Hi everyone My partner and I have recently (last Wednesday) got a black lab puppy he is now 9 weeks - Hugo. He is really good during the day - he goes to work with my OH sleeps in his crate and stays in the crate in the car no problem. Leaving him alone in a room or his crate while in the house is a completely different story - he is bark, howl and cry very loudly and it is now really starting to get to me. I get anxious and worried very easily and this has made me wonder what we do and what if we can never leave him etc. Can anyone shed any light on their experiences and how they have over come them?
Hi and welcome! Congratulations on your new puppy! There are a lot of threads in common with this on the forum if you want to search in the search bar and read all the advice, but your puppy is still SO young & this is completely normal for the age he is! He is in a new place with new people away from his mom and his littermates and is having anxiety about you leaving. This will go away, but it does take time. The best thing we did was to work up the amount of time you leave him each time and vary the amount of time we left each time so that he always saw we always come back and we never ran to him and let him out of crate if he was howling,crying, barking, which is really really painful to listen to and not run to them, but you cannot go and open the crate and run to them or they will learn if they are loud and cry and bark they will be let out of the crate. I started off by leaving Duncan with a little treat (a little kong filled with some kibble or a small piece of banana or something) and just leaving the room and coming back once he was quiet then I would leave the house for 5-10 minutes at a time until he was quiet when I would return to him and not immediately let him out of the crate and make a big fuss about it but I would enter the house again and let him see I was back and say hi to him but then I would wait a minute so he didn't think everytime I came back it was a big deal he was left and would get out right away and make a big deal about it - you want him to learn it is not a big deal and it is part of an everyday routine that you have to leave sometimes and he doesn't go with so if you immediately run to him and make a big fuss he will think it is a big deal like he is making it (or at least that is the advice I got from here and once I stopped making a big fuss over him when I came back in the house things improved GREATLY when I would leave him) Then you can keep adding to the time and varying it also - 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe 10-15 minutes, then 35 minutes, 45 minutes, 10-15 minutes, 1 hour... work up and vary it so you aren't always gone for longer amounts of time -- leaving Duncan distracted with a kong in his crate when I left made a world of a difference too - by the time he was finished licking the kong completely clean he barely noticed I was gone! or he would cry for a couple minutes and then settle down and go to sleep and I would always make sure he wasn't crying or making any noise before I let him out of the crate He didn't stop protesting being in the crate/being left until about 4-5 weeks later of leaving him - he still sometimes doesn't want to be in there and will cry a little bit/grunt about having to be in there, but it is not like when he was as young as yours and it is mostly him just protesting that he doesn't want to be put in there, not him panicking because I am leaving Gradually work up to being able to leave your pup for longer periods of time and by the time Duncan was 4 months we could leave him for a 2-3 hour period and he would snooze the entire time (if we were going out to dinner nearby or something) and now he is fine with being crated 8-11 while I work and then 1pm-3pm while I work and I never thought this would happen but at night time he even puts himself to sleep in his crate now ! and this was a dog that absolutely despised his crate when he was 8-12 weeks old Your pup will get there in no time! he is just so young! don't worry too much and enjoy him being small! they grow so fast! take lots of pictures!
You can let him bark, howl, wine. He'll get the message . . . eventually. But at 9 weeks he wants to be with you all the time so when you leave him in another room and you're still in the house his response is predictable. It'll work out as he becomes more self assured.
Dogs respond differently so you may find if you leave a kong, a treat or toy, it may remain untouched until you return. My lab would fret until I returned then he'd enjoy the kong. Just know you in this for the long haul. A lot of behaviors you want to correct take time and training.
Thank you for your comments. We will definitely try and leave him for small amounts of time and build it up. My other worry was he would get too attached to my OH as he went to work with him but as he gets older we will leave him at home for an hour or so to ensure he still has some independence from us.
Yes, totally understandable, I stayed home for the first 4-5 weeks since I was starting a new job & then I now work from home so I am with him all the time & I was worried he would have terrible separation anxiety from me so I do try and leave him for an hour or two a few times a week even if I am just leaving him in the room with my husband and going into another room to get some chores done I wanted to make sure he knows when I leave I will always come back and make sure he doesn't have separation anxiety anytime he sees me leave Sometimes he starts to show signs again of some separation anxiety with me or some panic when he sees me leave even if it is me just leaving the room - like when we recently went on a long weekend vacation Thursday-Sunday and he was with my in-laws who he loves and had a great time with, but still they are not me who he is used to being with - and once I came back I started to see some signs of panic again when I would leave the room or leave for a short period of time so I just went back to old methods and made sure to leave him and not always be around and give him a treat and not make a big fuss when I would leave or come back to him and vary the amount of time I was gone etc. and he is better yet again after only a few days of working with him, but still they are babies and sometimes things get better and then get bad again and we have to go back to old methods to reassure them/re-train them sometimes! So don't worry! You will figure out your pups personality and what works with him and as long as your OH makes sure to have some time at night or on weekends or whenever that he ISNT around him and shows him that he always comes back he will grow out of the panic and will start to feel more independent and sure of himself
We're having a very similar problem with our pup Stanley. He's 11 weeks and we've had him for 2 and he cries when he's left alone. We're trying to build him up and are doing the training in the happy puppy handbook. I think there's a slight improvement and sometimes before we get to a couple of minutes he falls asleep. I don't think it's a problem with his crate because he's happy to go in there for a nap and he takes himself off to it. He also sleeps (okish) through the night. Maybe 6/7 hours. Seems as though patience & perseverance are going to be the key. It's just hard because apart from that he's a good little pup really and there has been points we've questioned whether we can cope or not. Sure we'll get there ☺️
Try and get your puppies addicted to kongs. I don't mean just fill a kong and leave them with it, but try to get them addicted to kongs. Like a kong is the most amazing thing ever. I've just done this with my new puppy, and it took 2 weeks (from the day she came home until today). Today, I watched her with a kong and thought yep, she's a kong addict. You build it up slowly, like anything. You start off with amazing, amazing treat that fall out easily, and you give it when the pup is hungry. Stay with the pup, praise and tell her what an amazing girl she is to try to get the food out of the kong. When she gets stuck, help her out, and squeeze the food out for her etc. Then, make it a tiny bit harder to get the amazing food out, and help a little less etc. And so on. Then, give a kong and leave for just 10 seconds, 30 seconds and so on. It really works, but the first step is creating the kong addict, you can't just stuff a kong, leave it with the puppy and walk away.
Jen I know exactly what you mean - I have said to my partner what have we done, what if he can never be left alone etc... By the sound of it that's normal so it's nice not to feel alone in this. Hugo won't put himself in his crate for a nap - I am wondering if he sees it as a punishment As I write this we have just put him to bed and gone to bed ourselves armed with ear plugs to drown the noise out. Seems to be extremely loud but we do live in a bungalow and currently ripping it apart to renovate so no carpet etc makes it very echoy! We did a little bit of crate training this evening and will do more tomorrow and continue this week - hopefully we will start to see improvements. I can't wait to take him out on little walks once he has had his second jabs!
Thank you - I need to get one so may do that in the next couple of days to ensure we start as soon as possible!
Kongs are amazing things - they are safe, and the pup has his/her bum on the floor and is quiet and being rewarded for that with food. Don't underestimate them, if you create a kong addict, they will help in all sorts of situations for the rest of your dog's life.
Our dog is 19 weeks and we got him at 8 weeks. The first night he slept through the night and we never had a problem. He comes to work with me every day and he would sleep right next to me in his kennel and run around the office. At first he didn't like me to leave him alone at work but he is starting to get used to it. At home on the weekend I go run my errand and leave him in his kennel for 3-4 hours and he sleeps the whole time. He will get used it it as he gets older.
They are! And I like that a new Forum term has been coined ....My dog is nearly 4 now and they are still part of his day not in the same way they occupy a young pup but very valuable in our dog management arsenal! Little Hugo won't cry forever so whilst I can't say don't be anxious now ,don't fret about the future as he will settle down and gain his confidence x
Totally agree with Julie! The Kong is a powerful thing!! Never knew about them with my last dogs but we have definitely created a Kong addict here! Started as Julie said making it very easy and building up as he got older to the larger frozen versions. I still give him a Kong every time we go out. Have been lucky as due to the Kong we have never had to crate him in the day, just in the kitchen with baby gates and a Kong and nothing has been chewed. At 8 months he still loves his Kongs and I will keep using them as I really believe they settle him when we go out. Sam and Mole
No, you need to get several! When you get to the point you're freezing them, it's easier to do it in batches. I have two dogs, and I "only" have eight kongs (four medium, four large) for them. That's nothing compared to the serious addicts!
I agree with the other posts about Kongs - only thing that makes me feel okay with leaving Duncan alone for a few hours while I get work done and he looks forward to them and runs to the freezer when I pull them out and then runs over to his crate excited to get his treat!
Thank you for all your advice and comments - I definitely want to start introducing him to the Kong but he has currently got a very sensitive belly and we have had to put him on rice and chicken for a few days to try and settle it down - once it is sorted I will start giving him 'treats' in the kongs!
Harley has a very sensitive tummy and spent months on and off on chicken and rice. I put it in kongs and built it up to rice, small pieces of chicken mixed with a bit of natural yoghurt and froze them.......best thing ever. Even now I often make kongs with this.
