So if you have read some of my recent posts, you’ll have seen we were moving! Chester has settled very well in many parts, sleeps until 9am now!!!! We still have the crate but we do not shut him in it and he much prefers that. The one thing we are struggling with is leaving him. Now we aren’t actually having any reason to leave him just now (part from shopping) due to my partner working from home. I still go out to work and he’s totally okay when I leave etc. So we have begun practice leaving him, we after his lunch time walk put him in the living room with a Kong and then shut the door and we then pretend to shut our front door as if we are going out (so he’s used to it when we actually leave) then we hide In the bedroom! For the first 5 mins, he’s ok completely distracted by Kong then he begins to cry or bark a little and sniffs at the door, he paws the door, he doesn’t howl/cry/bark constantly but will normally do one then wait 30 seconds then again then be quiet for a minute then again etc. We wait until he’s quiet to go in and get him, but this has been consistent for the past few days. Few questions:
(Little background, he could left for between 4-6 hours in our old house and was completely fine, was very rare we were ever out that long but he settled fine, obviously this is a big change for him so we totally understand that)
1. Should we go right back to the start and train him like he is a puppy?(if so tips!, what I did when he was a puppy was try to build him up but he continued to cry then one day I had to leave and had no choice to leave him and from then he was okay)
2. Do we ignore him when he cries barks howls and wait it out to see if he stops or will this scare him?
3. Do we try with the door open and a baby gate in the hall (so he cannot stand by the main door for when we come in etc)
When we enter back into the room he’s pretty excited but within seconds is over it and goes to play with his toys or lies in bed.
Any advice would be fantastic. It’s been rather frustrating as I’ve done this all before and now feel like I’m at stage one again, I do understand it is a huge change for him and don’t blame him at all, we just don’t want him howling when he’s left, we just want him to be just as confident as he was!
Thank you so much in advance for all support! Also to add, we think may be rushing things and it’s best to build up his security in the house first but think we’re just anxious about getting called back to work! We are trying today to start using the Flitting game