# 6 Month Old Puppy upsatirs



## HannahHarding87 (12 mo ago)

Hi

we have Rodney who is shy of 6 months old- He is a great character, loves everyone, everyone loves him and he is the final piece of the family.

However we are struggling with leaving him for even short period of time, which means myself and my partner cannot do much together outside of the house, we rely of people to look after Rodney for simple tasks like shopping.
We have tried so much and the last few days Rodney has shown an interest in the upstairs part of the house, we are discouraging it at all costs.

Do you let your dogs upstairs and is there a reason why this is a good or a bad idea to allow it.
He has a crate downstairs and sleeps in it from 10pm-6.30am no problems, unless he hears someone get up in the night then he does need to know we are around but soon settles.

we don't believe he has the iconic separation anxiety as he can mooch around the garden on his own, but often needs to know we are not too far away.

Any help or stories of your own would be really helpful.
Thank you!


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## 2ndhandgal (Aug 29, 2011)

There are a couple of different questions there so will separate them out:

Leaving - its really important to get pups used to being left and the vital part is them coping at the moment you leave. So this means you can practice lots as what you need to practice is settling them in wherever their place may be and leaving and coming back just for seconds. If all he can cope with is the front door closing and then opening again that is fine. You repeat over and over until he is bored of the whole routine and just gets on with whatever he may have to do chew or shred knowing you will be coming back. At this stage and ONLY at this stage you can start to gradually increase the time. 

Upstairs - my dogs have free access to my house and generally follow me around throughout the day. They both sleep in my room at night. Chance is the only one I have had from a pup and she started in a crate in my bedroom from day 1 which was perfect as she was always very happy in her crate, I could take her out in the night easily for the first week or so and from then on she slept all night and was clean overnight. If you don't want him going upstairs put a gate on the bottom of the stairs.

Separation Anxiety - dogs with separation anxiety can wander off on their own with the difference being it is on their terms and they can come back to you when they want to. When I first got Molly she was 17 months with awful full on separation anxiety, she would happily hunt in my garden without me and would have chased birds for miles outside given the opportunity. With me leaving she did not cope for a second and it was total panic as soon as the door closed. At approaching six months I would be putting some work in with your pup either on your own of get in touch with a good reward based trainer to help you - https://apdt.co.uk/find-a-trainer/


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