Isolation Distress VS Separation Anxiety
I am sure you know of someone, or maybe yourself, who has an animal in their care with self-labeled “separation anxiety.” You may define your animal who has separation anxiety when they have increased vocalization, increased stereotypic behaviors like pacing or abnormal repetitive behaviors, destroying the home when you leave, and other anxious behaviors that revolve around the removal of your presence. It has become increasingly more common in the animals we keep in our homes, and it is applicable for a wide range of species. But what exactly is it? Separation anxiety can be described as when the animal becomes emotionally distraught when the caretakers leave them. It is your animal emotionally distraught, leading to panic. It is a severe condition that is essentially an animal panic attack that goes on the entire time you are gone.
True separation anxiety is actually really alarming to see in person. The animal’s heart rate increases, they shake uncontrollably, they are vocalizing like they are dying, it is a nonstop. You cannot calm down behavior, and it can be medically alarming needing intervention. Those with true separation anxiety are almost always immediately put on medications to help calm them while their caretakers work on training, or possibly for the rest of their lives. Separation anxiety is not the whimper for dogs, the usual contact call for birds, most of the time it is not the destroyed house, its not the “sad look” or any other form of anthropomorphism that is put onto the animal. It is an alarming and serious emotional state. It is actually rare for me to agree or tell clients to speak to a vet about true separation anxiety.
What is usually described is actually something called isolation distress. This can be defined as something that the animal does that is not normal to what they do when we are home. So, this could be increased vocalizations, destroying the house, increase of stereotypic behaviors, etc. It could be the separation anxiety symptoms you are seeing that is not resulting in the extreme emotional state. So, what causes this, and how do we stop it?
The causes are from stress and boredom. Typically, we do not think to train the animal to do something while we aren’t around. Not when we are in the other room, but when we leave the house. Most people do not even know what their animal does when they’re gone unless they come home to visible damage. When we are just in the other room, there is no way we are completely silent. But when they house is not disturbed, that can affect behavior. If we are planning on things for our animal to do while we are gone, like foraging, we usually do not give enough to occupy their entire time while we are gone. I have personally seen this in my own flock of birds. I will give them all three huge, chunky foraging enrichment items, like the ones sold on the shop, filled with tons of foraging opportunities. I have cameras all around the inside and outside of my house, and I check on my birds often. I noticed that the foraging I thought was enough really only took my birds maybe 20-30 minutes to complete. I would just always come home to see the activities completed without checking how much time it actually took out of my bird’s day.
One of the easiest ways to solve isolation distress is through increased enrichment. Enrichment can help reduce stress as well as entertain our animals while we leave. Enrichment goes beyond just foraging. Enrichment can be olfactory, visual, auditory, and sensational. This can mean a TV with the sound on for your animals, a window open, a fan put on, a scent trail for dogs or vultures to follow and find hidden foods. Foraging can be some of the easiest and most accepted form of enrichment that can influence species-specific behaviors and can also serve these needs, which is why it is so popular. What is enriching to your animal is dependent on the actual animal. Every animal has their own likes and dislikes, and enrichment items may vary from species or breeds.
Enrichment is a good place to start, but also, what would we want to see our animal doing? Ideally, their enrichment will last them the whole time we are gone, but what if we are gone for essentially the day? What happens when they are done with their activities? The animal already has a behavior that they do and serves their need. It is undesirable to us, and we know is not the best for their mental state, but it serves that purpose. What can be we teach them to do instead that will still serve that need? How can we set them up for success?
This is where it will be best to start working with a professional to find all this information out. We need to know what the desirable consequences are to the behaviors they preform that continue the strength of the behavior to find a replacement behavior, or address the environment, to also fill that need. We know the antecedent is us leaving, or them being left alone. We need to look at each individual behavior that the individual animal preforms, learn its function to the animal, and find a reasonable replacement for it. For example, a dog is pacing around the house when we leave.
Antecedent: us leaving
Behavior: pacing
Consequence: it could be that the animal is getting energy and stress out, the animal is searching for us, the animal is no longer bored because it’s running around, or other specific factors
Plan of action: make sure the dog is walked for an adequate time based on the breed on a long lunge lead that allows for choice, sniffing, and the dog to set its pace before we leave the house. We teach a cue of us leaving that is short and simple so the dog knows that we are gone. Increase enrichment that is spread out to different rooms of the house for the dog to move around and find, and enrichment is varied from room to room.
Another thing that will likely need to be worked on no matter what is going on is the relationship and bond between you and the animal in question. Why is the animal not able to function normally when alone? It is usually because we spend too much time with our animals, they become too dependent on us, and they were never taught. For example, parrots are extremely social creatures that often do better in flocks or pairs. But in our homes, we usually keep them isolated as the only bird, since they are also expensive and very hard to take care of. So, we have them spend all day with us, or they are out the entire time we are home all the time. I love this, truly, because it shows the love and dedication that caretakers have to their birds. On the other hand, is all that time spend together functional to the animal? How are our interactions affecting the animal’s independence?
This is not to say not have your bird out, don’t spend time with it, it needs to be in its cage for __hours per day. Every bird and person are an individual, so to make such claims would be generalizing and damaging to some birds that don’t fit this “perfect” mold. What can be advised is about the amount of time the bird is on us and able to practice being independent. What I like to do with my flock is have them on tree stands. I have built floor trees on wheels, a 10 foot by 10 foot hanging jungle gym, and have many parrots stands throughout the other rooms of my house. I like my birds to hangout in the same environment as me without physically being on me. I will go over for 5-10 minutes of the hour to interact with them of course, but I rarely sit for long periods of times in my daily life with my birds on me. Not to say it never happens, because that is a lie, but when I am working from home, doing house work, etc., my birds are around, not on me. A bird doesn’t need to be on you to get social interaction. Just like a dog doesn’t need to directly interact with a person or dog to get that interaction either. I want my birds on their stands with enrichment so I can work on those behaviors for when I’m gone. I want the to be able to self-entertain and sustain without me being apart of it all the time. I will sometimes step out of the room with them out, watch my cameras through my phone to keep an eye on them, and come in and reinforce periodically them preforming the behaviors I want to see.
It is often seen that animals with too close of a bond to their caretaker will show isolation distress and separation anxiety. Changing the relationship and dynamic of the interactions you have can help. These would be case-by-case interactions and aid needing to be diagnosed and aided by a professional for optimal results.
Overall, we often self-diagnose incorrectly mainly due to not know the difference. This is where it is important to contact a professional behavioralist to help you properly diagnose behavior using functional assessment and come up with training plan using only science-based methods. Separation anxiety often needs to be diagnosed by a veterinarian, and testing is often required. Anxious behavior does not mean anxiety disorder. Just like humans, we can be anxious about a test, or going to a doctor, or breaking up with a significant other, but that does not mean we have an anxiety disorder. This is the same between separation anxiety and isolation distress.