Puppy- learning alone time

[Elli123]

I have a five month old cocker spaniel. So far she has never been left alone, partly due to wfh. I am conscious that this isn’t sustainable and not great for her. At the moment, she sleeps in her crate at night (in my room) but mainly naps on the couch during the day. She literally follows me everywhere (can be asleep but will follow as soon as I move).
I am planning to try to get her used to alone time but wondering if a crate in the living area or a quieter place is best or whether a slightly larger blocked area would be better? (Not easy as very open plan house and she’s already sussed how to get through play pen barrier I had at the beginning). I fear I’m too late and this is going to be torture 🤨 but it isn’t healthy to spend every second with me.
any advice greatly appreciated.

Not too late. In fact possibly early still as 5 months is still really young. Our pup is 5 months today and has not been left but she’s building confidence and we notice she’s less needy. She sleeps crated with us and will continue to be until she’s ready to be moved out.

If you look on the dog training advice and support Facebook group there is a good guide on how to start doing this. We’ve done flitting and also ‘do it yourself’ games from the day we brought her home at 10 weeks and she no longer follows us around most of the time as it’s BORING.

Personally I feel our pup isn’t stable enough to be left more than a few minutes at the moment. One day she’s ‘yeah whatever’ when we go upstairs and the next her world has ended. She needs to even out a bit and start to mature.

our last dog was about 7 months when we adopted her. We didn’t leave her for months. She was a wreck behaviourally. She went on to be left for up to 4 hours regularly with no problems. So being with them while they mature doesn’t cause long term issues. Forcing separation before they are ready really does. I know loads of dogs that were left young ‘to get them used to it’ whose owners had to work really hard when they were older to ensure they could be left.

people expected stacks of dogs into rescue with SA after lock down because everyone was home. It didn’t happen.

We did it really slowly….it was during lockdown so was a bit more artificial. But flitting so leaving the room briefly and doing nothing special, no acknowledgement of her, so she eventually realised it wasn’t always worth the effort of getting out of bed and following.

we would pop outside for a few seconds and built it up. Preferably go back before she barked, the idea is rha5 she doesn’t equate barking with you coming back.

then when we went out for a while we’d give her a chew stick and she’d go to her safe space, the top of the stairs….

the dog trainer said it was useful to build confidence with games and training too.

some of it comes with age. Ours still likes to follow you around but isn’t the complete Velcro puppy she was at 5/6 months.

shes 3 now and having a lie in upstairs while we have breakfast.

Also you are her entire world now and everything is interesting to puppies. It gets better.

we never crated ours when we left her.

That’s really helpful. I’m a first time dog owner and worry that I’m mummying her way too much. I certainly won’t be leaving her to cry it out but my aim is for her to be comfortable alone for short periods while I am on meetings or want to take my kids for a swim, nip to shops etc
good to know it’s not too late and maturity will help. Being open plan it’s hard to find a safe space (hence the crate idea). It’s so hard to know what’s best.

Have a look at dog training advice and support on FB. They also have a book. They have great advice.
Let your pup follow you. Look up the flitting game.
A pup who is free to stay with their people will eventually feel secure enough not to care if they’re alone or not.

We also followed Dog Training Advice and Support (we joined their premium puppy group for a bit which was super helpful, cost about £15 a month). We did lots of flitting & do it by myself games. We also started "leaving" the house (sitting in the garden on our coffee break!) for short periods once AwkwardPup was happy with the games.
He went from literally following me to the loo at 4 months to being left happily for two hours at around 7 months, & as an adult is quite happy with 4 hours.
I got a cheap camera to see what he was doing when we left so I could make sure we weren't leaving him too long in the early months. Helped me to know he was just sleeping too!

AwkwardPup is also a cocker spaniel

Just to give you an idea of why we think ours isn't ready. DH WFH with her. I work locally out of the house. We share care and training equally. Yesterday she didn't even look up when I went to work. This morning she was so whingy that he had to take her off and do some training to distract her. So that's why we are leaving it a bit until she levels out. I can imagine putting loads into the training now then it being undone on a day where for whatever reason she is on Planet Puppy and needs a bit more support.

Ours is our first baby puppy and the neediness has been a real shock.

We don't aim to crate ours when we go out eventually, just puppy proof. We have a cat who she thinks is so much fun to try to play with so we have a room divider in our open plan main room for safe passage for him although he regularly chooses to jump it to see what she is up to.

Day time crate training and night time sleeping in one is totally different. Ours goes in and we don't shut the door until she is down. Day time needs months of building up if they are to be truly happy in it and I aim to get some of my life back before she is fully trained. I am doing it as it's useful for other things but no rush. Again you won't progress too far until they are confident enough in the house not to want to be with you anyway.

Sounds like you are doing amazingly well. There is so much conflicting advice out there, much of it written before the understanding changed (like raising children).

Highly recommend, as others have joining the Dog Training Advice and Support group. It takes time to prepare them but you start with flitting and build up from there. It can take a month or more to get to the point of them being happy to be left but doing it slowly and properly is the only way to prevent separation anxiety.

We crate trained our puppy, mainly due to him chewing furniture. We started just 5 minutes at first, came back in, made a fuss of him. Then next day 10 minutes and so on. We had a camera on him and most of the time he was fine, but sometimes he would wake up and bark, out of boredom. By about 14 months, he wouldn’t sleep nightime in crate so we left him out and started doing the same in the daytime. He was fine, although he was confined to living room.

We didn't leave our pup home alone until quite a bit older. We'd tried a few 15 minutes or so at around 5 months and she wasn't happy. Not totally stressed but not relaxed either so we didn't push it (two people wfh so no great rush) As she got older she started settling in rooms away from us and from about 9 months we could leave her alone for a couple of hours and she'd settle with no issues.

Thanks everyone, really reassuring that I’ve not messed up🤨.

is there a specific f/book page you’d recommend for training? As mentioned, there’s loads of conflicting advice.

We have a 3 year old cavapoo. We didn't crate train her. When she was little she would follow us everywhere, we started leaving her alone and she would cry, destroy her puppy pads, chew things etc. We just went really slowly, now she can be left alone for 4-5 hours and is fine, we have a little routine for her alone time which she is happy with. But honestly I was beside myself for months thinking we would never have any freedom again, but it just takes time and maybe start when she's a bit older and more understanding of what's going on. When they are 4 months or so they don't understand and that makes them worse in terms of anxiety.

The Dog Training and Advice support group as already mentioned.
Facebook.com/groups/dogtrainingadviceandsupport

We just watched you tube videos, don't make too much of a fuss when leaving and coming back. Make sure doggy has been exercised beforehand and fed. We take ours for a walk and sniffing session, when back I give her a treat ball which has treats stuck in the gaps for her to pull out, tell her to be a good girl and calmly leave the house. When I come back i calmly walk in and give her a little pat on the head and later make a fuss of her.

This one. Read the guides which will help you with the games and other info.

I think the important thing is to be aware that, whilst it may be entirely feasible now for the pup not to be on her own, it probably isn’t sustainable for 12 years…..so I’d say to all owners that being able to be left is a skill the same as recall or not begging at the table is. Whether you need it now or not, the dog needs to have practised it and have it in their skill set in case you need it. It’s brilliant therefore that you are training your pups to be alone!

@Elli123 have you actually tried leaving pup at all ? Mine is very attached to me but is actually fine been left alone

No, I haven’t tried as there hasn’t been an actual need. I just don’t want her been overly dependent and be reasonably comfortable if she is left.
part of the issue is I need to sort out a place to leave her as my house is open plan. We had a play pen type thing blocking the living area but she now bashes through that so has free run (although watched). Looking for a solution or considering day time crate training for short periods. My preference would be to give her a bit more space/freedom but not sure that’s not just being emotional, ha ha

I've got a 14 week old Labrador and the comments on this post are reassuring me as I thought I'd messed up by not leaving him alone yet in the 5 weeks we've had him. There's been a couple of times I've tried taking oldest DS to school when weather's been too bad for him to ride in but it hasn't gone well leaving him at all. I've started trying to do the flitting game to let him know how boring I really am(!) I also just managed 7 minutes in another room while he was chewing a chew in his crate but for the last 10 seconds he started howling and I had to grab the first second of quiet to return. I'm a bit worried as youngest DS has a hospital appointment on Friday and I've no option but to leave him for 1.5 hours really don't know what to do actually?!

You’ll need to find someone to have him - neighbour, day care, sitter etc. 1.5 hours would be catastrophic for a young pup both for safety and confidence. He could well severely injure himself on the crate if he panics.

We’ve graduated from a puppy pen opened out to one of these for our open plan house

www.amazon.co.uk/BabyDan-Configure-fireplace-Barrier-Assorted/dp/B00INIU4XE

If they aren't used to the crate already then create training itself is an art and takes time and you can't leave them in it for long. I know you are open plan but if you can just leave them to learn their own safe place that's great. Ours is now on the back of the sofa so she can see us come back. But she's relaxed and asleep there not all tense and waiting. We got a puppy cam to check and now she's older we'll sometimes catch her asleep when we come back...

I'd honestly try and puppy proof so there's nothing too awful to be chewed - and leave things that are the puppy's to be chewed. and leave just for a few minutes.

The FB Group mentioned above is really very good on this.

@newpupworries you could leave him and it probably won't do any lasting damage, if he's toiletted, been played with, had a sniffy walk and is tired out.

At that age we probably didn't leave that long but would have had someone pop in or stayed with him.

@Elli123 our house is open plan too . The first time we left ours we shut her in the dining room which is the only room downstairs that's completely enclosed , she had had a walk and had toys , she absolutely hated it . We had a camera set up and could see she was barking and was distressed at the door . We tried again and left her with the the run of the house and she was absolutely fine . You could be pleasantly surprised.