our pomeranian pup has just gone 6 months last week and has always been great with being left alone. we started with small timeframes when leaving him alone during the day and have managed to work him up to 4 hours max, he even spends the whole night from 11-7 on his own with no issue and has since the second week we brought him home. he always gets puzzles/brain games or long lasting chews and has always been fine up til now.
since hitting 6 months, he's started whining and barking when left on his own. at first it was just one or two barks before he settled, but it's progressed to 2-3 minutes of barking and even scratching at the door today, as well as tearing up paper/cardboard items we accidentally left lying a few times. it never lasts longer than that, and he always seems content/settled when we do return.
is this early signs of separation anxiety or just normal "teenage" development that he'll grow out of with reinforcement and consistency? I'm debating going totally back to basics and rewarding for just 5-10 seconds alone and gradually increasing the time, but other family members think this might actually hinder him more than help.
we had a bad experience with extreme separation anxiety in our last dog who was a rescue, we ended up making the very difficult decision to rehome him for a multitude of reasons, so i think it's bringing back negative memories and everyone's a little stressed about it. I'm just not sure what to do for the best.
any advice or personal anecdotes would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advance !
submitted by /u/sourmudkip
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