3 Tips for Leaving Your Dog Home Alone

It’s very likely that you have experienced the consequences of leaving your dog home alone. You come home to find that he or she chewed your furniture or destroyed your shoes. There are actually many things that can cause a dog to have all kinds of behavior issues such as anxiety. When you leave your dog alone this can trigger that anxiety easily. Today I will give you some great ideas on how you can make sure that your dog is not going to get overly anxious and create a mess in your house when you leave for hours or even days.

Dogs tend to be very nervous by nature when they are used to being alone even if they are in a familiar environment. Here are some of the best things you can do to help your pet feel safer and more confident when left alone:

Teach your dog independence

A dog can easily become clingy and this is something that a lot of pet owners allow to happen. The reason why we don’t mind doing this most of the time is that we feel like we are always going to protect our dog anyway. We feel like our dog is not going to be homeless and that our dog is never going to have to scavenge for food in the streets. Even when this is very likely true, you will need to allow your dog to learn to be independent. When you have a pet that lives with us at home, you need to make sure that it can be alone for a few hours a day at least.

The best way to do this is to take your dog to the backyard and put some toys out there that can entertain the animal too. If you notice that your dog starts to bark and howl then this means that the animal is getting anxious. You should allow for the dog to calm down alone, even if he ends up howling for the entire two hours. You should not reward the dog giving him or her access into the house. If you do this, the dog will know that by barking and howling it will be allowed inside. this is a terrible ay to handle the problem, so even if you feel bad, leave the dog outside and don’t let the dog in until the barking stops.

Don’t be too emotional

There is nothing wrong with loving your dog and giving the dog a good life free of harm and abuse, but some people can go from caring and loving to overly emotional. this is not the right way to treat your dog. Your dog is like a child in that you can spoil him or her. Just like a child, the dog is not to blame for this. One way to combat this is to stop making a big deal of coming back home. If your dog gets jumpy and anxious, just wait until it calms down and then pet your dog. Don’t talk to your dog like it’s a baby ether. this not a tone of voice for a master to have. You are the master and this is not a bad thing. You need to learn to lead your pet or it will feel like it has control over you.

Always punish bad behavior and don’t always reward good behavior

It might be tempting to always reward your dog for doing things right, but the behavior that is not anxious or needy is supposed to be normal. If you reward your dog for normal behavior, you will train him or her to expect a treat for it and this will be confusing when you have no treats. If you want to reward your pet, you can pet his or her head, but the best time to pet a dog is when there is no specific reason to do it.

If you’re going to be away from home for a long day at work or vacation, check out Saint Louis Dog Walkers dog walking and pet sitting services available. We can take your pet out for exercise when you get busy.