Preventing separation anxiety in a puppy.

[JoshLymanIsHotterThanSam]

I’ve raised a few dogs from puppies, but this one has me stumped. Dpup is 9 weeks old and is VERY securely attached to me. Nice but I can’t leave the room without her squealing. I need rock solid advice on how to handle this before it becomes worse. I go back to work in a couple of weeks and she is going to need to get used to the odd hour or two without anyone.

For the time being DH and I have a plan which means she won’t be alone yet but sooner or later we need to be able to pop out now and again.

what do I do now in order to cement things as she gets older?

Nearly all of my 9 weeks old puppies would follow me around. I think I would be more worried if they didnt tbh. I guess you have only had the puppy a week?

I would not do anything yet and wait until the puppy is more at home and more mature to worry about leaving it. The more contented they feel when young the less likely they are to get separation anxiety. Make your puppy feel really happy, no stress and no worries for several weeks yet.

What breed is your puppy?

2 weeks is way too young to leave a young puppy alone

Doing so will only make that separation anxiety worse.

Let it follow you!
Don't force separation because it will make it worse (panic breeds more panic)

Give puppy things to do that allow him to choose to be apart from you ( a puzzle in another room), sniff out some food.

If you want to train to be alone then you need to reappear BEFORE they panic. This means seconds not minutes, and increase by a third max each time. Better still to mix it up.

Lots of people make the mistake of going 5 mins, then 10 and so on. But 5 minutes is a life time for a puppy. And then 10 minutes is double. If you start with seconds you will get there much quicker.

To prevent separation anxiety you need a dog that feels safe and secure and confident. So do all the things that ensure the puppy feels you will be there when he needs it.

Ps. I didn't leave our previous dog alone for at least a year. First time he was left alone though was for an hour no issues. We didn't even have to train it. We just waited until he was old enough. A bit like you do with kids! You don't train them you just wait until they're ready!!

Oh hang on you go back to work on a couple of weeks and you expect him to be alone for an hour or more??!
Get doggy daycare or pay someone to come in whilst you're not there. You can't leave a puppy on his own for an hour.

I'm sure some people will be along to say they did it fine no problems but lots of people do have problems - they have a barking problem or a chewing problem or a wee every where problem. Then they have a problem it's frightened on walks.. and so on..

Please don't leave your puppy alone.

I'd be more worried if a nine week old puppy didn't follow you around everywhere, to be honest. That's what they do - you're their world.

For such a young puppy I would work on crate training her but I think it'll take longer than two weeks.

For those who didn’t note it in my OP, DH and I have a plan so that she is not left alone.

She is being crate trained. She’s going to sleep in it happily now and we have set up a pen around it yesterday and today she has voluntarily got in it herself.

I was talking about long term strategies but if a her following me around at the moment is par for the course I shall worry less. I just don’t remember my past dogs being this needy 😂

Day time crate training can take months.

How to prevent it is not to leave them longer than they can cope with then build them up slowly when they understand which isn’t really until they start to mature. Our pup is 5 months and she’s nowhere near ready. We’ve been working on building her confidence to choose to be alone which is going well. She’s level 10 at a puzzle in another room now and often chooses not to follow as we’re BORING.

OH WFH and I work flexibly locally so we’re able to do it but it’s taking complete sacrifice of other life. But it’s not forever if you get it right.

For the PP that asked she is JRT x Frenchie.

We have an older dog of the same crossbreed.

Sounds normal behaviour for such a young pup. I think you just forget how tough it is tbh.

I thought I'd never get to shower alone again. She's 3 and pretty much does her own thing now. Does follow my husband round more - but doesn't feel the need to follow us everywhere. They just grow up and get more confident. We did flitting, and just leaving her for a bit at a time, literally standing in the road outside the house and gradually building up the minutes. (If they've got Separation Anxiety it's different obviously).

I’ve for a breed that is prone to separation anxiety, and she would cry when we stopped making eye contact when she was 8-9 weeks.

I spent the first two months constantly with her to make sure she has a secure sense of attachment.

Then I started “flitting” between rooms (for hours a day) until she got bored of following me.

Then I started leaving for 1 minute, and built it up a minute at a time, cutting back down if she started crying.

I can now easily leave her 7-8 hours (we don’t, but could) without her bothering at all. She’s not amazing at being left in the evenings as she knows that’s usually her time, but in daylight hours she doesn’t care whether we are there or not.

Oh and we crate trained, but only closed the door at night. For the first few months we would go to her every time she cried in the night until she fell back asleep. She sits in her crate most of the day but we’ve taken the door off it now as there’s no need to keep her locked in.