Cutting down daycare

[Sixteenpastten]

Hi, my spaniel is 3 years old now. When we got her (first dog) I fully (stupidly) expected that after 6 weeks of being at home with her I’d be able to leave her at home by herself while I went to work.

Anyway, it didn’t work out like that. We couldn’t leave her for even 5 minutes without her getting really stressed and toileting all over her crate.
We maybe should have persevered but I couldn’t stand her to be upset and so she’s been to doggy daycare 5 days a week since then. The daycare guy is super-qualified in all manner of dog stuff, he runs it from his home and doesn’t take many dogs. She loves going and he takes her all over and walks her for miles every day.
Now she’s older, we can leave her while we go out for tea or to the supermarket, she’s never been left for more than a couple of hours and usually is asleep in her bed when we get home.
The issue is that daycare is costing me £15 a day (which I know is cheap), but with everything getting more expensive I’d like to be able to cut it down a bit. I only work til lunchtime on a Friday so she’d be alone from 8ish until 1ish. Is that too long? Also I wouldn’t be able to walk her until I got home. She has access to our secure back yard during the day if she needs to go out.

is it cruel to leave her by herself without having been walked (I could probably squeeze in a nip round the block but I usually take her for an hour and a half first thing at weekends) or would she be ok?

I think the amount of time alone is fine but I do think she needs a walk first.

Could you get someone to pop in and take her for a short walk and/or make a fuss of her, so she's at home rather than at day care but her time alone is broken up by a visitor?

If you could squeeze in a 20 minute walk first, and walked her as soon as you got back, she would probably be fine.

I agree that she needs walking before you go.
Mine wouldn’t cope being left that long, 3 hours is her maximum.

Thanks for the replies. I leave the house at 6.45 so would need to get up mega early to walk her, which I could do but wondered if it’d be too early for her not to want to go for another at 10ish which is when she goes out with daycare. My DH can’t walk very far as he has issues with his knees and I don’t think I could rely on my teenagers to take her before school.
My DD starts college next week so I’ll maybe just wait to see what her timetable looks like as she may have some later starts.
We don’t have any family around who could walk her and local dog walkers charge £12 for an hour and for the sake of the extra £3 she might as well go to daycare.

I think you can only try it and see how she gets on

Unfortunately early starts are the norm when you have a dog and work full-time.

I would get up and walk her very early for an good hour before work. She'll then have company for an hour or so (can she have a relaxing chew before the kids leave?) and then she should just want to sleep all morning.