Last updated: November 25, 2025
Bet you didn’t expect that getting a puppy would mean you’d never get to go to the bathroom in peace, huh?
You knew puppies could be hard work, of course. But you didn’t think you were signing up to be held hostage by a tiny feral creature who screams bloody murder when you step out of their sight for two seconds.
Put them in their crate? They freak out. The backyard? They freak out. Leave them loose in the house? That reduces the screaming a little bit but now they’re also pooping on the floor.
You have no idea how you’re supposed to work, shower, or hear your own thoughts ever again.
Yeah. This unexpected phenomenon is one of the biggest sources of distress for puppy parents.
There’s nothing quite like the shock of suddenly being a prisoner in your own home to make you want to slam the “abort mission, get rid of puppy before they RUIN MY LIFE” button. It can make you feel seriously trapped, or seriously overstimulated from the constant noise.
Does this puppy have separation anxiety?
Is this just my life now??
Am I doing something wrong?
Should I ignore them until they stop?
Will I ruin them forever if I do this wrong???
I got you. We’re going to answer all of these questions today.
I’m also going to rant about how the usual advice for this issue (from “let them cry it out” to “slooooowly desensitize them”) makes dog owners feel like garbage. So make sure you stick around for the juicy bits.
Why puppies cry so much
First, the good news:
It’s probably not separation anxiety
I know it sure seems like they have separation anxiety. But in the same way that a person who has trouble focusing doesn’t necessarily have ADHD, crying when left alone doesn’t necessarily mean a puppy has full-blown Separation Anxiety Disorder.
Here’s what’s really going on
Your puppy is showing normal behavior for a baby animal who just had their whole world thrown upside down.
It would be super weird if Sparky didn’t want to follow you everywhere, frankly.
Think about it:
For social species like dogs, it’s unusual for defenseless babies to be by themselves. A puppy alone is a puppy in danger.
If you got your puppy from a breeder (or a rescue in some cases), there’s a very good chance they’ve never spent ANY time alone. Being alone is totally foreign and scary.
Or you might have a puppy from a shelter who was kept by themselves in a kennel for hours at a time. That’s traumatic for any dog, but especially for a dog in the phase of their development where they’re not meant to be alone.
This little pup lost everyone and everything they ever knew just a few days or weeks ago. Now they live with strangers who are inexplicably sensitive about what they chew on and where they pee.
I think it’s reasonable for them to be a little upset, ya know?
(It’s also reasonable for you to be a little upset. No one ever warns you about this part!)
See also: 7 Unexpected Challenges That Can Make Even The Most Prepared Puppy Parent Want to Throw in the Towel
The truth is that “alone time training” is as much a standard part of the puppy-raising process as potty training and obedience training
But the dog world doesn’t do a great job of communicating that. So even the most well-prepared puppy adopters can get left scrambling to do damage control as their screechy little bundle of joy throws a huge wrench into the logistics of their life.
How am I supposed to go to work? How do I get anything done? My neighbors/housemates are going to kill me!
If people knew this was a thing, they could factor it into their plans from the beginning.
So… is this a big deal? Do I need to worry?
The short answer is no, not really.
But here’s where it gets tricky:
The way you handle this does matter.
The way you respond to your puppy’s distress will shape their confidence, resilience, and how safe they feel with you down the line.
So it’s worth choosing a training approach that builds trust and helps the two of you come out the other side with a strong bond and minimal trauma.
And that’s where a lot of the advice out there fails people.
How to get your puppy to stop whining and barking and crying constantly
“How do I get my puppy to be okay being alone” has always been the number one puppy discussion topic among students in our online training school. Through helping all these folks get their lives back, it’s become clear to us that a lot of the messaging around this issue isn’t great.
The problem with a lot of the typical advice about this (aka Jake’s rant about the dog training industry)
Some advice seems to care only about the puppy, leading the humans to run themselves ragged and crack under the pressure of a rigid training plan that doesn’t work in the real world.
And some advice seems to care only about the human. Toss the puppy in the deep end and tell them “tough luck, better get the fuck over it because people can’t be expected to stop living their lives for you. Your generation is too soft, when I was your age I walked to school uphill both ways etc etc.”
How about something in the middle?
How about something that isn’t so mind-numbingly oversimplified?
How about we bring some actual nuance into the conversation?
Let empathy be your guide
Not just in a warm and fuzzy sense, but as an actual strategy.
Because when you’ve done endless pre-puppy research and been bombarded on all sides with the “YOU BETTER NOT SCREW UP YOUR PUPPY” messaging from the dog world, the information overload can paralyze you and make you second-guess every move.
So much advice out there, even the “positive” kind, conditions people to override their empathy.
Ignore the crying. Only reward good behavior. Don’t give in or they’ll learn that crying works. Be consistent. Don’t let them manipulate you.
But when you filter out the noise for a second and let yourself really imagine what your puppy is going through, suddenly this whole thing becomes a lot more intuitive.
Your puppy isn’t an emotionless treat-operated robot, and they’re not some tiny evil genius trying to trick you.
They’re a baby. A scared, confused, overtired, cranky baby.
Of course they freak out when you go away – everyone they’ve ever known has left them. Their mom. Siblings. All their previous caretakers. They’ve only been alive a few weeks, but they’ve learned that people leave and don’t come back.
So I’m giving you permission to be a human being and feel your feelings here. You’re allowed to use your heart, not just your head. Treat them how you’d want to be treated. You can even go nuts and comfort your pup when they cry.
You’re not reinforcing bad behavior. You’re laying the foundation of trust they need to become a well-adjusted dog.
“Cool cool cool, that’s beautiful but what the hell am I supposed to do when I need to take a shower or go to work?”
Fair point.
Because no, you can’t be with your puppy 24/7. And no, this approach doesn’t mean giving up all boundaries forever.
But instead of jumping straight into training them to be quiet when they’re alone, we help them feel okay being alone first.
Indulge me for a second:
Imagine walking into your bedroom and seeing a dinner-plate-sized huntsman spider on your wall above your bed. You know, one of those gigantic nightmare spiders non-Australians make jokes about every time they encounter an Australian.
How would that make you feel?
Well, it shouldn’t be a big deal.
You’re completely safe. Huntsmans are harmless to humans.
But somehow I don’t think you’re going to be able to just turn out the light and drift peacefully to sleep.
BEING safe is not the same thing as FEELING safe. Feeling safe is where behavior change happens.
Just get over the giant-ass spider lurking in the darkness of your bedroom.
You’ll get used to it.
Ha! Nah. Let’s get rid of the spider. Or at least put it in a secure tank and stick it in the other room. Now you feel safe(-ish). Now you can sleep.
And maybe now that the spider’s in a secure little tank, you find the intensity of the experience isn’t so bad. With enough time, you might start to think of the spider as a chill little roommate.
(Okay, that might be taking the analogy a liiittle too far. But you get the idea)
That’s what we need to do for your puppy.
Yes, your puppy is actually safe when they’re alone. You’re not about to go out real quick for a carton of milk and never return. But they don’t feel safe yet.
This is why we don’t rely on the cry-it-out approach. Because if you prioritize squashing the symptom (the crying and barking) over addressing the root cause (their developmentally-normal fear of being alone), you’re forcing them to just get over the wandering spider. And that can make this develop into a more serious anxiety issue.
The strategy for getting your freedom back: create a sense of safety and stability
By providing comfort and reassurance, we reduce the intensity of Sparky’s big feelings. Reduce the root cause of the freakouts, and you’ll get fewer freakouts.
Adjusting to being alone is a skill puppies build over time. It doesn’t need to be a big dramatic Training Project™. It’s more like a new normal you slowly introduce.
And don’t worry about fussing over rewards and punishments. We usually throw in the whole reinforce-the-behavior-you-want thing later. But not yet.
The first step
Alright, I don’t want to overwhelm you with a million steps. So here’s the ONE thing I want you to focus on this week:
Start with tiny, frequent doses of physical (but not visual) separation
That usually means setting up some sort of gate or pen situation so your puppy can’t follow you everywhere, but they can still see you.
At this point, think training moments, not training sessions.
Make it a normal part of life from the beginning.
For example:
- You step through the puppy gate to grab a drink from the kitchen while they stay in the living room.
- They eat breakfast in a slow feeder bowl while you brush your teeth or throw on a load of laundry.
These moments are short and sweet. 10-30 seconds, maybe a couple minutes max. The goal is to get them thinking: “Huh, sometimes my person leaves the room and it’s not the end of the world.”
Over time, add in visual separation
Briefly walking out of sight and coming back. A few seconds here, a minute there. Still casual and low-stakes.
If your puppy cries at this stage, just come back in – you don’t have to wait for them to be quiet first, or anything like that. At this point in the process, we’re not waiting for good behavior to reward, we’re building trust.
Key concept: staying (mostly) under threshold
You want the vast majority of these experiences to be below threshold, meaning your puppy doesn’t get upset and start crying. That’s how desensitization works:
Tiny dose + no big feelings = “Hey, this isn’t so bad.”
If Sparky flips out every time, you’re accidentally sensitizing them instead. “Yep, being alone is definitely as terrible as I thought.”
Shoot for around nine out of ten separation moments being under threshold. If that feels like a daunting task, you’re probably picturing moments that are too big. Remember, most training moments should be tiny. Microscopic, even.
So that’s how step one looks on paper. Now let’s talk about real life
You can’t always keep the puppy below threshold.
At some point, you’re gonna have to go to the bathroom. Or your human children are going to start hitting each other with sticks and you’ll have to go deal with that. Or maybe your puppy will be so sensitive that even walking three meters into the kitchen will set them off.
We call these medium moments. Not full-blown panic, but definitely a bit over threshold. Sparky’s barking or whining, but it’s more like “hey, where’d you go? Are you doing something fun without me??”
And, elephant in the room, you might have to go to work or school eventually. Not everyone can stay home with the pup long enough for them to completely adapt to alone time.
Bottom line: while you shouldn’t rely on “cry it out” as a training method, there will probably be times when leaving the puppy alone to cry for a while is unavoidable. And that’s usually okay.
Real life, part two. Forget puppies for a minute and let’s talk about you
Another thing that comes up again and again with our members is the feeling that they can’t do the things that keep them sane anymore.
“I like to ride my bike, but now I feel guilty leaving the house.”
“I need 15 minutes of quiet to not lose my mind, but my puppy won’t let me out of her sight.”
“I feel like I’m neglecting my actual human children because I’m spending all my time with the dog.”
Look.
First of all, you need to take care of yourself. For you. You matter. Kind of a novel concept in the dog world, I know. There’s so much emphasis on keeping our dogs happy and healthy, that you can feel pressured to sacrifice yourself and the things that make you feel like you.
And your puppy needs you to take care of yourself. For them. Because they need you to be capable of showing up with patience and compassion. Somebody has to be the emotionally-regulated grownup in this relationship, and it ain’t gonna be the little fluffball who’s younger than some of the leftovers in your fridge.
If the choice is between:
A puppy who occasionally has to be unhappy but lives with a human who is able to be calm and patient and understanding…
or
A puppy who never experiences a milisecond of separation distress but lives with a human who’s burnt out and hanging by a thread…
We choose option one. Every time.
Option two is where people snap. Where they yell, or use harsh corrections, or end up rehoming their dog. Not because they’re a bad person, but because their nervous system has been fried to a crisp.
So if that means the puppy has to sit in their pen and cry a bit while you go for a walk or sit in your car in the Taco Bell parking lot eating nachos, remembering what it’s like to feel human for ten minutes?
That’s okay. In our program, we can teach you how to mitigate any potential issues that might arise from this.
That’s enough to get you started, but there’s more to it
This isn’t a one-blog-post fix. This process is, well, a process. I didn’t cover all of it in this post because that would be an entire novel.
Want the full roadmap?
If this grounded, empathetic-but-practical approach resonates with you, we can help you implement it. We have a two-part workshop that walks you through the entire plan. The recordings are available on-demand to members.
The workshop includes:
✅ A detailed walkthrough of the process – Not just theory, but exactly how to do this in real life.
✅ Clear timelines and real-life examples – So you know what normal progress looks like.
✅ Guidelines about when to level up – From phase one (this safety-building stuff) to phase two (building resilience). Most people miss this transition and wonder why nothing’s working.
✅ Answers to common “what if” questions – Like “what if I have to go back to work tomorrow?”
✅ How to recover if your puppy panics – Because it WILL happen, and knowing how to handle it makes all the difference.
✅ How to tell the difference between normal puppy fussing and true separation anxiety – These issues look similar on the surface, but require very different approaches.
✅ A flexible approach – That protects your puppy’s emotional wellbeing AND your sanity.
✅ And here’s the most important bit:
You get direct access to dog trainers who can look at what you’re doing and tell you what you need to adjust – instead of you spending weeks wondering if you’re doing it right.
Because most people don’t need more information. They need someone to tell them if they’re on the right track or not. Or help them adapt the plan to their weird work schedule.
That’s what we’re here for.
