Leaving a puppy/dog alone

[carrottopper]

What is the longest period your puppy or dog is left alone? We are researching whether we could get a dog. It's been something we've been looking at for years and not a decision we take lightly.

I've read that you shouldn't leave a puppy alone for more than 2 hours. How do other families work this?? Surely not every single person who has a puppy works from home! There are two days in the week where we are all out of the house for around 8-12 hours depending on work. I've been looking into dog walkers etc but how many times a day would I need them? How do others manage?

We have pre covid dpuppy. Never been alone as yet since Feb!! Have all balls in the air for the coming weeks...
Awaiting ds's college schedule so I can plan going back to work!!
Sorry no help!!
Ddoggy day care would be my choice if we only had dpuppy though!! She is one of 4 ddogs.

Some people can leave their dogs for several hours and others struggle for 15 mins.

It's going to depend on the dog. A puppy or dog that struggles being left alone can be very noisy and destructive.

I work full time (was mix of office and home prior to the coronavirus crisis). My dog can be left for around 3 hours before he starts getting unsettled (I watch him on camera so I know exactly how he behaves when I am out).

I pay for daycare so he isn't on his own all day on my office days.

About half an hour. He goes to doggy day care for anything longer.

Cruel to leave any dog alone for 8 to 12 hours a day let alone a puppy! When we got our dog my (now ex) husband and I worked different shifts so that the pup was never alone.

@Angelina82 yes I agree. I just don't know how people ever manage to have dogs! We definitely can't get one at the moment

It really depends entirely on the dog, but I would say 4-6 hours should be the maximum and certainly not every single day. But some dogs will be happy with more, others won't be able to be on their own for an hour.

If you're going to be out of the house for 8-12 hours at a time then I would say daycare may be more suitable - you can arrange for the dog to be collected and dropped off, so maybe you'd leave at 7am, dog gets collected at 9am and dropped home at 4pm, then you get home and six, so the dog is only alone for four hours or so. However this probably wouldn't work for a very young puppy, or a nervous older dog.

Lots of daycares can be quite overwhelming so another option is a sitter in your home, although this can be pretty expensive. As a walker, I do offer sitting but on the proviso that the dog can be left for a couple of hours at a time while I go to my other jobs.

It rather depends what you mean by a puppy as to whether you can leave it for 2 hours.

Very young puppies, certainly when you first get them, can't be left at all as they need to be taken out every 20 minutes or so to wee and like human babies, need company. Obviously older puppies can begin to be left alone longer and the time they are left can be increased gradually.

8-12 hours for a puppy is an absolutely no no, and even for an older dog is way too long imo, even with a walker coming in.

Day care is the answer for that length of time.

My dog can be left for quite a long time, but it happens very rarely and only because of some sort of emergency or if I've been delayed somewhere. I wouldn't do it on a regular basis and, unless there had been some dire emergency, it would never be as long as 12 hours.

Pre-lockdown, we were leaving two dogs for 6.5 hrs on 2 or 3 days a week, with access to a kennel yard. I didn't start doing this until the younger dog was about 2 - up till then I raced home at lunchtime to take her out (and until she was 6months we had DC knocking about the house prior to going back to uni).

But... They have each other, they have outside access, they are mature dogs. The current puppy is a bloody nightmare and will require a lot of input for months to come.

8year old dog with no separation anxiety- 7hours. But that only started happening when he was about 3years old and it was built up gradually.

If he showed any signs of separation anxiety then we wouldn’t be able to.

All depends on the individual dog.