Leaving pup alone

[ConsternationStation]

I have a 5 month old cocker spaniel who has never been left alone for more than about 5 minutes. She's absolutely fine when the DC or DH leave but because I WFH she's not really spent much time without me. I have tried, albeit quite halfheartedly, but she just cries from the moment I leave - sometimes even if I only pop up the stairs without her for a few minutes. We live in a mid-terrace house so I'm hyper aware of annoying the neighbours if she cries for long at all, nevermind the fact I don't like to think of her being in distress.

I really want to be able to pop out for an hour or two, here and there, without the dog so I need some good advice of how to do it. We have a crate in the living room which she is happy in for a bit overnight/when we put the DC to bed etc. but she's not a huge fan of it during the day and rarely goes in herself. I have wondered that now she is 95% out of her destructive/chewing phase that I would be better to try leaving her with free range of the living room (with a camera for watching her if needed). I was thinking of taking a short 15ish minute walk myself or nipping to the corner shop to begin with and hopefully going from there.

Any advice or tips would be appreciated.

Is she food orientated, if so buy a Kong. Fill it with yoghurt, put bread on either side to block the holes, wrap in tin foil and freeze. When you want to leave take out of freezer a few minutes before unwrap, remove bread and make sure iced bits have melted.
When you leave make sure your dog is licking it and focused. Start by leaving for small amounts of time and build up.
You can add things to the yoghurt like chopped carrots, depending on what your dog likes.

7 month old cocker here, we bought a cheap camera off Amazon for £20 so we can see her when she is in the crate. We can hear her and see her and also talk to her to soothe her. She is rarely left alone but when she is she is always in the crate and I leave music on for her. Personally I would persevere with the crate as she’s more likely to chew if she is stressed when left. Ours love a Kong with some doggy peanut butter in!

Picture attached too!

I've never crate trained any of my dogs, but when they were tiny, they were shut in the kitchen to start with. It meant that the floor was easy to clean up if they had a nervous tummy or an accident, and also, my sofa was not a shredded heap of fluff when I got home! Even my least chewy one ripped up lino by the back door when I left her home alone for the first time.

Leave her in a room/place that she feels safe and comfortable in. Have her food and water nearby, plus any toys, chewy treats and beds that she's particularly fond of (mine have always liked Kong teddies). Start with smaller trips first and work up to being away from home for longer periods. Family members have cameras or leave music on for their dogs, but not all dogs need them.

I rehomed an adult dog with separation issues (now mostly sorted) but it's something you want to avoid them having. I built it up very very slowly.

I'd start by taking your pup for a walk (so she's more likely to want a nap) and then use a baby gate so you're in separate rooms but she's can see you. You can give her something like a kong (make it full of yummy stuff and easy to get out to start with). I'd do this for a short time (< 5 minutes) so she starts to learn it's OK to be on her own. Don't increase the time until she's ok and if possible try and go back to her when she's not crying (so she doesn't think crying makes my human come back).

When you've built that up, then I'd start by leaving the house for a couple of minutes and returning. Make it low key when you leave (I say to my dog I'm just going out) and low key when you come back. Again slowly build up the time when she's ok with a step. I'd also say you need to do this training often (several days a week) and once she's ok being left, make sure you go out regularly to the shop or for a walk so she keeps in the habit.

If you're struggling or she's struggling to even be separated by a baby gate (and I mean anxiety struggling not the oi you're ignoring me noises) then find a good local behaviouralist. Good luck. It's definitely worth preservering, I love spending time with my dog but I also like some time apart and sometimes it's very necessary eg doctors.

Just need to start slowly . Don't set her up to fail.

Facebook dog training advice and support are very helpful in this respect

We built it up slowly. Initially I left him in a crate. As he got older he was less keen on the crate. So we leave him in one room. I think he just sleeps. We’d always take him for a walk before leaving him.

he loves the kong so we leave him with that. Just be sure to leave them alone most days for a bit. Even if you just nip to the shop. It’s easier then if you need to leave them for longer.

At five months, she’s only just twenty weeks old. That’s much too young to be left for more than about 10 minutes tbh and be reluctant to even do that - the bigger the risk you take when they are young, the more chance you have with real issues later and cockers are very prone to very severe SA (a Quick Look at SA shows most of their dogs wanting homes, 90% of the time, have severe SA related issues). Unless you know what you’re doing, you can make it a lot worse.

What I would say, is if you desperately need 15 minutes is to please not crate her. If she is showing signs of being uncomfortable being left alone - which you say she has - putting her somewhere she doesn’t feel safe or isn’t happy will exacerbate that. Leave the crate door open and give her the option of being inside - but don’t lock her in it. I say this on every thread about crates but I know someone who left their pup in a crate for ‘just a few minutes’ unsupervised during the day, and the poor thing dislocated its jaws in distress. I know someone else whose dog broke their leg trying to escape a play pen when left alone. It’s all great in theory until the dog ends up at the OOH vets with £7K of vets bills and severe behavioural issues as a result of being left somewhere they didn’t feel safe.

If you trust her not to destroy things, give her a frozen tea towel or towel and put her somewhere relatively safe (kitchen), crate with the door open, and just make sure there’s no exposed wires. Don’t give her food. Food = energy, and the last thing you want is an energetic distressed pup. You want her to be tired. The greatest risk to puppies is themselves.

Either way, you should stay in the house the first few times. Work on being out of her sight for a few minutes and built it up from there. Go to the toilet and push the door too. Have a bath and let her sit outside the door, or even by the bathmat. Let her know it’s okay to be alone. Yes she’ll probably cry - but there’s a huge difference, at this age at least, between ‘mum abandoned me for thirty seconds, I can’t see her’ and ‘I’m terrified and going to hurt myself because I am so distressed that mum left me alone for ages.’ You need to work on the former, carefully, to avoid creating the latter.

When i got my tiny puppies, I read somewhere to reserve part of their breakfast. As I left I tossed it on the kitchen floor. They were too busy racing around eating it to worry about me departing. Best tip ever.

It absolutely isn’t too long to leave them at 5 months. The longer you leave it before training them to cope alone, the harder it will be and should be started asap (by this I mean start them getting used to you not being in the same room for a minute or two and build up the time gradually so they don’t get distressed). All mine have been fine for a couple of hours by 5/6 months.

Well that’s my experience as a breeder of a breed known for severe SA.

But you do you, and I’ll do me. I’ve never had issues doing it my way.

And if you have read the OP, you’d see she’s never left her pup alone before. So what ‘you’ have done is pretty irrelevant.

Thanks for the advice. I think I really need to try distracting her with food like peanut butter in a long or something and seeing how that goes. She's really quite good orientated so with any luck the distraction will help.

I have started small, hence the 5 -10 minutes she has been left alone, but that's only really been into the garden to sort bins or around the house. I think, in part, she gets upset because she can still hear me but just can't access me. As a breed prone to separation anxiety I don't want to cause any issues by either going too hard and leaving her distressed, or not doing it and she never learns to be alone.

I just want to add, that I do leave her in alone in different rooms and sometimes she will be fine and just quietly waiting until I come back in. Other times she just cries or tries to follow me like a little shadow.

I was really looking for advice about leaving the house.

I will add that I deliberately got two dogs, so they’d always have one another.

Watching with interest … thanks for starting this one OP and hope the baby steps go well for you x

@ConsternationStation I do think a camera and taking things very very slowly is the way forward. That's the advice from people who specialise in SA and from the DTAS site. I mean leaving for a few seconds, 'flitting' from room to room in the house without paying attention to the dog, building up to five/ten minutes but not predictably (so 30 seconds then two minutes then one minute then four minutes etc) before trying to go beyond that. Keep the camera on so you can return the second you see any distress such as whining or chewing.

People who say dogs are crying to get you to return haven't experienced SA, I don't think. It's the equivalent of a panic attack. Puppies of her age aren't manipulating you - if they're crying, they're distressed.

I don't want my boy to experience more distress than he can handle so I don't leave him for longer than he can manage, which at the moment is still very little - we have an army of sitters and daycare. I'm off sick at the moment, but alone training is due to begin soon over here too, so perhaps we can join forces and moan at each other?

Have a look at Julie Naismith Be Right Back sub threshold training. If you want a dog that is truly fine alone rather than a dog that just copes (until another stressor pistes them over) then that’s the way to train.

Food is just distraction. They’re not learning to be ok alone and trusting you to come back.

https://julienaismith.com/ - another vote for Julie Naismith's approach.

We had a play pen. Much bigger than a crate. And left him with toys and water. Increasing the time. Eventually we could dispense with the play pen.

I started very gradually with mine at about 6 months of going outside for a minute at a time then gradually increasing. He’s now 3 and totally fine being left for a few hours (I have a camera).

However he will always want to be with me if I’m in the house, he definitely finds it harder than if I’ve gone out. He will stay downstairs now if I’m upstairs but doesn’t fully settle and will be waiting patiently by the stair gate on the stairs until I come back down! It’s very rare I need to do this though so 99% of time he’ll just be by my side like a lovely little shadow.

I think I've said it before on another thread, but our older pup wasn't left at all until quite a bit older and has no problems at all being left. So don't panic and think you've missed the boat.

We had to train our older rescue dog to be left. He had terrible separation anxiety and to start with he would start barking the second I shut the front door. It was hard work but by gradually increasing the time we left him (I always aimed to come back before he started barking) I managed to be able to leave him for about 10 minutes within a week.

It was hard work up to that point (training sessions multiple times a day for a week and I spent a lot of time sitting on my drive!) but after that it got much easier to extend the time. We added in a phrase (I'll be back soon) and now when I use it he goes to his bed and chills out because he understands I'm leaving without him. We can now easily leave him for a few hours in the day or a whole evening if necessary.

Your pup is young, it should be relatively easy to get her used to being left I think

They can be trained at any age. What IS very difficult to deal with is when they’ve repeatedly gone over threshold. So prevention is better than cure for SA.

You definitely need a cam and to totally leave the house and see what she does. If she can hear you, she will cry as she knows you're there.

I've never had issues with mine, but another dog walker told me it's best to let your dog see you leave, as otherwise they'll assume you're in the house somewhere and cry. I've always waved to my dog at the window as I leave so perhaps this has helped? I used to put treats in a snuffle mat too, so this may have helped by making her associate me leaving with good things.

I started leaving mine from probably around 10 weeks, just for 10 mins max whilst I biked the school run. When I knew she was fine it became 20 mins when I walked the school run. She'd never got on with a crate or pen so I'd puppy proofed the lounge and she got shut in there.

This thread is giving me hope … our pup is 4 months and I’ve started leaving him in his crate to either pop into the garden for 10/15 or nip out for a quick walk. DH is WFH upstairs often but a few times he’s been home alone with a stuffed kong. When I’ve listened he’s whined a bit but a bit half heartedly. So I’m going to keep at this for a bit before starting to increase (as unfortunately in the past he’s had a poo in his crate if for example we haven’t been quick enough to get down in the night. So I’m hyper aware of this happening 😔).

but yea - this thread is making me feel a bit better as dog friends in RL seem very concerned I’m not able to actually leave him totally alone for at least an hour! He’s only 4 blimmin months! Plus vaccine delays mean he has literally only just been able to go for walks so until now it’s not like I’ve been able to adequately tire him out first. But yea, they are like > sharp intake of breath < “Oooh you’re setting a rod for your own back there if you don’t get him used to being alone now “. I mean I know some dogs even younger may be ok but surely that’s the minority at this age?!!! 😳

You're doing the right thing - dogs are social animals and would literally never be alone at this age in their 'natural' social groups. They wouldn't really go off alone at all until adolescence. Four months is way too young to be left alone for any serious amount of time - though it can depend on all kinds of things like breed, personality etc. Terriers and guarding dogs are bred to work alone so can cope more easily without constant human company, but spaniels and other gundogs are bred to always be working with other people or dogs. And yet I know WCS that have been happy alone since a very early age, so it can just be the individual dog.