# Non-stop crying and howling while alone



## littlemonstermaple (Dec 30, 2020)

Hi Vizsla Family, 

My Maple is just over 6 months old now. We moved across the country a month ago (she handled it REALLY well!). Before the move though, she always had another dog around and was only occasionally left fully alone in her crate (she is crate trained). However, I'm really struggling to get her comfortable alone. I've had to restart the training process (small increments alone) but I still need to live my life - like go to the gym and go out to dinner. I've tried playing the tv, playing music, and changing my routine before I leave but nothing seems to be working. She howls and barks non-stop.

I called a dog behaviorist and he thinks that it's the move and her just being a puppy still, that she will grow out of it. My concern is that this is something bigger and if it doesn't get course corrected, it'll only get worse. 

Does anyone have advice or input on this? I'm trying my best but there has to be something I'm missing.


----------



## Dan_A (Jan 19, 2021)

Mine turned 7mos recently and we still have our ups and downs with leaving her alone in her kennel. Sometimes all is well and she sleeps after barking for a short time. Other times I think she barks non-stop , at least when we check the camera , for a few hours on end. While we did kennel train her, I do think all the home / covid stuff has really not allowed for as much "practice" being alone as what would normally have happened when raising a pup in normal times.

For the most part we have decided that she needs to just bark it out. We spent a lot of time on kennel training since day one, she knows we will be back but just doesn't like it. She'll hopefully come to the conclusion that going mental won't do anything to change the outcome.

I'm sorry I don't have answers for you, but at least you know you aren't alone in dealing with this.


----------



## littlemonstermaple (Dec 30, 2020)

Dan_A said:


> Mine turned 7mos recently and we still have our ups and downs with leaving her alone in her kennel. Sometimes all is well and she sleeps after barking for a short time. Other times I think she barks non-stop , at least when we check the camera , for a few hours on end. While we did kennel train her, I do think all the home / covid stuff has really not allowed for as much "practice" being alone as what would normally have happened when raising a pup in normal times.
> 
> For the most part we have decided that she needs to just bark it out. We spent a lot of time on kennel training since day one, she knows we will be back but just doesn't like it. She'll hopefully come to the conclusion that going mental won't do anything to change the outcome.
> 
> I'm sorry I don't have answers for you, but at least you know you aren't alone in dealing with this.


Thank you for replying, Dan! It does help knowing I'm not alone! Today I went to the gym for an hour and she actually stopped crying for the last five minutes. I hope that means she's making progress, bit by bit lol.


----------



## rubicon (Dec 9, 2019)

I can only tell you what we did. I don’t know if it actually helped but it’s what our trainer had us do and he can stay quite and alone (and not crated) for up to 6 hours now. We haven’t tried longer and don’t particularly want to and don’t want him to hold in his pee that long! But we technically don’t know his upper limit. He doesn’t destroy anything either! 

Basically, baby steps. Find the smallest unit of time she’ll be alone without barking. Starting out it may be as short as 10 seconds. Leave the house, come back BEFORE that time is up, reward her then let her out. Do this several times a day when the time is very short. Once you work up to half an hour, you can do this once a day. It will feel very contrived at first but slowly she’ll be able to do longer intervals once she realizes that you leaving isn’t the end of the world and you always come back. She won’t like it (my dog still gets sad when we’re gone. He does this resigned sigh and lays down for a nap!) but she will know she doesn’t need to panic. My experience is, once my dog can do an hour he can do 2 or even several. 

We will deliberately leave him to walk to get lunch everyday so he can have his 30 minutes of alone time (we work from home so we can EASILY never let him have alone time if we’re not farted up. But obviously he needs to be able to do this!)


----------

