Hey there! I am a new puppy mum to a beautiful nearly 9 week old puppy, Rubi. 80% of the time she is such a good girl, with the usual mad moments I have read labs are renowned for. I work from home and my partner works 12 hour shifts, but I want to be able to leave her for 30 minutes to nip to the shop/ go for a run. I’m just after some advice on how I start this? We have a crate for her but don’t lock the door. She is confined to our kitchen and dining room so have a small area of the house where she will stay when I go out. Thanks in advance for your help
Kongs kongs kongs! Stuff them with kibble first then some sort of paste after, when she's licked the paste the kibble will fall out. The first 20 minutes when leaving a pup alone is key, if she's content and happy in those minutes there's a good chance she'll be fine afterwards.
Kongs are a must, make sure you’re happy with the filling and it’s one they can safely chew without you there supervising... i.e not damaged or on its last legs. Keep an eye on your ‘indicator behaviours’ too which can tell your pup you’re leaving before you’ve evdm got to the door. Picking up your keys, handbag, putting your shoes/coat on etc - we do these things frequently then just sit on the sofa and take them off again so that our pup doesn’t instantly know we are going out and start to wonder what’ll happen. Sounds mad but we’ve found it helps. We also make zero fuss of him when leaving, not a goodbye. And barely even a ‘hello’ when we first get home until we’ve put our things away and sat on the sofa.
Agree with the other comments, use a kong or other toy that can hold some kibble that will distract your pup for long enough to not even realise that you aren't there! We use the kong tire, which has a rim that you can fill with kibble and put some dog friendly peanut butter to make the kibble stick. That takes the pup a good 20 mins to sort out! You could also try going out for 5 mins at a time initially and then build it up each day with an extra 5 mins. My pup is now 17 weeks and I regularly go out for an hour or so and she is perfectly fine to have a sleep after she's finished with the toy that I've left for her.
