# Help!



## RachCalGaryLewis (Feb 17, 2018)

Hi
We have had our Cockapoo Solo for a week now. He gets extremely agitated when we leave the room and if we go out. He barks, yelps, howls and tries to escape. He has a crate but we don't lock him in; he has a pen around which contains a pad, water and toys. 
He sleeps in our room for now in his bed again with the crate around and he slept from 10:20-5:20 last night. We are going to begin trying to move him out after tonight. 
My husband works shift and I am really worried come Monday when me and the children go back to school and he will be in bed as he is on nights. We have arranged for a dog walker and family members to visit every dinner so Solo is not on his own all day. 
What can we do to help him not get so wound up? He escaped from the pen today and I have no idea how.
Neither myself or my husband have had a dog before and we just want to do what is best for him.


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## beckymnd (Oct 17, 2017)

Hi

He's only still VERY young - you need to really build up the time he is spent on his own rather than expecting him to be okay right away. He needs to be around humans as much as possible at this age.

Let him follow you around the house for now but aim to ignore him as much as possible, try not to make it feel like following you around the house is super fun - ensure it's puppy proofed and anything dangerous to him is moved out of reach. To avoid toilet accidents you can tether him to a house line perhaps (basically just keep him on a long lead). 

Work on building up the time he is left in the pen on his own. Each time you leave him, make sure the puppy pen is a super fun place to be, pop his favourite toy in there, along with some treats and a stuffed frozen Kong to keep him busy. You'll need to gradually work on this, unfortunately it's not a case of pop him in there one day for a few hours & he's fine. You'll need to leave him for a minute, 5 minutes, 15, 30... etc. The aim here is to make it feel like you leaving the room is a GOOD thing, as he gets a super awesome treat each time. 

I can't really comment on how long to be leaving him for in total at just 10 weeks, as Dexter came into work with me every day, but I would say no longer than an hour at a time for a pup that age. Keep the freezer stocked up with stuffed Kongs, to make it easy, these can include part of his daily food and just closed up with some peanut butter or cream cheese. Make sure each time you leave him he's been sufficiently worn out a bit, such as schedule a training session or play time right before you need to leave for 10-15 mins.

RE: Night times, I had to deal with this as my partner was coming home around 2am sometimes. Dexter was in his crate in the living room at this point, and when he'd come home, he would approach the crate with no interest whatsoever, pick Dexter up and take him outside for a pee with just a gentle 'good boy' when he went - then back into his crate for the night with no interaction. 
He'll likely wake up and make a ton of noise for the first few nights / weeks or so, but he will get used to the routine & hopefully won't make a fuss after a while. 
Another thing I did, which is possibly not the easiest but worked very well for us, is he called me when he had arrived home, and I got up and let Dexter out to the toilet while he let himself into the house. I was being woken up by Dexter needing to pee at this point anyway, so it didn't make that much difference for me. 
We let Dexter say hello briefly, but kept interaction down to a minimum, then Dexter was crated again for bed. This avoided excessive barking / noise & waking our older dog and the neighbours up!


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