My puppy is a great boy. Almost totally housebroken, sleeps all night in his crate quietly, will even be in his crate quietly while I am home….
But when I’m gone he apparently cries and cries. He stays in his crate and his crate does not seem to make him anxious. My neighbors are complaining and I feel horrible.
Is there anything I can do?
It’s called separation anxiety. You need to do separation anxiety training. Slowly increase the time you’re away from the dog. Start with 5 minutes, then 10, 15, 30, an hour and so on. Your dog should not be left alone longer than the time they’re comfortable with. If the dog needs to be alone longer than the time the dog is at, send them to daycare or hire a sitter. Buy a camera to hear and see what they do when they’re alone. Separation anxiety training can be a long, slow, draining process but this is the only way to work through separation anxiety.
e goes to daycare or a sitter when I work. However I take call for emergencies at the hospital and sometimes I can’t predict when I have to go on those days… and it’s only for 2-3 hours at a time. I want time with him and I hate the idea of boarding him when I’m on call, because some call days we don’t get called in at all….
Unfortunately while you work on the SA training, that’s really your only option. That or find someone who can come to the house in a moments notice if you need to leave or a friend where you can drop the dog off.
I have a SA dog and I work in healthcare if it wasn’t for my SO who has a more stable (time commitment) career I would have had to rehome her after I realized she had bad SA
We’re still working through this, but what has helped a lot is routine. I take him out for bathroom and then don’t take my shoes off when we get back in (this is usually when he recognizes I’m going to go somewhere). I play the same movie for him every time I leave (Shrek lol). By leaving to the wonderful noise of “someBODY once told me” and returning before the movie ends every single time, my dog has figured out that Shrek = short term errand and that everything will be fine so long as the movie is on.
Still trying to figure out how to get Amazon to play Shrek 2 immediately after to buy me more time.
I put my dog in the most center room of my apartment, which is actually the bathroom. I keep the vent on and I’ll usually bring my laptop there to play a birds or cats video. I also put a few blankets in the (dry) bathtub, and hide a bunch of treats in it.
My little guy is not the brightest, and he’s very paranoid. So while he does know not to bark at people, if he hears people but can’t see them, it usually makes him very scared. He would spend hours scratching at the wall by the hallway, freaking out about the unknown sounds he heard. If we were there, he was usually fine, but as soon as we left, he’d start barking loud enough for the whole block to hear.
We tried discipline but he’s been through a lot of abuse in his past, so this is what we came up with. It keeps him calm and occupied, rather than forcing him to hear the scary sounds and not be able to escape it or figure out what they are.
Your puppy is developing separation anxiety. You need to train your dog to be ok with being alone in the house. When you are at home try and practice going into rooms without him. For example: I do not let my dogs upstairs or in the bathrooms with me. They are not aloud to sleep in bed with me. This encourages them to be ok with being alone.
When you leave the house give your dog something to do before you leave. Examples: Kong or Bone that has been stuffed with Peanut Butter, treats and or kibble and frozen! Make sure you have multiples and just keep the freezer stocked with them so you always have one ready.
If you can start out by only leaving for a short amount of time after you give him the KONG or bone gradually making the times you are fine longer. He will eventually realize that you leaving the house is an ok thing!
How can I train him to be alone with complaining neighbors? They aren’t being very understanding and run to management the second he makes a sound… he’s very adaptable and I think we can make him feel ok being alone, but I know it takes time. I’m afraid they won’t give it to me…
We went through this after our girl went blind at 9 years old last year.
She was stressed due to the confined space.
We bought a Furbo Dog Camera for our living room to reward good behaviour while on lunch breaks at work and closed all the doors as well as safely securing our step can garbage in our closed bathroom.
The difference is night and day. Now the only time she barks is when we get home from work when we get our keys out to unlock the door.
