We recently got a golden retriever puppy and we are having trouble with night times. For context, our house hold is myself, my partner, and our 5yo Golden Retriever. When raising Arlo, based on the info we had available. We made a safe area for him to be in during the day when we weren't home and also slept there at night. We gave him treats and toys in there and tried to make it as fun as possible. This worked really well and he is now confident sleeping wherever, which was our goal. With our new pup we wanted the same thing, we have followed the same process but she cannot stand being in there. We put her in there for naps during the day and she is okay, as soon as she wakes up she whines to come out, we have been waiting for 30sec of quiet before we get her out so we don't accidentally reinforce the behaviour. At night it gets a lot worse, we go to put her to bed and even if she is dead asleep as soon as it we close the gate and turn the light off. Instant whining which turns into panicked vocalisation, this can last for upwards for 30 minutes before she falls asleep. We initially thought it was due to toileting but we have got her a grasspad she uses with no problem during the day and at night. But the problem is exactly the same. We are now at the point we are worried we are creating some form of separation anxiety. So we will most likely have her sleep in our room with our other dog and us to hopefully ease that.
This has come down to my big worry. What do we do when no one's home, I have read through the wiki and from what I can find it essentially comes down to repeated exposure of increasing time by herself in there. But literally as soon as she is put in there she starts whining, so I'm not sure if that is even the right approach?
Any guidance or suggestions on this would be much appreciated
submitted by /u/Cripix5
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