Help leaving puppy alone

[Chewtugrepeat]

Please can I have some advice from other puppy/dog owners? I am having trouble leaving our 12 week puppy alone as he yaps/barks/whines the whole time we are away (so far only twice for 20 mins and 10 mins). Am I expecting too much? He is a pure Bichon. He is doing well with everything else. He sleeps in his crate at night and toileting is nearly there. We are with him a lot but will need to leave him for up to an hour or two within a couple of months. Thanks

Sorry but Yes you are
He is 12 weeks old.

Thanks Total. That’s actually a relief to hear that.

Bichons are prone to being yappy anyway.

You need to literally start by leaving her for a second, and build up fromt there.

I have a yorkie rescue and literally started with the most pathetically small “leaves”
We are talking

• Working on being in same room but not being in her eyeline for 5/10 secs
• building to being in a separate room for 30 seconds with door open and working our way up to 30 mins +
• graduating to distracting DDog with food and putting the recycling out (5m from front door) and so on

The good news is we can leave her happily pottering about the place for 4-5 hours now.
However we still can’t close a door in the house without her getting in a grump 😅

For now I would work on building up puppy feeling secure in the home and working on “leaving” the puppy in a new room. Ie popping out of the kitchen to the utility for a minute.

If the dog is stressed or crying when you are training it to be left you need to take it back a step. You want a calm reassured relaxed dog

Thanks so much Total and that all makes sense. Get confidence first.

Highly recommend Dog Training Advice and Support on Facebook, their guidance was invaluable.
You want to start with "do it by myself" games - a tasty treat, puzzle feeder or kong in another room. Puppy goes off and enjoys their treat, being out of line of sight is built up as a not scary thing.
At 12 weeks I couldn't go to the toilet alone
We built up very gradually with this until he would quite happily trot off and do a puzzle feeder at the other end of the ground floor.
Then we started gradually building up time away - I'm talking 30 seconds, a minute at first. You need to return before they get upset.
We got a camera (from Eufy) so we could keep an eye as we built up to longer periods.

He may not be ready in a couple of months - some pups take longer than others. It would be better to pay a dogsitter in the short-term and continue slowly building up; if you leave him to get distressed it will slow down your progress.

You will get there! Our pup is 13 months, he had a setback as spent some time in the vets, but will happily chill at home for up to 4 hours on the odd occasion (I check in regularly on the camera, he literally eats the contents of his kong and then snoozes the whole time).