Separation Anxiety

[Connie Lu]

My new puppy is having issues with separation anxiety. If you leave him in the room alone for a few seconds, he barks and whines until you come back. Also, it is almost impossible to get enough sleep at night because he is always crying downstairs.
We yesterda got a crate, and he is doing well with it. Should sleeping in a crate help is barking issues?
Thanks for the help, this is my first time getting a puppy so I don't have much experience!

[SK & Hudson]

We had the hardest time crating our Hudson when she was a pup. I tried it consistently for weeks and no one in the house got more than an hour of sleep for about a month. After pure exhaustion, one night, we decided to let Hudson sleep in our room with a potty pad on the floor. Magic! She slept so peacefully for hours. As soon as we brought her into our room, her frantic whining stopped. Hudson just turned 4 last week, and I'd say that we really love having Hudson with us in the bedroom at night. She loves to curl up against our feet or stick her head under the bed. You'll find it fascinating that your doodle may position themselves at the end of the bed facing the door to protect you while you sleep.

Although crating may work for some and is definitely a useful habit for those boarding their pups or leaving them through the day while at work, we found that Hudson was less stressed and therefore we were less stressed.

[Leslie, Yogi & Maci Bear]

Keep in mind your puppy is just a baby. Eventually they can be alone, but you've just taken him away from his mother and siblings. I think most of us started our puppy out in a crate right by our bed. The first few nights I would dangle my hand into the crate when we laid down so they would know we were close by. It calmed them in just a few minutes.

[Kat and Winston]

We have Winston's crate in our room about 3 feet away from our bed. He can see me, but I'd have to get out of bed to be able to touch him or let him out of the crate. He's actually slept fairly well in it from the first night. Of course he would wake up during the night but at 11 weeks and 2 days he slept from 10:30 to 4:00 a.m. last night. That's the longest stretch yet. He used to wake up at 2 and 4 pretty consistently give or take 30 minutes.

He however has been having separation anxiety when we leave him in his crate during the day and leave the room. He's fine as long as we are in the room. We are working on it using a method that involves ignoring him not talking or looking at him but coming back into the room so he can be reassured that we are still there.

What we do is that I have him settled in the crate and then get up and leave without speaking or looking at him.  I go out for 10 seconds, he starts to yelp or whine and so we come back in but do not look at him or talk to him, and once he settles just a bit I leave again for a bit longer. I am talking 15-20-30 seconds. Eventually what has happened is he has settled and fallen asleep which has allowed me to to be out of the room for a bit.

Today is only day two of this, but he slept in the crate in our room for over an hour with nobody in there. It's progress and we'll take it.

We are finding on the recommendation of several trainers that it is also best to have others( husband and kids) etc ignore him when they first come into a room, whether returning from work or an outing etc. They take a seat and then once he's not jumping up or trying to get their attention any longer, they call him to them and greet him and give him some love.

Granted we've only been at this new method for two days, but the changes we are seeing are very encouraging, which I was feeling very frustrated earlier this week.

Congrats on your puppy and I hope you find something that works for your family as well.