HannahGerk

Thank you for the info and tips! I’ve read a lot of the threads and have gotten great tips from them. Today I’ve left the house 5 times and just walk out (don’t tell him bye, he’s sleeping so I haven’t left him treats or anything). The first time he ended up getting up and going to the door at close to 10 minutes. He barked once. I actually talked to him through it and he stayed calm after that but also stayed by the door (didn’t go lay down). I Then waited to return inside Until he had stayed calm a few minutes. After that I shortened it to the 4-8 minutes and he has stayed in his bed. He watches me leave without getting up and then even stays in his bed/where he’s laying but does become alert and stares towards the door the whole time. I’ve returned at 4-8 minutes and giving him no attention upon returning 1) any tips to the above? 2) is it ok to talk to them through the camera? 2) does he know I’m just sitting outside in the garage as opposed to actually leaving? I did open/close garage door to make it seem more like I left.

Our beagle Bubba is 8 years old. He has always went in his kennel when we are gone and in general did well with that. We are usually gone 4 days a week for 8 hours with someone stopping home for lunch. About 1 year ago we had remodeling done and I think he didn’t like being in his kennel while workers came and went throughout the day. Since then we have not been able to get him used to his kennel again. He scratches at it, barks, and drools. We started to leave him free in the house while we’re gone for short periods of time and it seemed ok and continued to kennel him if we were gone for more than a couple hours. He has not been in his kennel for over a month due to me not working due to covid 19 closures. We thought it could be a good time to work on getting him used to just being free in the house. We got a camera recently and now know that he goes from chair to couch to end table to floor to door etc and barks, whines, howls. The howl is something we’ve never actually seen him do in person— a full out head to the ceiling and it sounds so sad. He will sit or lay quietly for brief periods of time but definitely is making a form of noise the majority of the time (maybe 75% of the time). He also goes to the door and scratches at it. I never saw him do this when I would look at the video (so it’s not the whole time we’re gone) but the paint on the door was quite scratched and a puddle of drool. We are working on brain training. I have read about counterconditioning and desensitizing. I think it is more isolation distress as I know he is fine home as long as a person is in the house-doesn’t matter who. He does like to be in the same room as a person but there are also plenty of times he stays sleeping in a room that no one is in. If there is no person in the house but we are in the yard working he seems fine with that. He will eat a treat/Kong when left alone. Very food motivated. We have used calm music and diffusing—not sure if they help but it’s easy to do. We’ve tried calming chews from the vet that don’t seem to change anything. Is it best to work on getting him used to being closed into a bedroom (the bedroom we sleep in and he sleeps in with us), the whole house like we’ve been doing, or work on getting him used to his kennel again? If we do the bedroom does it matter if we close the door or get a see through baby gate? I had the thought if we used the see through gate he might get used to being in there while I’m in other parts of the house. We definitely make our arrivals super exciting so we need to work on changing that.