9 week old puppy hates being left alone when I do the school run

[FantasticMax]

I have a 9 week old lab and struggling a bit. Puppy won’t sleep in his crate, only on the couch beside me or near me. I’ve been sleeping downstairs with him as I thought it would help him transition to being in a new house but as I said, he wants to sleep on me. But I can’t do that forever. I miss my bed! If I move him to his bed once he’s fallen asleep, he’ll simply wake up and crawl out to be with me. He tolerates the crate being locked for a few minutes and then starts to whine/bark.

The problem is I need to leave the house a few times a day to do the school run, which takes about 30 minutes. If I take him in the car, he whines and barks and tries to get beside me. He has toys, treats etc but they only keep him occupied for a few minutes and the barking starts.

If I leave him in the crate (with treats, stuffed Kong, etc), where I know he’s safe and not chewing up my furniture, he’ll start barking. I can’t say for certain he’s barking the whole time I’m away but I’d guess so given he also barks in the 5 minutes I disappear to shower.

So what’s the lesser of two evils? Do I keep taking him in the car and hope that he calms down with time. Or do I continue to leave him in the crate for the school run and hope he gets used to it. I know there is crate training but obviously that takes time and the school run needs to happen.

Any advice would be much appreciated. I’m concerned about pup developing separation anxiety and I’m really trying my best to get this right.

Also making dinner fun, I don’t bowl feed mine often. Scatter feed, kong, bottle etc make them work for dinner a little bit. We put some kibble in cardboard boxes, tubes etc and he hunts for it - loves it. Licky mat & snuffle mats are good too. I weigh mine out in the morning and split it between different things. He does get one small bowl feed in a slow feeder as he inhales food in an ordinary bowl. Anyway I’m waffling

Good luck ... and agree about REALLY making his crate a fun safe haven.

We invested heavily in this ... lots of yummy treats to find at odd occasions in the day, never put there as a punishment, always a positive experience ... and it has paid dividends.

Means we can take our wee fella anywhere and he settles instantly cos he's got his little house with him...

Although he loves sofas, he'll happily pop in there at odd times of the day just for a nap

And yes, we use the towel over the crate to "calm" him by removing stimuli. Does help!

Good luck. This is the most challenging stage... he's still so tiny.... it'll just get better and better

For the PP who asked for an update ... pup is nearly 4 months old now. He love the car so we have no problems there now.

I’m no longer on the couch! He now sleeps in a bed beside our bed. He settles pretty quickly at night after his last pee around 10.30pm. Sadly he still doesn’t sleep through and tends to wake up 3/4am for a wee or poo and then back to sleep till about 7am. I prefer keeping him close to us for now until he’s reliably house trained.

He still doesn’t like being left alone but with lockdown I’ve got time to work on that. He’s much better with his crate and will happily pop in there to sleep while I’m working. I make sure two out of his three meals are in a snuffle mat or kong to make things a bit more interesting for him.

I would say I’m over the puppy blues now but do still find things hard as one of us always needs to be keeping an eye on him. He’s only a puppy though. The mouthing is MUCH better than what it was, for the most part he is a gentle wee boy. It doesn’t take much to get him hyper and I am constantly telling the girls not to wind him up.

So, there is light at the end of the tunnel. But we’re still very much in the tunnel!