Adolescent puppy regressing into separation anxiety

Hi,

We have a 9 month old Cockapoo. It’s been a challenging time, but in general we have been doing OK.

The one area we absolutely aced is the separation anxiety. As soon as we brought him home at 8 weeks, we gradually built up the time we left him and he nailed in. Longest we have left him is 5 hours without bother.

He is crate trained sleeping overnight with a pen attached.

Last week, things have taken a turn. During a session at home alone he jumped out of his pen and had free roam of the house. Fortunately nothing damaged, but he had acquired a cushion. Although he doesn’t bite anymore he is a compulsive chewer. He will destroy soft and even harder toys in only 15 minutes – therefore we are reticent at this stage to let him roam full time.

We were now forced to only have his crate which worked fine for overnight and we decided to let him have free-roam of the kitchen which we thought he would relish. He was ok for the first few days. But now we have issues highlighted below:

He wakes at 5:30am and barks/whines in his crate. He generally used to sleep/chill until 7am. We are trying the alarm clock method so that we don’t respond to barking only the alarm. Seeing small progress, but still barking in his crate.

It’s leaving him at home that is a challenge. I used the voice memos app on the ipad and regardless of whether we crate him or leave him be in the kitchen with all the toys in the world and lickmats, he will bark and whine. It’s not constant, he only barks once and then again after about 5-10 seconds. He also has 3-5 minute periods of calm.

I have to be clear that we need to get him out of this, although I WFH 90% of the time – I do have days when he will need to be alone across up to 6 hours (with a dog walker inbetween).

Is this teenage regression and will it get any better?

Thanks.