Can’t leave my puppy

[3AndADog]

I’m feeling really trapped. She’s 17 weeks. I thought it would be best to have someone home with her for the first month so we did, we got her at 11 weeks, and it took about a month to get her sleeping through with one of us in the lounge with us - she’s brilliant now and takes herself to her crate at 10.30 and sleeps alone til 6.30. But in the day she’s always hated her crate in the day time. We haven’t got very far with it despite crate games etc, I’ve done the lot. The most we get is 20 mins sleep in there in the day.

She follows me Everywhere (in the lounge/kitchen where she’s allowed) but barks when I leave the room. I decided I needed to get out more so divided up the room with a pen divider and she now has the lounge with her food, her crate, some toys and bedding etc. Yesterday and today I had to leave the house without her - parent teacher meetings - and I set up the dog cam. Yesterday she barked for a couple of minutes and was asleep when my son got in 30 mins later. I thought that was a success. Today she barked for 30 mins and was asleep when DH came back 40 mins later, and I feel dreadful. The neighbours must think we’re awful - 30 mins of (intermittent) barking. She’s been clingy and needy ever since I got back in after that. Barked like mad when I went to the toilet.

Incidentally she’s fine when DH leaves her or puts her in the crate. Doesn’t make a sound. Not that we have done it very often.

We have a trainer, one to one, who thinks she’s too young for separation anxiety and is a little old school. She thinks she should be quiet in her crate for 4 hours at this age and is evangelical about crate training. Her method is to give her a few mins of barking to see if she quietens down, and if she doesn’t, make a distracting noise to quiet her and let her out after she has been quiet for 5 seconds. She disagrees with the constant stream of treats that all the crate games advocate, because she says she’ll never settle and will stay alert and waiting for the next snack (which to be fair is true, she does)

I don’t know what to do. I want to go out. I want to take my kids to a movie at half term. I want to have my hair cut. I want to go to the supermarket without asking my mum to puppy sit.

I am following the separation anxiety/dog training Facebook groups that are always recommended but I find them overwhelming and they are leading me to imagine worst case scenarios when in reality everyone I know with a pup (this breed) has been able to leave their dog for short periods since very early on and think that I’m mad for getting het up over a few barks.

I don’t know what to do…

[quote Dobbyafreeelf]@3AndADog ah ok. When you said old school I was thinking more dominance based stuff!!!

Tbh I completely agree with her about sleep. I think we totally underestimate how much sleep puppies and dogs need. Teaching them to be calm is one of the most important things you can teach them.
I'd generally agree with ignoring unwanted behaviours and praising the ones you want. You don't want to inadvertently reward the barking by giving it attention. [/quote]
It also seems to be one of the hardest things to teach!!

@3AndADog

I’m also worried that because I’ve left it to now (17weeks) to start this, I’ve missed a window and it’s going to be harder than at say 12 weeks.

I got my rescue pup at 6 months old and didn't leave her at all for nearly 9 months because she couldn't cope. 6 months on and she can now mange about 4hrs alone. So it's never too late to start. I'm not a huge believer in this training window with puppies. Dogs learn at their own rates just live kids do. We expect a huge amount from our dogs very quickly. It's hardly surprising that some of them struggle!

I got a rescue Lurcher at 12 months and went through separation anxiety. I built it up very gradually but it really was only a couple of weeks once I followed the advice.
The first step is for the dog to have been walked (at least in my case) so he's tired. Then you need to prevent him following you in the house. I was folding washing and leaving the room to put it on the stairs one piece at a time - after about 5 he got bored! Then I put it upstairs one at a time (got my steps that day 😂)
Put shoes and cost on but don't leave. Add keys etc etc. The first time I literally went 200 yards to the top of the road and came back with no fuss. I was able to build it pretty quickly to 5,10,20 minutes etc. The dog cam is invaluable.
It sounds like a PITA but didn't take so long in hindsight. He's generally fine now though he still follows me to the toilet often!!!

Have you tried letting her have a Kong in the crate?

Haven’t tried leaving with a kong as the advice I had was that she’ll eat the Kong then panic that we aren’t there when she’s done. But I guess if I’m doing 5 mins initially then it doesn’t matter so much about that.

I am so torn about the crate. Whether to persevere or stick with the divided room. Trainer thinks if I’m not enforcing crate time then she won’t get enough sleep.

Our puppy is never crated and he sleeps most of the day (on the sofa). Different breed though. I must say that our previous dog was a poodle and howled continuously if we left him alone. Unfortunately, the solution was to leave him with my retired grandparents during the day, as he couldn't be alone.

If you are considering a Kong, try a stuffed hoof as well. A stuffed hoof will occupy our dog for HOURS. He goes absolutely mental for it

You can freeze Kongs to make them last even longer

“Ok 5 mins sounds ok and managable. I was just getting put off and depressed by all the stuff saying start at 5 seconds shock”

you start where your dog is, some dogs get stressed before people even leave, so you start by getting ready and touching the door etc, some it’s as the door shuts so you do 5 seconds...

It sounds more like yours is a fairly normal puppy going... here, she’s not come back yet, oh no! Rather than the more serious type of SA you sometimes get with older dogs.

Tbh, I let puppies or slightly clingy dogs follow me around the house if they want to - it doesn’t take that long for them to just decide you’re boring and they don’t need to follow you everywhere anyway.

I know you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with FB but Dog Training Advice and Support is brilliant. Their separation anxiety and crate training guides are really good.

I think this sounds more like usual puppy behaviour than SA currently. My spaniel used to whine like mad and our trainer felt it was more FOMO. I played the 'fliting' game a lot, so basically you move from room to room and the dog follows you around, but you pause in the room for a few minutes before moving on- they learn that you moving around is boring. Then when he stopped following me so frequently, I would move go out the door and increased the time I was gone.
I don't know about the poodle side, but spaniels can be quite needy, but are quick to learn. It does take time tho, consistency and time are the key things.

@FreshFreesias

Consider 2 dogs. It is so much easier. They are pack animals after all.

Hmmm. Our neighbours have two dogs and they take it in turns barking and crying when they're left alone in the house. We are all hoping they'll get used to it sooner rather than later.

I also have a cockerpoo. Unfortunately he was a nightmare to leave when he was young. We couldn’t leave him without him freaking out barking howling whining. We couldn’t get past ten minutes of building up time alone without him being distressed so we just gave up.

A woman with same breed told us her dog was same until he was over a year old so once ours was 12 months we tried leave him and no problems at all. He’s now been left for anywhere between 2-4 hours and he gives out for 5 mins then sleeps on the stairs (we have a doggy cam).

So I guess good news and bad news for you! He might just need to be older but no solution for the next year! It was during lockdown for us and we had family willing to mind him even for short amounts of time as well as for longer times plus doggy daycare so we were lucky in that way.

Your trainer is correct that she's way too young for separation anxiety. Personally at that age I didn't attempt to leave my dog at all apart from doing room flitting exercises. We also gave up with crate training. Not all dogs take to it. I've taken the same approach with my dogs as I have with my children and just been there when they are small. Barking in a crate will always e counter productive as will solidify in a dogs mind that crate equals distress

As per my username, I'm also a Cockapoo owner!
I hugely sympathise, because I have been (and still am!) where you are. Feeling overwhelmed by just how different advice is from different people- from the 'just leave them to bark, they need to learn that it doesn't make you come back' to 'you must not leave them at all, and start by building up absences for 5 seconds' etc. My dog is now 14 months and I'm still rubbish at knowing what advice to follow.
The bit that stood out in your post to me was that the dog follows you everywhere and barks when you leave the room. In my opinion, that is a sign that your dog isn't ready to be happily left in the house alone as they haven't quite figured out that you always come back. As a previous poster says, sometimes this seems to disappear naturally with maturity and one day they just understand that it's best for them to settle where they are, because you will come back.
If I were you, I would try to avoid long periods of distress because I think at that point it can reaffirm their beliefs that being alone is bad and then you'll have a really tough job trying to undo that. So I would go slowly slowly first whilst the dog naturally matures. I appreciate it's really tough, and I will be following advice on this thread closely!

Ours loves his crate at night but not during the day. If we leave, he likes to look out of the window.

We give him a pigs ear and two gravy bones, which he only ever gets when we leave him. He’s a lot better now. He wouldn’t ever settle in a pen or crate.

I would work on her general anxiety/reluctance to walk in the morning too. Getting out and about first thing will really help I think with her being more relaxed/settled during the day.
Try things like being really positive and exciting, treat-motivated, take a toy, do some dog parkour (paws up on stuff, balancing, different surfaces...) anything to get her engaged and thinking.

I would definitely second the sleep comments. Sleep is SO SO important for puppies (and dogs). Even if she doesn’t want to sleep in the crate teach her to settle somewhere comfy, do something intense with her to tire her (doesn’t have to be long) e.g. 10 minutes command training, tug playing etc. And then when you see her look a little bit tired you stop, and sit down, be very very boring and she will learn to settle and nap. My dog would leap up every time I moved in the first year so I spent a lot of time being boring or doing repetitive/static jobs like washing up so that he would realise nothing interesting was going on and would sleep!

I am in the same situation with my 8 month old cockapoo. We actually did all the gradual building up from when he was about 4 months old and successfully got to leave him for up to 2 and a half hours. He would sometimes howl for a couple of minutes but then settle down to sleep, so we thought he was doing well. Then suddenly at around 6 and a half months old he started howling intermittently for the whole time we were out, so now I only leave him for up to an hour. I have the pet cam on him and he doesn’t actually look worked up or distressed so I am not sure if it is separation anxiety or just a normal adolescent puppy thing.

I too am a member of the Facebook group and have bought a recommended book, but am reluctant to go right back to the beginning with not being sure if is true separation anxiety. Also, what is to say that he wouldn’t regress again after a few months even if it was successful? I am beginning to think I will never get a normal life back 😒

I have 3 dogs (14 year old mastiff, 3 year old french bulldog and a 19 week old french bulldog). They have the run of the house and I've never crate trained any of them so may not be in a position to advise. The puppy has just fallen into line with the others and this week has learnt to use the dog flap to get out to toilet. Frankly they spend most of the day just sleeping! But some dogs just don't like crates, so maybe you could consider leaving her in a safe room rather than confining her so that she has space to move around?

As @FreshFreesias suggested earlier, my other suggestion would be to consider 2 dogs - would remove the separation anxiety!

I'm sorry you're having a tough time and feel trapped, the puppy stage is truly hard (I spent the first 9 weeks getting woken twice a night by a worm ridden puppy) but it does pass - it's a bit like when you have young children and everyone says to you "well they won't be doing it when they're 16" You've had some really good advice on this thread and I hope you crack it.

Hi OP I'm not sure whether this will make you feel any better but you mentioned feeling like either you were leaving it too late or that it was a mammoth task.. so just to say that i have a Sprocker (so the cocker would be the clingy bit in your cockapoo)
I couldn't leave him AT ALL in the first year. And I mean at all - he would follow me absolutely everywhere. Putting bins out was about as much as we did in that first year which I think really got him used to the thought of us coming back but anyway..
We started alone training properly at a year. He just leapt along after the first month and now we can do 1.5 hours no issue. That took three months.
So all I'm saying is don't let anyone tell you about making a rod for your own back - puppies pick up habits quicker than adult dogs BUT adult dogs are more independent.
And if you ever get anywhere with the crate let me know - again it was something else I panicked about but you know what he slept eventually and now he's a dream. Puppy hood doesn't last forever and you'll be fine x

Our rescue dog would bark for hours if we left him for the off morning. I too had one of the dog cameras and it was so hard to watch and also know that our neighbour could hear it all. I used to just sweat with the sheer anxiety of it all.

I actually decided to knock on our neighbours door and just explain that we were aware of it and was working on it, which I thought was the right approach for us.

Anyway one day we decided not to put the stair gate on the bottom of the stairs. We would normally put it on so if we went out then the dog was restricted to downstairs only. Well that's when things changed for us. When my dog has free reign of the house when we left him he would go and get in our bed and wouldn't make a peep! He must have just really not liked being restricted to the downstairs - he normally sleeps on the bottom of our bed at night though so obviously for him he perhaps wanted access to his safe space.

I guess my point is just to have faith. It could be much worse and your dog is only young. They will hopefully learn it's ok and that it's normal for you to come and go.

It sounds like you're doing a wonderful job and trying everything you can

X

So glad I've found this thread! I have a 21 week old male shih tzu and my god he can bark. We haven't left him alone either, he's not even that keen on being left alone downstairs.
He also wakes in the night and I usually end up on the sofa with him sleeping on my feet.
Just wanted to share some solidarity!
I've also been told it's separation anxiety but maybe it's just really normal!

I feel bad for you, although worse for your neighbours. All I am hearing is that you got a puppy assuming it would all cute and fluffy and fun, and now the reality of sharing your life and home with an animal 24/7 for the next 15 years is coming home and you’re faced with some hard truths. This is what it is. If you thought it was going to be all great then you should’ve come on here first and read more threads like yours!

I find attitudes like the above really bizarre. When I decided to get a dog I budgeted for the cost of doggy day care and I had an expectation that I'd be able to leave my dog for an absolute maximum of 4 hours. Now it turns out I can't leave her for 4 minutes. Am I supposed to just accept that for the next 14 years and sacrifice my life for my dog? If you aren't willing to not leave the house should you just not get a dog?