Hi all,
Just looking for some advice about avoiding separation anxiety and making sure I'm not a prisoner in my house forever.
Puppy is 9 months and a whippet. I spent a long time bonding with him, exposing him to lots of things at a slow pace, training. As a result, he's very confident and pretty chilled. He goes to daycare a few times a week and loves it, and has spent holidays with a friend so often has time away from me. He's crate trained and sleeps downstairs.
I really regret not leaving him sooner, but he was also a bit wild and perhaps I was a bit pathetic. Anyway, I did loads of prep work - lots of flitting, not allowing him to follow me places, nice disgusting animals bits when I'm out of the room. All fine.
But leaving him via the front door always results in a period of a few minutes whining. I have built up and I watch him on cameras. He does settle, but he doesn't sleep - he's alert and to be honest clearly waiting for me.
How would you proceed? Go back to one minute out of the door, come back? Just continue with trips out each day (30 mins, an hour etc) and he'll become more settled because he knows I always come back? He doesn't care at all when I get back, doesn't even get up! But he's distressed when I go.
Sorry for the essay!