I imagine every dog is different, but I’m just wondering how long everyone feels comfortable leaving an 8 month old puppy alone? What have your experiences been? The longest I feel comfortable leaving my 8 month old lab alone is 4 hours. If I have to be gone for longer than that, I higher a sitter or walker from Rover. My lab is very well behaved and there are very few signs that I can’t leave her for more than 4 hours. There have been like 3 times that I’ve come home to random things chewed or paper shredded, but every other time she’s been perfectly well behaved on her own. I’m not sure what triggered the few times she’s chewed things...my fiancé thinks she just wants to chew things sometimes, whereas I feel she does that when she’s anxious. Am I being too much of a helicopter mom for being worried about her being anxious when gone? Can she go longer without me worrying?
I've left mine alone for 5 and a half hours twice a week since I got him aged 6 months. I did worry about this a lot but he has always been fine and appears to sleep. I wouldn't be happy doing this every day or if I had to cage him for that time. He's only ever naughty/destructive when he has an audience!
4 hours sounds ok to me - but you might want to think about using a crate to stop the house-destruction. Since once dogs learn how reinforcing that is, it can develop into quite a habit. 4 hours isn't too long for a dog to be crated on occasion, so you don't need to worry about that and you will avoid the destruction in the process. Here's a link: https://thehappypuppysite.com/crate-training-a-puppy/
