Episode #208 Training Your Dog to Be Left Home Alone Uncrated

The journey to giving your dog more freedom is paved with patience and strategy. As puppies, we manage them with crates, pens, and tethers as we train them to live in a human home. As they mature, we can graduate them to being home alone without the crate! Learn how to gradually increase their alone time with short, manageable intervals, all while keeping them entertained with toys and interactive puzzles. Baxter and Bella will be along for the ride as I share practical tips and tricks for setting your puppy up for success in the larger spaces of your home. Ensuring your puppy's transition is smooth and safe lays the foundation for a trusting and happy relationship. Let's make this exciting phase of puppy training a positive experience for both you and your dog!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

We talk a lot about managing our puppies when they first come to our homes, with crates and pens, baby gates, etc. How do we then transition to opening up our entire home and trusting them alone in the bigger space? That's today's episode. Welcome to the Puppy Training Podcast. I'm Amy Jensen, founder of Baxter Bella, the online puppy school. Here we are all about helping you create the best possible experience raising a puppy, from training tips to practical tricks, all aimed at fostering a happy, well-behaved dog who truly feels like part of the family. So if you are ready to enjoy the journey and strengthen the bond with your dog, let's get started. Hello everybody, I hope you're having a great week.

Speaker 1: 0:49

We are enjoying our holiday, celebrating the new year. Cannot believe it is 2025 soon, but here we are and it's going to be a good one. We're going to accomplish some good things this year, right? Baxter and Bella Got my dogs here with me. They're helping me record the podcast today. So I want to talk today about how to transition our puppies from being crated and in their pens and behind baby gates and on tethers, because we need all of that in the beginning, when we're teaching them how to behave in a human household and to not be destructive and to potty outside. But eventually, yes, we want to be able to leave our dogs home alone. They can be out in the home and they can be trusted. So today let's dive into that. We want this to be a gradual approach, making sure along the way that we're patient, that we take into consideration our puppy's skill level and all of that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 1:43

So first of all, we want to make sure that we choose an area that we're going to kind of have be our testing area, if you will. We're going to puppy proof the area, make sure that it's a safe, confined space. That's not our whole entire house, but maybe one or two rooms in the home that they've been doing really well with house training in. There hasn't been any accidents, that kind of thing. We're going to remove anything like electrical cords, plants, any kind of small objects, any tempting objects. I used to have a table runner that had some fringe on the end. That's so exciting for puppies, especially once they get bored. So I would just puppy proof that room. Basically, you're setting them up for success. You're kind of removing any external temptations in the beginning, because that again is a bridging step from being crated or being in a pen or behind a gate to. Okay, you have this one or two room area, but let's take out some of those tempting things to see how they do, also anything that could be chewed or ingested.

Speaker 1: 2:43

We want to take that away and then we establish a routine. So if we can maintain a consistent schedule daily where we're feeding our puppies and then they have a potty break and then they know that it's time to go on a walk or it's playtime in the yard and then it's quiet time where we settle and take a nap, and we repeat that you know a routine will help reduce any anxiety that our puppies might experience when we do leave the house. If they know Amy goes to the gym every morning at 9am and about 1pm we always go on a walk and it doesn't have to be precise or to the minute, but in general, if your puppy knows what to expect, they're less anxious. So your coming and goings will be less stressful and if they're less stressed they're more likely to settle when they're out and about in your house. So just a reminder on make sure your routine is in place and that you have one and your dog understands the routine and how it works, and then we just teach them alone time in that gradual process.

Speaker 1: 3:33

So I want you to start by leaving your puppy alone for short periods of time. Maybe you leave the house for five to 10 minutes and they're in that one or two room area and you're either in another room or you're outside doing some yard work or going for a little walk up and down your street and then you come back and you see how they did. So make sure when you leave that they have their toys in the room, that there maybe is a puzzle feeder or some kind of interactive toy or puzzle for them to work on. You can leave them with a chew that they love, so they have a few things to entertain themselves with if they choose to. Now you might find that when you leave, your dog just kind of snuggles up on their bed or next to the door and just waits until you get back. That's also totally fine, but we do want to make sure that we provide them with things that they love to entertain themselves if they so choose. Now we just gradually over time increase the duration. So instead of five to 10 minutes if I came back in five to 10 minutes and my puppy was great. There were no problems. I didn't see any chewing of baseboards or there wasn't an accident on the carpet or you know that type of thing. My puppy did fine, great.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Next time let's leave them alone for 15 to 20 minutes and see how it goes. And then 20 minutes turns into 30, and 30 turns into an hour, and an hour turns into two hours and pretty soon you can trust your puppy in your house. Now, in the beginning, you might want to, just like I said, start with those one to two room spaces, because you're setting your puppy up for success. We're bridging the gap between a pen to maybe several rooms of our home to eventually, yes, your entire house. So in the beginning, start with just a couple rooms and see how they do. If they do fine, maybe you can leave the pillow on the couch. Next time let's see how they do with that. Do they handle that fine? Do they leave that pillow alone? Maybe you can leave, you know, your pair of shoes by the door that you usually have by the door.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Now, all of that, recognize we have been working on the side to train our puppies to do implied leave-its. So we've worked with leaving shoes alone and we've worked with leaving pillows alone, and we've worked with they spent a lot of time in their crates and pens and on tethers with these chew toys that we've given them. So we're hoping at this point that your dog has, uh, has learned I chew this. I don't chew that because of the training that we've done as well. So we're pairing this process of opening up our home and leaving them home alone to be trusted in that space with the training that we've been doing. So this is not.

Speaker 1: 5:54

I should have maybe started this way, but this is not necessarily for your eight week old puppy, right, your eight week old puppy. Go back to our. This is how we house, train a puppy. Um, this is how we create, train a puppy. This is more for, like a dog. That's probably six months plus and, typically speaking, I'm starting this process about nine months and about a year is when my dogs most of my dogs have, you know, kind of freedom in my home, so you're not in any rush. Okay, and even those times I kind of hesitate giving you guys times, because then you're like, oh, at six months, my dog should be able to do this, and at one year, my dog should be able to do this. It really is about your dog's ability. So if your dog cannot be trusted, you know, out and about in your home until they're two years old, that's totally fine, no worries, that's okay. So I'm going to give you the process today, but then recognize, with that process there's going to be differences in timeframes for everyone, and these are the signs you're going to watch for to see if your dog's ready for the next step.

Speaker 1: 6:52

Continuing on, we want to make sure that when we return each time that we've been lengthening out these durations, that our dog is calm, that you know nothing's gone wrong while we left and that they were just content being without us. So then we can start to expand the space. Maybe the two rooms turns into three rooms, three rooms turns into four and so forth, until we've opened up our entire home and we're trusting them to be left alone while we're gone, without the help of baby gates and pens and things like that. So once our puppy is comfortable in the confined area, we're going to start to open up the space. We're just going to gradually allow them access to more parts of the house and as you add rooms you might want to shrink the duration that you're gone. So if you open up the third and fourth rooms, maybe you're only gone for 10 minutes again and see how they do Right. So you're going to gradually open up space and gradually add duration. You might have to, you know, decrease duration when you add space and then, if you add duration, maybe we have to decrease the space, just depending on what you come home to.

Speaker 1: 7:50

But we are watching for signs that when we come home our dog's been relaxed. You know they're fine without us If you want to leave up a little camera and watch what they're doing when you're gone. But we don't want signs of stress like panting, pacing, chewing baseboards, destroying pillows. Those would all be signs that there's some anxiety when we're gone and we'll probably want to take a step back in the process and go more slowly To help your dog stay calm.

Speaker 1: 8:13

When you leave, don't make a big fuss about it. So whether I'm leaving or coming home, it doesn't need to be this big, exciting, grand event. Simply leave them with their toys and shoes, get what you need to leave, exit the house when you come back in, set your things down, take off your shoes that kind of thing. We want to normalize comings and goings as much as possible. Setbacks are a natural part of the process. If you do experience a setback, then we just want to, number one, reassess the environment. Make sure the space is truly puppy proofed. Remember to go back and remove things that might be tempting to your puppy and make sure that they have their shoes and toys available to them. Also, making sure that before you leave, they've their shoes and toys available to them. Also, making sure that before you leave, they've had mental and physical stimulation. So a training session or a play session outside in the yard or down the hallway where they were able to get out their physical energy and some mental energy as well. This will increase the likelihood that they'll lay down and take a nap while you're gone.

Speaker 1: 9:04

You can always return to shorter durations or a more confined space until your dog regains confidence and shows better behavior as well. We want to avoid punishment. We don't scold our dogs for accidents or destructive behaviors. We want to address instead the root cause. Figure out is it boredom, is it anxiety? What is causing my dog to do these behaviors in my absence? And let's work on that. If you need help, please reach out to us. We're happy to coach you through this entire process and get you the tools that you need to be successful at teaching your dog to be trusted alone in your home. Thanks for tuning in to the puppy training podcast. I hope today's tips help you feel more confident and excited about raising your dog. Remember, with a little patience and consistency you can create a loving bond and a well-behaved pup who's a joy to have in your family. If you found this episode helpful, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow puppy parents. For more resources, visit Baxter and Bella online. Until next time, happy training.