How do you teach your puppy to be alone?

[Anonymous]

Puppy is 12 weeks old, we've had him for 2 weeks. He's great overnight, zero issues there, but we're unsure how to "teach" him to be alone during the day. We sometimes need to do a "forced" nap during the day in his crate as he overtire's himself (little FOMO going on lol). Can you point us in a good direction of where to start?

[Anonymous]

I have a 14 week old puppy and am struggling with same thing. He’s perfectly happy to go into his crate, take a nap there. Door open or closed is fine. But if he wakes up and we aren’t there, or if we put him in and walk away he wails and screams and throws himself against the crate. He’s a Frenchie and they are known to be dramatic, but I’m afraid he’ll hurt himself with his drama.

[Anonymous]

You need to practice with puppies. They need to learn that you go away, and they can relax fully, and then you always come back. Practice for short stints and then lengthen the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Puppy is 12 weeks old, we've had him for 2 weeks. He's great overnight, zero issues there, but we're unsure how to "teach" him to be alone during the day. We sometimes need to do a "forced" nap during the day in his crate as he overtire's himself (little FOMO going on lol). Can you point us in a good direction of where to start?

Jesus, he's a baby. He's scared. Have a little patience b/c you're expecting too much at this point. Time alone should be short at first (yes, it's a hassle. We also have a puppy). Then lengthen it little by little. He's got to be reassured that you will come back. And give him lots of things to do while gone. Our puppy is not crated anymore as she's older now. We give a treat ball, some toys, and we leave cardboard boxes out for her to wrestle with and chew and destroy. We leave the radio or tv on, as well, for some background noise.

[Anonymous]

We got her another puppy, but opposite sex.

[Anonymous]

Give the puppy something to do. Feed all meals in the crate, give frozen kongs or bully sticks and lots of chew toys. Crate him in the room where you are so he learns to settle in your presence. Step out once in a while to use the restroom or refill water or whatever. Let him out before she becomes frantic.

And it will take months. At 12 weeks old he shouldn't be left alone more than 2-3 hours (max 1 hour per age in months), so if you are crating for longer than that you're going to have issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Give the puppy something to do. Feed all meals in the crate, give frozen kongs or bully sticks and lots of chew toys. Crate him in the room where you are so he learns to settle in your presence. Step out once in a while to use the restroom or refill water or whatever. Let him out before she becomes frantic.

And it will take months. At 12 weeks old he shouldn't be left alone more than 2-3 hours (max 1 hour per age in months), so if you are crating for longer than that you're going to have issues.

OP Here - We work from home so rarely during the day does he "need" to be crated, but there will probably be some time where he has to for up to an hour. We just want to prep for that before it's necessary. He's not "velcro'd" to us, he currently left his sleeping spot in my office and went into the hallway to sleep on the rug.

Okay so I freeze some tasty stuff on a lick mat that attached to the side of his crate, put that on, put him in, then walk away for a few minutes?

[Anonymous]

Please give us more tips!!!

We have had our 3 month puppy for 2 weeks. We have not been able to leave her for even one minute. I took the first week off work and my husband has taken the second week. We can both take her into our offices as soon as she is house-trained, so she will never be alone for long periods of time but the issue is that she needs to be able to be alone for 5 minutes! I cannot even take out the trash without being barked at for all 5 minutes.

The crate is not a problem. She loves the crate (sleeps in it through the day) but we have to be right next to it.

[Anonymous]

Crate train her

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Crate train her

It's this. Crate with a sheet over it multiple times a day and to sleep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Puppy is 12 weeks old, we've had him for 2 weeks. He's great overnight, zero issues there, but we're unsure how to "teach" him to be alone during the day. We sometimes need to do a "forced" nap during the day in his crate as he overtire's himself (little FOMO going on lol). Can you point us in a good direction of where to start?

Time. Reward him when quiet. He will learn to get attention he has to be quiet. Give him treats. But honestly enjoy this time!

[Anonymous]

Ours has taken a crate nap every afternoon since she was around 16 weeks old. She's very scheduled oriented even a year later. She still takes her crate nap every afternoon. She loves it because we put her in the crate with a frozen PB Kong. She sleeps for a few hours every afternoon. That's when we get stuff done. Her crate is covered which helped with the house noise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crate train her

It's this. Crate with a sheet over it multiple times a day and to sleep.

+1 especially if you work from home. You need to get him used to being relaxed at home without you. The best and easiest way to do that is crate training

[Anonymous]

When my pandemic PHP was young (she’s just two now), i crated her a few times a day for like an hour. Otherwise she was my office mate. If you have a fenced yard that’s an option too except in the rain.

[Anonymous]

Well we had to throw our pup into the deep end with this one. As I noted he does not like his crate during the day. He gets to roam the main level (LVP and ruggables) which is where my office is located. Of course DH is out of town and I had to grab DC from school and take them to urgent care for an x-ray. Couldn't bring the puppy obviously. We have a camera setup to watch him and he barked exactly 30 seconds after we left. Then he settled into his bed and slept the entire time I was gone. Zero accidents. Zero messes. I think it was about 2 hours in total.

-- OP