My Dog gets lonely when we leave for work. What should I do??

Question

We adpoted a mixed dog. (german shepherd +???) we have a small condo and every morning when we leave for work or school (we take him for a walk first thing in the morning) he would start to make those noises that break my heart. Because he is lonely and he has to stay at home for 8 hours before we get back. What should I do to keep him entertained for 8 hours while we are gone? I do have couple toys for him but he doesn't play them really, all he wants to do is go out and spend time with us.

Answer 1

I can't believe that no one has suggested this yet:

There are dog toys, and then there are DOG TOYS, if you know what I mean.

There are dog toys that really make your dog work and think to play with them. Working and thinking tire dogs out, which will help them to nap while you're gone rather than freak out from boredom and lonliness. I have dogs who normally aren't all that in to toys. They don't fetch balls or snuggle with plush toys. But what they do do while we're away from home is play with their Kongs and Orka Jacks. These are toys that are designed for you to stuff some food or treats into (we will often feed our dog's entire meal inside their Kongs and Jacks--there's no such thing as a free lunch for our pups!), and the dog has to really work hard to get all the food out. One of my dogs has learned to drop the Jack down the stairs in order to help get a few pieces of kibble out. Imagine a dog running to the top of the stairs, dropping his toy, runnning down, picking it up, running back up the stairs and dropping it again and you can imagine how tired and ready to sack out this makes him.

Other similar toys are the BusterCube and Giggle Ball, both of which require the dog to roll the toy around on the floor in order to get a treat out of it. My dogs are far too lazy for these toys (they need more immediate gratification), but a lot of dogs will roll these things around for hours.

TVs and radios help for some dogs, but not others. I leave a radio on, but only to help drown out the noise from the street, which can sometimes set one of my dogs off barking.

Other things that can help:
-Don't make a big deal about leaving home or arriving back. Ignore your dog for 15 minutes before you leave, and don't give a big production when you come back home. Most likely your dog will do his whole big song and dance about how much he missed you. Just say, "That's nice, I missed you too" and wait until he calms down a bit to really interact with him.

-Leave and return for shorter periods of time, demonstrating to your dog that not EVERY time you leave will you be gone for hours.

-Crate training can also help some dogs (not generally dogs with true seperation-anxiety) become more comfortable with being home alone. Crates are like dens, and dogs sleep in dens. Being in a dark, comfortable crate with a toy or two may help your dog feel more like sleeping and less like crying.

True Seperation Anxiety (SA) is like your dog having a complete meltdown every time you leave. Not just barking or crying, but scratching doors and windows, chewing baseboards, ripping up furniture and carpet and just basically going on a rampage. This disorder requires serious behavior modification and consultations with your vet and a dog behaviorist. Given your description of just the crying/whining, it doesn't sound like your dog has SA. He's just lonely and bored.

Please don't get another dog just to deal with a behavior problem your current dog has. That is probably the absolute worst reason to get a second dog. I can tell you from experience that getting a second dog when your first dog has alone issues may not solve those issues. My SA dog still has SA even though he has a little brother now. Only get another dog if you really, truly want to have two dogs.

Answer 2

Lonely Dogs

Answer 3

I once had an elderly lady for a friend. She had a wonderful little dog. A mix of some sort. She had the dog trained well and it behaved very well. Learn here https://tr.im/SIjnC

She kept an uncovered candy dish on her coffee table with candy in it. The dog was forbidden to eat the candy. When she was in the room observing the dog he did not even appear to notice the candy. One day while she was in her dinning room she happened to look in a mirror and could see her dog in the living room. He did not know he was being watched. For several minutes he was sitting in front of the candy bowl staring at the candy. Finally he reached in and took one. He placed it on the table and stared at it, he woofed at it. He stared some more, licked his chops and PUT IT BACK in the bowl and walked away. Did he want the candy, oh yeah. Did he eat it? Nope. They can be trained that well but most, I'll admit, are not trained that well. When I was a young boy, maybe 5 years old. We had a german shepherd. He was very well trained also. My mom could leave food unattended on the table, no problem. She would open the oven door and set a pan roast beef or roast chicken on the door to cool. No problem. He would not touch it, watched or not. But butter? Whole other story. You leave a stick of butter anywhere he could reach and it was gone. He was a large shepherd so there were not many places he could not reach. Really, I think the number of dogs trained to the point they will leave food alone when not being supervised is very small indeed.
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Now if we are talking obedience training, not food grubbing, that is a different story. Way back when I was first learning obedience training one of the final exercises was to put our dogs in a down/stay and not only leave the room but leave the building for 15 minutes. The only person that stayed was our trainer, not the owners. Most of the dogs in my class did not break their stay, which would be an automatic fail. I'm happy to report my dog was one of the ones that passed.

Answer 4

Separation anxiety in your pet can be heart-breaking, I'm sure. Try leaving the radio or tv on so your pet doesn't feel 'alone'. Toys are a good distraction if your dog plays with them. There are toys on the market that you can fill with your dogs favorite treat and record a message into so your dog hears your voice when he plays with it. Try one of those toys, he may find it's the next best thing to playing with you and save those toys only for "alone time", that way it's like a treat. Also, try some 'practice' runs with him. Start off with just stepping out the door for a couple of minutes and give him a "special treat" as soon as you walk in the door - make it something he only gets after he's been left alone for awhile. Is there somewhere close to your entrance to keep treats for this occassion? Gradually work the "alone time" adding a couple of minutes to your absence each time. Always have a treat handy for when you come home so that your dog will associate "alone time" with a treat....treats are a good thing. Soon you will find that your dog will smile when you leave knowing he'll get a special treat when you come home.

Answer 5

Leave the TV on with the volume. The noise will keep him thinking people are there, plus he can watch the pictures of people. Tons of people I know do that and say taht it works very well. It sounds silly but you could record yourself talking to your dog and things like that on camera and just play that on the TV and loop it so he's watching you instead of other people.

Also, consider getting another dog for him to play with or have a dog walker come a couple times daily while you're gone.

It is also a good idea to get him tired before you leave (run instead of walk) so he sleeps and has less time to be awake and bored.

(Plus, give him TONS of love when you get home!!)

Answer 6

Our dog sometimes whines when we leave the house, though when I forget something and come back after a couple of minutes I normally find him curled up on his cushion happy as anything.
How long is the walk you take him for - more likely to sleep if he's tired!
Also, we bought our pooch a toy that you put food into, he has to roll it around to the the food out, idea is to keep him occupied for a while.
For a while we tried to make sure one of us got home at lunch for an additional walk every day.
Obviously all dogs and situations are unique and yours maybe more severe than ours, if he continues and he is stressed for the whole 8 hours you are away I would recommend talking to a local trainer. AKC have a list of clubs on their site.

Answer 7

The owner of the dog needs to know how to "operate" the dog, same way you can get into a car that's in perfect running order but if you don't know how to drive you won't have much luck making the car go anywhere. If the owner doesn't know how to maintain the training, the dog will soon become untrained again. Read more here https://tinyurl.im/7mGur

People seem to think that once a dog is trained, that's it. Not true. You must reinforce the dog's training every single day in some way. It's best if the owner and the dog go together to get trained. As a professional trainer once said to me "We can train any dog in 2 days. It takes longer to train the owners

Answer 8

When I first got my dog, she would be lonely at night b/c we had her sleeping outside. This sounds funny, but it worked.... our kitchen table was right next to the sliding glass door that led to the back yard. When our dog couldnt see anyone through that door, she would bark. So, we stuffed a pair of jeans and a button up, long sleve shirt with new paper. Then my brother had a bill clinton mask from halloween. it was the kind that covers your entire head. We sat that on top of the stuffed news paper body and put it all on a chair. we made it look like someone was siting at the table and it totaly fooled the dog! Maybe you can trick your doggie too!
Good luck!

Answer 9

Get your dog tired out before you leave and don't make a big deal when your leaving the door. Hire a dog walker, pet sitter or have a friend/ family member drop by to spend some time with the dog. Your dog need time to adjust to the new surrounding.

Answer 10

I ended up fencing in my backyard and getting another dog. Now they have each other when i am at work. Plus I installed a doggy door so they can go potty when I get stuck working 12 hours a day. I just had to make sure that they can't dig under the fence.

Answer 11

I know what you are saying.I had to cage them for a few weeks with something of mine..(old shirt or socks)that has my scent on them that helped. I would leave them a few hours a day on the w/end & when I came back inside I would let them out & show a lot of Love along with a treat for being good. It took some time but it did help. Now I can leave & they have the house, & no more probems.