{"id":295,"date":"2023-09-30T17:44:56","date_gmt":"2023-09-30T17:44:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/?p=295"},"modified":"2023-09-30T17:51:07","modified_gmt":"2023-09-30T17:51:07","slug":"teaching-your-puppy-to-be-home-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/?p=295","title":{"rendered":"Teaching your puppy to be home alone."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When your puppy moves in, it is quite normal that they follow you around everywhere. After all they have never been alone before and it is absolutely fine to let them follow you. In fact I would encourage it. Your puppy needs to learn that you are there for them and that they can trust you. They need a secure attachment because that helps build confidence which in turn will help with the home alone training.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When doing home alone training with puppies it is important to build alone time up slowly in small increments. There are different ways to approach it. Some like to crate train their puppies and some don\u2019t. Some puppies will absolutely hate the confinement of a crate and for those it would be better to puppy-proof a room and close it off with stairgates\/baby gates or use a puppy pen. I, personally, wouldn’t use a crate for home alone training and my dog has been able to be home alone since around 5 – 6 months of age without ever being confined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spreading the love.<\/strong> This means that in order to avoid hyper attachment to one person in the family it is good to share the training, the feeding, the walking, and the playtime between all members of the household and perhaps some people outside of the household (other family members, dog walkers etc.). Even small children can help with training as long as you guide them and show them how to interact with the puppies safely and with puppy\u2019s consent, so you don\u2019t overwhelm neither child nor puppy. (Never let a child overwhelm your puppy and make sure that pup has a safe space to retreat to that is out of bounds for any children). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before you start home alone training you can play a game called Puppy-Peekabo<\/strong> which is about teaching your puppy object permanence which means they learn that even if they can\u2019t see something it doesn\u2019t mean that it doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start home alone training by using an exercise called Door-Is-A-Bore<\/strong> and you can also use Magic Mat<\/strong> to help teach puppy that it is okay to stay calmly on their bed\/mat while you move around in the house. This also helps teach independence. Don\u2019t expect too much of very young puppies though. Often we have very high expectations of our dogs but we should remember that they don’t come pre-programmed with all the behaviours we like. It is up to us to teach them in a kind and humane way that includes taking their emotions into account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, back to Door-Is-A-Bore. When you can do the final step of Door-Is-A-Bore and stay outside for 5 seconds while your puppy stays calm inside, you can slowly start adding more time. In the beginning only do 5 \u2013 10% increases but when your puppy seems to generally feel comfortable being alone you can start to increase with up to 20% increases at each training session. If your puppy shows no signs of anxiety or fear of being alone at all then you can increase further but be careful not to overdo it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would suggest that you do no more than two training sessions a day as anymore could overwhelm very young puppies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I did with my own dog was go from 20 seconds to 60 seconds, 2 minutes, then 5 minutes, 10, 15, 20 to 30 minutes but she was never anxious about it. I did only one session each day during the weekdays and I also varied the time I was away. For example, I would do 30 minutes and then the next day perhaps only 10 minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just be aware that training is not a linear process. Sometimes we need to go back to basics and especially through adolescence as our dogs’ brains are still developing and sometimes they forget things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Night-time anxiety<\/strong> is another issue you may be facing. Never leave a puppy to cry it out, because that could cause more anxiety and we want them to feel secure and safe. The old school ideas to leave them to figure things out for themselves is something we now know can cause more harm and actually could contribute to creating separation anxiety. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crate training.<\/strong> If you choose to use a crate for your puppy then it is imperative that you get your puppy used to the crate really slowly and not just shut him in and force him to stay there. Get your puppy to love the crate by leaving something yummy in there, dropping for him treats when he goes in, and only very gradually building up the time he spends in there. Also, it’s important that you let him walk in and out as he pleases initially so it doesn’t feel like puppy jail. When he seems comfortable and is running in and out, you can try and shut the door but only for a few seconds while you drop treats in there. Repeat a number of times and only very gradually increase the time the door is shut. If your puppy gets upset let him out. Forcing him to stay in there will only make him fear his crate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with all training \u2013 take it slow and follow your dog\u2019s pace. If they need a break, do something else, play with them or let them rest and then resume training later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you need help with your puppy’s home alone training I do virtual sessions and I can help get you started right. Get in touch for a free 15 minutes discovery call. Email: tina@tinashappyhounds.dk <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tina B. Kristensen, Cert. Separation Anxiety Pro Trainer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When your puppy moves in, it is quite normal that they follow you around everywhere. After all they have never been alone before and it is absolutely fine to let them follow you. In fact I would encourage it. Your puppy needs to learn that you are there for them and that they can trust […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,6],"tags":[18,19,15],"class_list":["post-295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home-alone-training","category-puppies","tag-home-alone-training","tag-puppy-training","tag-separation-anxiety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295\/revisions\/298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tinashappyhounds.dk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}