Puppy barking when left alone

musogirl295

We got our puppy Freddie back in January. He's a 6 month old mongrel and as well behaved as a young pup normally is!

We brought him home when he was eight weeks old and from the next day we started building up his home alone time. We crate trained him and began with leaving him for 5 mins and gradually increased it each day. By the time he was about 14 weeks and his bladder was more reliable we were able to leave him for about 3 hours with no noticeable problems. He was always quiet as we left him and I would listen outside the door for a few minutes and not hear anything. On returning he was either asleep or yawning from waking up, so seemed relaxed and not stressed.

For the past few weeks he has suddenly become a nightmare to leave. It began with him playing up when we left outside of our normal routine. Barking and crying for 5 or 10 mins after we left but then going to sleep. Then he began doing this when we left him as part of our normal routine. At the weekend we had a meal out booked. This was in the early evening when we are normally in. I left my phone doing a voice recording while we were out. Of the 2 hours we were out or barked and cried for the first 40 minutes!

Does anybody have any tips on how we can get this sorted?

We don't leave him very much, normally just for an hour or two in the morning while we go shopping or to a toddler group. I don't want us to become housebound over this but we are midterraced and whilst our neighbours are very understanding there's only so much we can let them endure!

Thanks

krlyr

With seperation anxiety, you'd probably see some other symptoms, e.g. damage caused around windows or dogs (dogs focus on exits/the last place they saw you), pacing, drooling, not wanting to eat, etc. though if you're just doing sound recordings it may not rule these behaviours out. Seperation anxiety is often misdiagnosed in dogs but many of the principles used in it will help if it's something milder - so you wouldn't harm by assuming the worst and putting the same techniques into practice.

There have been a couple of posts a little while ago that might help, I've been dealing with this myself for the last 5 months or so (she seemed to be "cured" but then lapsed again). You will get there, being a young dog you may find it a lot easier than I have (we've had a milestone week with 2 days of very minimal barking and one completely bark-free day - fingers crossed for an equally good day today!)
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3863361
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3825203

If you can set up video recording, I would definately do that as it tells you a lot more than just sound. For example, I hear my other dog barking occasionally on the video but I can see that he's by the door so it's likely to be post coming through the letterbox, out of sight. Or I can see Kiki's ears perk up before her anxious pacing, and often it's because someone's parked very near to our house and she thinks it might be me so gets anxious. There's not much I can do to change those kind of triggers but it is reassuring to see that there are some external causes to it, and there are some things I have been able to change - e.g. she was jumping up at the window sill which seemed to make her more anxious so we rearranged things to block access and now she settles down quicker.

musogirl295

Thanks for your reply, it's really useful.

He certainly doesn't cause any damage when we're out although he's confined to his crate so it's really only his bedding he could shred. He also doesn't show any signs of stress when we're getting ready to leave.

It just seemed strange that we had done all the training and he was used to it and then all of a sudden he's funny about being left.

Going to try leaving the radio on and will look into videoing him to check how he seems besides the noise.

Freddie's currently sitting with a buster collar on following his castration on tuesday so it will be interesting to see if that has any effect on his behaviour!

Caroline_a

Funny creatures, dogs. My youngster (well, he's a year now), has a big, deep bark... and when does he do it?? at 6.30 in the morning. Woof, woof, woof, woof.... pause..... woof woof woof woof... longer pause.

I've tried ignoring him, I've tried shouting his name, and eventually I always get up in case he does want a wee and is desperate. The funny thing is I walk into the room, he's leaping around my feet so excited to see me, the Shepherd is curled up in his basket with a 'why doesn't he shut the f up' look on his face. I walk in, he goes back to sleep...

Dogs...:rotfl:

krlyr

When did the behaviour start? I'd try to pinpoint it and see if there's any potential causes. For example, a new neighbour who may be making noises that set him off (e.g. dog barking from their side of the house, you may not be able to make it out on the recording but he could be hearing it, one of mine started barking at night and we couldn't figure out why until I came downstairs to see if he needed a pee (normally an "Oi, shh" shut him up without the need to get out of a warm bed!) and heard the neighbour's new puppy - turns out they'd decided to kennel the new pup and existing dog overnight and the low noise of the two unsettled dogs was loud enough to make mine bark without us hearing them)
Have you had leaflets starting to come through the door? I used to live quite out of the way so we never had this in our old house and it took mine a few months to get used to it and not bark every time the letterbox went off or the gravel on the drive crunched, they're now pretty good at ignoring it.
Alternatively, the warm weather can cause strange behaviour, or he could have had a scary experience one day (bang of thunder, a car accident nearby, something falling off a shelf indoors, etc) which he's now associating with being left alone (dogs can make seemingly random associations from just one bad experience), all kinds of reasons. A video might uncover a couple of clues to help you progress

Caroline_a

It's possible that he might hear a car in the garage that backs on to our garden wall, but the weird thing is, my daughter leaves the house at 5.30 when she's on early shift, the door into the hall from the dining room/kitchen where they sleep (the dogs, not my daughter :rotfl:) is glass panes so if he's awake he can hear her leave and see her... but there's never a squeak then. It's just weird other times, and then sometimes at weekends he'll sleep in until 8 (bliss!), and sometimes 6.30... grrr... It's not a panic, where's my mum I'm scared thing, it's more of a 'come on, I'm waiting to see you, where are you' sort of bark (oh I know that sounds bonkers, I probably am... :rotfl: just call me Dr Doolittle...)

PS maybe I should get together with Elsien and we can have a noisy dog and a quiet dog?

cavework

he still sleeps crated?
Perhaps the problem is now when you leave him and are still crating him , he is getting confused. His crate means bedtime ..thats when the family are all in the house and go off to family sleeping area.
Do you have a utility? We got rid of the crate and used a stairgate once we could trust our girl not to chew anything in sight.
She could get up and wander during the night in her own safe area.
This might work for you during the day .. to start
Put a dog bed in the utility or kitchen and leaving him there during the day. Start it for a few minutes returning then leaving. Build up the time he is alone.
My thoughts are that the crate is his bedroom , would you like to be left in your bedroom during the day?

krlyr

cavework wrote: »

My thoughts are that the crate is his bedroom , would you like to be left in your bedroom during the day?

I wouldn't particularly like to eat my own poop nor roll in that of other species but hey, I'm not a dog :rotfl: OP has said they're only leaving the dog an hour or two a day, I see no problem crating a dog for short periods of times like that if he's comfortable in the crate and not likely to hurt himself. It might be worth trying him loose to see if it helps the issue (allowing my dogs access to another room did help with Kiki's seperation anxiety for a bit) but I wouldn't say it was cruel to continue to use a crate.

cavework

I didn't say it was cruel , I really did not mean to imply this so sorry for giving the wrong impression, some dogs are fine but ours just found it confusing..she needed a routine . Nights crated .. days kitchen with bed , slowly days when left alone is in the kitchen with the back door open in good weather , nights are now in the utility with a stairgate.
She had a broken leg so the problem she had was cramp at night while crated

musogirl295

Thanks for the replies!

On the crating issue, the crate is not so much just his bed as it is his safe place. From the 1st day we brought him home he has gone in there at various times eg. when we are eating or when we can't keep an eye on him. He is free to go in there when he chooses and sometimes he goes in there to get away from the toddler! I really don't think he's confused and from what I have heard from his puppy training classes using the crate in this way is pretty standard practice. There is no way I could leave him unattended in a room while we went out. The only half way suitable room we have for this is the kitchen. The last time he got into the kitchen unsupervised for about a minute he managed to open the safety catch on the cupboard and get into a bag of sugar! I don't want to be cleaning up the aftermath of an adventure like that again if I can help it!:eek:

He is having his check up from the vets this morning following his castration. Hopefully if all is well we will be able to leave him again. I think I'm going to have to build it up from scratch again, especially seeing as we've been at home with him all week due to the surgery and my having some extreme dentistry done! So frustrating as we thought we were past this.

Going to try using the radio as a cue and giving him a kong. We did try the kong before but he gets through them so quickly, even when they're frozen that we weren't sure it was actually doing anything to help the situation.

Caroline_a

So just to prove that his owner is an idiot, Younger Dog is quiet as a lamb this morning until I come downstairs (late) at 8.00, when he just wags his tail in excitement to see me.

Sigh..