When did you feel comfortable leaving your dog unattended (ex. leaving the house with him/her out of the crate, working upstairs while your pup is alone downstairs)? And what are some tips you'd give to help with the anxiety/to prevent puppy from destroying!
Our female golden doodle puppy is 4.5 months old. I know she's still young, and we crate her when we leave/during work, and she's great! But I'd love to give her more freedom while unattended (ex. during work) and eventually work towards leaving the house with her outside of the crate, but I have such anxiety about her destroying our house!
@amarekanne Ours is a year old and I still don't feel 100% comfortable leaving her completely alone for extended periods of time. We do once in a while and she's fine, but we're in the throws of adolescence. Just because she wasn't destructive yesterday, doesn't mean she won't get a wild hair up her ass and start today lol.
@imagebeastmarkbeast Same! My dogs 1 year old and I would NEVER leave him unattended bc one day he's an angel the next he is acting like he's 10 weeks old all over again. He started chewing on shoes again after months if knowing better and not even looking at a shoe! I probably won't leave him free roam for a while actually. He's not an adult until 2 years old and I can only imagine the next year will be back and forth between being an angel and a devil dog.
@lovejoypeaceetc My pup is almost at the 1 year mark. I agree. I cannot trust him!!! One day he will be an angel and the next he’s trying to eat everything off of the floor that he can find. There’s no in between. He jumped up on my coffee table and tried to get nail glue the other day. Thankfully I found him on the floor with it before he punctured the plastic bottle and got it all in his teeth…
@amarekanne My dog has been allowed freedom in the house since she was about 8 months old. The key thing for me was giving her that freedom while I was around to run over if I heard her committing crimes. It took a lot of trial and error, and as she grew we had to clear more surfaces, but by seeing what she did while we were around, we've now cleared anything that she might chew while alone. My house has never been so tidy and I'm confident that there's nothing left out that she's going to destroy or injure herself with.
She has learnt that if she wants attention, nothing brings us running like the sound of crunching plastic though. On our 4th TV remote and 3rd PS4 controller... all kept in previously puppy proof locations.
@amarekanne we’ve started testing letting our pup be unattended. she is a cavalier and just over 5 months old.
after several weeks of no potty accidents inside and her noticeably starting to chill out AND her starting to take naps all on her own, we decided to test leaving her alone in the apartment, outside of her pen. (but we keep the bathroom and bedroom doors closed)
so far we’ve gotten up to 3 hours of her being unattended (but usually its closer to 2 hours). shes been great so far. we have not found any potty accidents or evidence thereof, nothing destroyed or gotten into, etc. i think she just sleeps the whole time we are gone!
we dont leave her unattended every time we leave, though. only sometimes as she continues to grow and chill out.
@amarekanne I now leave him unattended for a few minutes - like, while I shower - or get the mail… but not much longer than that…
I think it will only be after his adolescence (so at least 1 yo)…
If i have to leave him for much longer (groceries, shopping, gym, going out, working) - i put him in his crate.
When I work from home - now he has learned to sleep next to me on a stretcher / dog bed... but occasionally, even when i'm home - i'll put him in his crate for a few hours during the afternoon just so I can work without him biting my feet when he wants attention
When I go into the office, the gym, groceries, I always crate him.
I try to do those things around his nap-time.... (so, we wake up, play, have breakfast, go for morning walk, chill out -> that is two hours of time... than he goes into his crate to sleep until 12:30 / 13:00) - lunchtime walk / chill for a bit while I have lunch / frozen kong - another two hours - back into the crate for nap - until 18:00... evening dinner / walk / watch tv and cuddle - and go to bed
@amarekanne I work from home and have a 3 month old shiba. When I’m working, I leave her alone unsupervised in her playpen for periods of 2-3 hours. I can still hear her, but I am not in eye shot. The worst she does is bark a little at first but then settles down. She usually just quietly does her own stuff. If she’s real chaotic, I throw a frozen Kong in there.
To reward her good behaviour, I come in every now and then and just toss a treat in, then head back to work.
@amarekanne I think it depends on your dog. My dog just turned a year and I do not trust her to be alone outside her crate for more than 5-10 minutes while I run to get the mail or go out to my car to grab something. She’s has gone to the emergency vet 4 times in one year due to ingestion of random things. I have friends who leave their dogs alone all day free roaming and they do great, other friends I know had to crate their dogs until they were 2-3 years old. I think you know your dog best and you should trust your instincts on what they’re ready for. Mine will be crated for longer periods until she stops trying to eat everything she sees.
@imagebeastmarkbeast This is pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Every dog is gonna be different. They need to be slowly given access to more areas of the house for small increments of time and given more/longer access when they prove themselves able to successfully not be destructive to themselves or your stuff.
My older dog was like yours. Took him a long long time to be given access to more than just the one room with nothing but a couch. He's got free access to everything now though. My puppy however, by 4 months old I have her access to the dog door and half of the downstairs. She just never really tried to cause trouble, never tried to escape, mainly chews on her toys. The worst I get from her is a bunch of sticks brought inside. I think she just emulates the older dog and the older dog corrects her if she tries to do something bad that he thinks he might get in trouble for.
@amarekanne Ours started spending time unattended while we were in the house at about 6 months. We got her at 4 months, so she had less time with us than many at that point.
That said… it all depends on the dog! Our pup is quite independent and while she’s super confident about dog things, she’s pretty cautious with people things. This made our life pretty easy. Basically we got to the point during the workday where we’d lose track of her and eventually find her curled up in a quiet corner somewhere (crate, bed, couch). At that point we started letting her have more freedom, at least in moderately dog proofed rooms.
@amarekanne My dog has free roam of the kitchen when she’s home alone (baby gated to the rest of the apartment), and it’s where her bed is setup, too. I’ve been leaving her home since she was about 12 weeks - started with 20-30 minutes, and now at 9 months - I can leave her 5-6 hours. I have a camera I check in with her on, and she just sleeps the whole time. I think starting young really helped with and separation anxiety. She could not care less when I leave her haha.
much less of a criminal than she was though, so you might be right!