Alone Time Frustration: Vent + Advice Needed
My puppy is almost 1 year old, and we’ve had her since she was 8 weeks. Her alone-time training has been really up and down, and I’m starting to feel frustrated, helpless, and honestly a little defeated.
When she was a baby, she was very scared of us leaving. But by around 4 to 5 months old, we were able to leave her in her crate for about 2 to 3 hours.
Around 7 months, we started slowly training her to free roam while we were gone, and we eventually built that up to about 2 hours.
Then around 9 months, she regressed back to only being able to handle about 30 minutes. We slowly rebuilt her tolerance again and got back to around 2 hours, always with a lot of exercise beforehand. Even then, some sessions were still wobbly, like she would wake up from a nap and start barking.
We got her spayed around 11 months old, and now she’s about 3 weeks post-op. Since then, she hasn’t been able to handle even 30 minutes of alone time. I first started with her normal alone time routine (free roaming but realized she would bark constantly, jumps up and down from my bed, and keep checking the door), and now we are back to crating her…
The constant regression is really getting to me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong or like I’m failing her. It’s also really hard to have a normal life when we feel like we can’t leave because of the barking. We live in an apartment where noise travels easily, so that adds another layer of stress.
I’m not sure what to do anymore, like do I just let her bark it out? I don’t even know if this is true separation anxiety or just a rough regression period, and I don’t want to sound ungrateful because I know many people have it worse. But I’m really struggling.
Has anyone dealt with repeated regressions like this? Any advice, reassurance, or training tips would be really appreciated.