 or so pages long. She is direct and to the point to solve your training problem without lots of fluff and cute little dog stories. When we have a dog training issue very few of us have time to read a novel on how to solve it. I for one want to cut to the chase and start solving the problem right away. The methods used in this book are clear and easy to apply and they work. My dog has stopped destructive chewing when I'm away and is clearly much happier. Thank you Ms. McConnell (oh and Daisy my APBT thanks you too) A few reviewers gave these books a low rating because they are short. Amazon clearly indicates how many pages this book has and it's priced accordingly.
A Thorough, Comprehensive Pamphlet with Only Two (Major) Errors August 23, 2005
Lee Charles Kelley (New York City)
56 out of 77 found this review helpful
A client recently gave me her copy of I'LL BE HOME SOON. She said it hadn't helped with her dog's separation anxiety and she thought I might like to read it. I have and I think it's very thorough, comprehensive clearly written, intelligent, with only two things that are more than slightly off the mark (which is something I've come to expect from McConnell). Still, I would absolutely recommend that anyone with a dog suffering from this affliction, or anyone who wants to prevent their puppy from developing it in the first place, buy a copy.
My caveats?
ONE: The recommended De-Sensitization and Counter-Conditioning techniques only work about 15% of the time, if at all. That's been my experience. I've only met one dog owner who said a behaviorist had actually helped solve her dog's separation anxiety. ("Really? How?" I asked. "Elavil," she replied.) Also, there was a (roughly) two year period, about thirteen years ago, where I experimented with operant conditioning techniques myself and found they rarely worked to solve severe behavioral problems of ANY kind for more than a brief window of time.
On the other hand, I have never seen a more thorough and comprehensive outline for applying these techniques. That's something I hadn't taken into account. Certainly, between your dog and you, sooner or later one or the other of you is going to HAVE to get tired of doing these exercises, so I suppose if you have the stamina to outlast a frantic, frenetic pooch, god bless you; you may very well be successful in curing the problem without drugs, and more power to you.
TWO: McConnell simply doesn't understand the inner workings of the dog's psyche. She just doesn't get it. First of all, she talks about the need for being a "benevolent pack leader" when no such animal exists. That whole idea of the social hierarchy is a fantasy, a myth. And anyway, a dog who goes through a door ahead of you is not doing it because he doesn't know his place in the social pecking order (since there isn't one). He just wants to go for a walk. Is that so hard to understand? (Actually, there's more to it than that but space here is limited.)
Secondly, McConnell recommends training a specific stay exercise (one that I call the "peek-a-boo stay"), which I've found is vitally essential for curing separation anxiety. The only problem is she recommends using a treat as the focal point of the training, which is absolutely the wrong way to go about it. Food actually creates an unnecessarily difficult learning process for the dog. You need to use a toy instead. That's because the behavior of holding still, not moving, keeping in one place for an increasingly longer and longer period of time, is already built into the animal's DNA as part of his predatory sequence: THE SEARCH > THE EYE STALK > THE CHASE > THE GRAB BITE > THE KILL BITE. Stimulating, amplifying, and satisfying this sequence, particularly the EYE STALK, while the urge to bite a is present, puts the dog's instincts back into balance. And separation anxiety, like most behavioral problems, is caused by the animal's instincts being OUT of balance in the first place. Biting games, like tug-of-war, where you always let the dog win and praise him enthusisastically for winning, will also help. (These are the two main things that have always helped my clients' dogs, including the one who gave me this booklet.)
One other thing McConnell fails to mention: This condition should probably be called "separation PANGS." That's because a 2003 research study done at UCLA shows that feelings of social exclusion are registered in the anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that controls feelings of actual physical pain. So the animal is, in all likelihood, feeling severe physical pain when he acts out while you're gone. (Poor baby...)
Still, even with these flaws in mind, I seriously doubt if anyone who goes to the average "behavioral specialist" in their town or city will end up with anything even anywhere close to the amount of good, solid information that's contained in this little pamphlet. Four stars, even with my two caveats.
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