So I’ll start with I had two dogs, 11 and 8, my 11 year old very sadly passed away suddenly last year, we were all devastated she had been with us since a tiny baby, my other dog was there when she suddenly passed but he just lay down and went to sleep on the rug at my feet as I held her in my arms as she suddenly passed away after I found her unresponsive and floppy but still breathing. There wasn’t time to call a vet it all happened within seconds. Both dogs were like a baby to us even though we have children. So now it’s just my 8 year old chihuahua and he never leaves my side. He sleeps in my bed, he comes in the school runs, I do leave him when I go shopping and little things here and there as I have too but once I left DD home alone she was doing home work and she called me to say he’s making a scary noise and I could hear him, he was howling for me! So that made me feel a bit sad that he cry’s for me so much so We went for a day out yesterday, but we were going to be out around 16 hours so I decided he should stay with a family member so we dropped him there 6am on our travels and he’s been to my mums house many times over with me she also has a dog a small breed they get along well, so she said she was going back to bed and took both dogs to bed with her but he wouldn’t settle like he would at home. I was texting her throughout the day to see how he was and he wasn’t settling. She took him on two walks and fed up he ate a small amount but waited by her front door for me coming back all day and kept howling for me. When I did come to collect him late last night he was so excited to see me climbing up my legs crying his little bum was wagging with his tail. So he then went in a bit of a mood with me for leaving him but he was ok after an hour or two when we went to bed and he’s fine this morning happy to be home.
my mum said to me yesterday how he had been fretting for me all day and she said it’s the way Iv got him by molly coddling him and treating him like a baby and not like a dog. I don’t get what Iv done wrong as I just love him always have so it’s the only way he’s ever been treat. So my question is, have I done something awfully wrong here in bringing up my dog? And my other question, is it now wrong for me to leave him either alone or with family members because of how upset he gets?
or is this all fairly normal and all dogs go on like this when not with their owners?