Firstly, does your puppy actually have separation anxiety?
A lot of people contact me, worrying that their puppy already has separation anxiety. The truth? It’s unusual for a very young dog to have a behavioural issue. Not impossible, but unusual. What your puppy is more likely to have at a few months of age is no ability to cope on their own. And that is normal!
Puppies aren’t born knowing how to be home alone and will naturally find it worrying. If we expect them to go from being with their mum and siblings to being completely on their own all of a sudden, we’re going to run into problems. They’re babies after all and we don’t just up and leave our babies to get on with it.
Plus, we have to remember that dogs are social animals so they naturally want to be around others. It’s therefore our responsibility to teach them to be comfortable on their own. Here are five tips for teaching them just that.
Build their independence with play
If your puppy is following you around everywhere and can’t cope with you in another room, your first step is not going to be to leave the house. That’s going to be way too much for them and will result in them feeling scared. If their first experience of being left alone is a negative one, that can stick in their brain and result in a lot more work for you. So always try to make the first time of everything positive – that’s what we want to stick!
So what should you start by doing? Well, building their independence. Teaching them that it’s fun to go and do stuff by themselves. How can you do this? By scattering food around the house and garden and letting them explore independently. (Of course, make sure everywhere is safe for them to explore first!) You can also give them toys they can move away by themselves – treat balls filled with food or Kong Wobblers are often good ones to start with.
It’s not about forcing them to be on their own but allowing them to choose to do this. So let them explore and play, moving away from you if they want to. But also let them choose to come back to you, too. That’s what will make them confident with time and help prevent puppy separation anxiety.
Be careful with gates and crates
Just as you want your dog’s first experience of being alone to be a positive one, so do you want their first experience of being behind a barrier to be a good one. Many people place their puppy inside a crate and shut the gate to be faced with crying, barking, and pawing to get out. That is a dog who is struggling and who can quickly develop a negative association with their crate.
As our puppies are likely going to need to be confined in some way until they’re a little older, we need to spend some time on this step. Spend a few days teaching your puppy that the crate, pen or room they’re going to stay in is a great place to be. Let them wander in to find amazing things and wander back out when they want to.
When they’re showing signs of wanting to stay there, you can work on the gate or door. Again, take this gradually. You may have to shut the gate halfway for a second, reward your puppy and then open it up. If they want to come out, let them. If they stay in, reward them even more! Build this up bit by bit – we’re talking seconds at first, not minutes.
Some dogs do better with more space, particularly when being left. This can be tricky with young puppies as we do need to think about puppy-proofing the area. But if your dog is really struggling in the enclosed space of a crate, consider whether you can give them more space using a bigger pen or an entire room with a baby gate across it.
Start by leaving the room, not the house
We have to work out where our puppy is at in terms of comfort levels and start at that point. You won’t progress if your puppy can’t cope with you moving to the other side of the room and you try leaving the house for 15 minutes. I’ll stress again: do your best to make their first experience of everything positive and you’ll have a much easier time training your puppy to be alone!
When your puppy’s nice and settled but still awake, get up and move a couple of steps away. Then calmly come back and sit down. Gradually build up the steps until you can leave the room. When you get outside of the room, only stay out for couple of seconds. From there, build the time up in seconds and eventually minutes until you can go out and do normal things like making a cup of tea and they remain nice and settled.
You can give them a treat when you come back but some dogs get more excited with treats and then find it hard to settle. So see what helps your dog.
If your dog gets up and follows you, that’s just information that you’ve gone too far, too quickly. So take it back to an easier step and build from there.
Understand when they’re comfortable and when they’re not
Now you may be getting to the stage where you can try leaving the house. But successful home alone training means being able to read your dog so that you know how they’re feeling. The moment they show any signs of worry, stress or fear, you need to come straight back in and make it easier next time. If you don’t, you’ll only start creating a negative association and make your training that much harder. (Dogs who are left to cry it out will not just get used to it. The problem is likely to become more severe!)
Dogs Trust has some great body language resources if you’re unsure what to look for. The canine ladder of communication is also a good thing to familiarise yourself with. Watching your dog in various situations will start to show you their individual signs, too. You want to be looking for the first subtler signs, not waiting for your dog to reach panic stage.
When you’re confident in this area, then you can start gradually leaving the house. Just as you did with the previous stages, make sure you’re going at your dog’s pace. This might be opening and closing the front door, then going out for a few seconds and slowly building that time up. You don’t want to go off for a coffee until you’re sure your puppy can cope with that.
Having a camera is worthwhile. There’s no way you can see or hear how your dog is doing without one. Nowadays, you can get cheap cameras that connect to apps on your phone. Or if you have multiple devices, you can have your phone on Zoom or FaceTime and another phone, tablet or laptop connected to the same call in your house. Just make sure you prop it up in a place where you can clearly see your puppy!
Have a strategy for when you need to leave them for longer
This is the big one. I completely understand that you probably are going to need to leave your puppy for longer than they can cope with at some point. This training takes time and the slower we go at the beginning, the more relaxed and secure our puppies will feel and the less chance they have of developing puppy separation anxiety.
Most people forget that puppies are babies and human babies would never be left alone. So we do need to lower the high and often unrealistic expectations we have of our dogs when they’re young. Before leaving your puppy, you need to find someone who can come and look after them or a place you can take them to. This could be friends or family members, a dog walker or pet sitter, or a daycare if necessary.
If you don’t do this and leave your puppy home alone for a couple of hours when they can only cope for a few minutes, you will be taking one step forwards and three steps back with your training each time. It will result in little progress or very inconsistent progress and likely a stressed dog.
Relying on distractions such as food toys or the TV won’t be useful if your puppy’s worried. When most dogs are stressed, they won’t eat or find any enjoyment in their usual activities. Some may eat but when the food’s gone, they start to panic.
The only way to ensure your dog is comfortable home alone is through this gradual training. There is no quick fix or cheat sheet. Yes, it can be a slower process for some than others. Yes, it does mean your life will need to change temporarily or you may need to spend extra money on pet sitters. But that’s all part and parcel of having a dog. Once you’re out the other side, it’ll all be worth it!
