How To Teach Your Dog To Be Home Alone
Is your dog whining, howling, digging, biting, smashing objects, or destroying everything in sight when you leave the house? This is because he doesn’t know how to be alone. Dogs need attention and care, however, they also need to learn to stay indoors without any family members present. Now let’s show you some tricks for teaching your dog to be home alone.
Why doesn’t a dog want to be alone?
Resistance to being alone at home can come from an insecure dog or even from past trauma. Dogs born and raised in dangerous places are children of fearful and unhappy mothers who could not teach their offspring to be balanced animals.
It’s also possible that they haven’t nursed their offspring long enough, as the breeders took the puppies out too early. This made them fearful and insecure dogs by nature.
In addition, abandoned or mistreated puppies suffer from chronic panic, and sometimes excessive attention from owners also causes the dog to resist being alone.
Major trauma, insecurities or abuse can give rise to a syndrome called separation anxiety.
How to teach your dog to be alone and quiet at home?
If we give dogs little freedom and vigilance during their first few weeks of life, a series of behavioral problems can develop, such as taking care of themselves indoors, chewing objects, digging or barking continuously.
To avoid this, we must follow a series of rules when we are at home with the dog and certain procedures when we leave the place.
The first one is to exercise the dog, take him for a walk every day, with time and dedication, and play with him so that your pet can release and discharge all the accumulated energy. That way, when you’re alone, you’ll be happy to curl up and rest.
You must not teach your dog to be overly dependent on you. When you’re at home with him, you should spend some time playing and cuddling, but you should leave time for him to entertain himself while you do other things. As soon as he comes asking for more pampering and you’ve already devoted time to him, ignore him.
Also, ignore him when you leave the house and when you arrive. You have to teach your dog that leaving and returning is not a big deal and should not be a cause for celebration or concern.
Do not say goodbye or do anything if he comes to greet you very warmly on arrival. Wait for him to calm down before greeting him.
Another important thing is not to scold him for every wrong thing he does, as this will only create distrust, chronic stress and dependence on his owner, since negative attention, anyway, is still attention.
What you should do is be an example of tranquility and security for your dog and always follow the same routine. Dogs are animals of habits, which learn by repetition.
That way, once they get used to that you’re going to do the same things every day, they’ll quickly adapt to being alone, because they’ll know that even if you leave, you’ll always come back.
To gradually get you used to the fact that you will be going out every day, start by leaving the house for short spaces and keep extending the duration of the outings until you leave the residence for the period of time that you will normally be away.
It’s a good idea to feed him before going out, as after eating he’ll get sleepy and can take a nap while you’re not home.
It is also important that there is a place for the dog to snuggle and feel safe, where he can retreat when you are not.
It would be nice if there is a room that can be closed off when you go out so that he is not distracted by everything else around the house.
Simply lock him in a room with three toys, his bed, water and take him for a walk when he arrives and he’s calmed down. Another possible solution, although not necessarily a good one, is to introduce another dog into the house so that one can keep each other company and entertain themselves.
However, this depends on your economic possibilities and the availability of time you have, since two dogs require twice as much attention, not half.
