[Selestiel]

Hi fellow V parents!
Coming to you for your expert advice: how to teach/get the pup to stay at home alone, in peace and quiet? We live in an apartment building and leaving ours at home honestly makes me have panic attacks on behalf of the neighbours, and his own wellbeing.

Context: Our boy Buckwheat is now 4.5 months, and I work from home so I am constantly at home; except when I have to leave for errands or appointments.

Our crate training strategies have pretty much failed with a bang as he breaks himself out of it even when having his bed in there along with frozen Kongs and toys to entertain himself, and has been walked/pottied/tired out; as a result of the breaking-out he has torn skin off his snout twice, so we no longer put him in the crate when leaving home.
The one time since he has been left alone, he had made a pee-pool out of the hallway, broken into the cleaning pantry and attacked the vacuum hose, and was screaming his head off (I'd been gone for about 2 hours for a visit to the dentist's) when I came back. Again, he had Kongs with treats supplied but has seemed to not bother with them for longer than 10mins (only a little bit had been licked through).

Besides the aforementioned which is our main and most painful issue, behaviour-wise he's a rather calm pup (compared to some of the tales I've read on here), knows his basic commands, sleeps contentedly (wherever his bed is!) or plays with his favourite squeaky lion toy whilst I work, but being left alone without me in sight - he will absolutely not have it.

Any and all advice, experience stories or strategies on how to turn this around and make him comfortable with being alone and just sleeping through my absence will be highly appreciated, I thank you all in advance!

Picture of Buckwheat for your enjoyment below:

 

[Selestiel]

Can he be crated with you in the same room?

No, not really - he seems to just want to be out and not restricted, although I guess we can certainly start testing this option also - and building up time he is in the crate and alone.

 

[Selestiel]

Beautiful dog, but I am a sucker for Vizslas!

I worry that the answer might be "you can't expect to leave a 4 month old Vizsla alone for 2 hours". I mean, sometimes you can get away with it, but unless everything lines up perfectly it is likely to go the way you experienced. A more realistic goal might be to work toward having a dog that you can create eventually, and just accept that you'll need a dog sitter until the dog is a little older. For better or worse, you've got the equivalent of a 3 year old human child who can't be left alone.

Second, there are crates that a dog cannot break out of, and where they are much less likely to injure themselves if they try. You are definitely right not to leave your dog in a crate where they injure themselves, but changing crates might help. At 2 years old we do fine in any crate, but you might need one designed more like this: https://rufflandkennels.com. Also, are you covering the crate? We usually had a calmer dog when the crate was small, comfy, and completely dark.

Good luck, it will get easier as your dog gets older.

Hi! Yes, his crate is completely covered bar the door part Thanks for the tip on the different crate type, I will look into it for sure!

I do understand completely that Vs are super-clingy, that was one of the reasons we chose a V - however unfortunately we don't yet have dog-friendly doctors' offices so there are some times he will need to manage on his own. The best way forward from the comments seems to be to start from scratch with building alone time so that's what we will try.
Definitely appreciate that Buckwheat is still a baby and thus struggles more with frustration at being without me - in your own experience, did you feel like your V got the idea of crating/being alone when taught when they were a smaller pup? My hope is that being at a highly teachable age he will just get used to it easier or learn it easier - does that actually happen?

Thanks again for your input!