Dr. Else Verbeek is a highly skilled and compassionate dog behaviorist who is dedicated to helping dogs overcome fear and anxiety. With a strong foundation in evidence-based practices, she utilizes her scientific expertise to create effective strategies for addressing behavioral issues in dogs.With over 15 years of experience in the field, Else has honed her skills in understanding and modifying canine behavior. Her background as a scientist specializing in behavior, emotions, and stress physiology allows her to bring a unique perspective to her work with dogs. Else's approach is grounded in the latest research, ensuring that her interventions are based on solid scientific evidence. She recognizes that every dog is an individual with unique needs, and she tailors her methods to suit each dog's specific circumstances. In addition to her work with individual dogs, Else is also passionate about education and knowledge-sharing. She regularly teaches problem behavior courses to dog professionals, empowering them with the tools and knowledge to better understand and address canine behavioral issues. Else is equally dedicated to helping dog owners navigate their pets' problem behaviors. Through her compassionate and patient guidance, she assists owners in understanding the underlying causes of their dogs' issues and provides practical strategies to improve their pets' behavior and quality of life. With her extensive experience, scientific background, and commitment to evidence-based practices, Else stands out as a respected and trusted authority in the field of dog behavior. Her unwavering dedication to improving the lives of dogs and their owners has made her a sought-after expert in the industry. Do you want to understand your dog's behaviour, solve unwanted behaviours and improve your relationship with your dog? Sign up to my newsletter now!
Why do noise phobic dogs relapse and what can you do to prevent it?
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Hi Reader, Last week I asked you about the noise fear cases that don’t go the way you planned. Thank you, so many of you have answered already, and I’ve been reading every single response. One thing keeps coming back in most answers. Owners and professionals wrote it in slightly different words, but it’s the same story every time: “Making progress, then something small happening, and backwards we go.” You put in weeks of careful work, the dog is finally calm with the recording, and then a single bang on a random Saturday night makes it feel as if you’re back at the start. If you’ve had a case like that, you’ve probably asked yourself what went wrong. Was the plan off? Did the owner skip sessions? Did you move too fast? Those are fair questions. But the research on fear learning points somewhere a little different. The short version is that the old fear probably never went anywhere. And once you understand why, a relapse becomes something you can predict, plan for and explain to an owner. In this week’s blog I go through the three ways old fear tends to come back, why stress makes that more likely, and six things that change in how I’d plan a noise case because of it. One of them is something I think gets skipped quite often in the months without fireworks. Read the blog HERE. Your answers are shaping what comes nextThis blog came straight out of your survey answers, and it’s only the first piece. I’m building new material on noise fear, and I want it to fit the cases you actually see, the dogs that relapse and the owners who feel overwhelmed. So if you haven’t filled in the survey yet, I’d love to hear from you. It takes about five minutes, and there are no right or wrong answers. The quick answers, written the way you’d say them to a colleague, are often the most useful ones for me. And if you’re a dog owner rather than a professional, please fill it in too. You’ll get your own set of questions, and your answers are just as valuable. Everyone who completes the survey and leaves an email address goes into the draw to win my workshop How Emotions Drive Problem Behaviour in Dogs. It’s about what emotional states do in the brain and body, and why a dog reacting from fear needs a different approach than a dog reacting from frustration. Thank you, I really appreciate it. Best, Dr. Else |
Hi, I'm Else, specialist in dog behaviour and welfare.
Dr. Else Verbeek is a highly skilled and compassionate dog behaviorist who is dedicated to helping dogs overcome fear and anxiety. With a strong foundation in evidence-based practices, she utilizes her scientific expertise to create effective strategies for addressing behavioral issues in dogs.With over 15 years of experience in the field, Else has honed her skills in understanding and modifying canine behavior. Her background as a scientist specializing in behavior, emotions, and stress physiology allows her to bring a unique perspective to her work with dogs. Else's approach is grounded in the latest research, ensuring that her interventions are based on solid scientific evidence. She recognizes that every dog is an individual with unique needs, and she tailors her methods to suit each dog's specific circumstances. In addition to her work with individual dogs, Else is also passionate about education and knowledge-sharing. She regularly teaches problem behavior courses to dog professionals, empowering them with the tools and knowledge to better understand and address canine behavioral issues. Else is equally dedicated to helping dog owners navigate their pets' problem behaviors. Through her compassionate and patient guidance, she assists owners in understanding the underlying causes of their dogs' issues and provides practical strategies to improve their pets' behavior and quality of life. With her extensive experience, scientific background, and commitment to evidence-based practices, Else stands out as a respected and trusted authority in the field of dog behavior. Her unwavering dedication to improving the lives of dogs and their owners has made her a sought-after expert in the industry. Do you want to understand your dog's behaviour, solve unwanted behaviours and improve your relationship with your dog? Sign up to my newsletter now!
Hey Reader, If you are a dog professional, all you want is to improve the welfare of noise-phobic dogs. In a study by Herwijnen et al. (2024) a questionnaire was sent to 3,009 dog owners (and 622 cat owners!) asking about their experiences with fireworks. Here are the key findings from the Study: ✅ Early-life noise exposure reduces the risk of developing noise sensitivity. ✅ Dogs with suboptimal early socialization are more prone to fear loud noises. ✅ Noise sensitivity in dogs often leads to...
Hi Reader, Dogs and humans share much of the brain circuitry that produces fear, anxiety, habits, and impulse control. That's the starting point of a new paper by Floriane Fournier, Suliann Ben Hamed, and Clément Garin, published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews in September. They brought together what we currently know about emotional disorders in dogs, and asked a fundamental question: how do you diagnose a mental health problem in an animal that can't tell you how it feels? What...
Hey Reader, When a dog hears a loud bang, the stress system kicks in within seconds. Adrenaline and noradrenaline prepare the body to act, and a little later cortisol follows. But that system doesn’t keep a separate account for every stressor. The dog who barks at every dog on the morning walk, gets startled by the delivery van, sleeps badly because the toddler wakes up three times a night, or has stiff hips nobody has noticed yet is using the same system all day long. In the short term,...