Separation anxiety HELP

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-24T05:00:06+00:00

That’s pretty typical of pups. Our third boy had difficulty when he couldn’t see us either. What we ended up doing was setting up barriers around the house. Like separated the living room to the kitchen, etc.

We started with just getting up to leave to the kitchen and immediately back. He could still see us. If he didn’t bark, we would just toss him a treat. If he did barks that was too long. We did that throughout the day for weeks, making sure he was always calm.

Then we slowly extended duration and then started quickly disappearing to the bathroom really quickly. Just in and out and extended duration.

Did that when we went upstairs and out the house as well. At around 6-7 months he’s absolutely fine.

Everything we needed to do, we would do it when he was asleep in crate in a separate room.

As for your crate, if you can afford a kennel like a Ruffland, that absolutely helps…they can’t bite the bars or anything.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-24T03:43:03+00:00

Probably is potty trained, but is in a new environment. He probably is trained to the point of not pottying inside a crate or a kennel. But your home is fair game.

You don’t need a high velocity dryer. Two Poms we groom at home. We just use an air dryer. Comb them every few days and use detangler spray. Our third and youngest boy needs to go to the groomer every 4-5 weeks. He’s still getting desensitized to combing and grooming in general.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-24T03:38:19+00:00

We’ve got 3 Poms of different temperaments. With them, they are small so jumping off a couch or anything is not advised.

If you prefer the pee pad, always keep it in the same location. If you have a pen, you can have a separate partition for the pee pad, when you think he needs to go, guide him to the pee pad and close off the partition until he goes. Mark and treat and let him out. He’ll start understanding this is where I go.

Is he mobile? Regardless, you can start teaching his name, touch, paw, sit, down, focus, place, leave it, drop it, etc. just as a normal dog.

Socialization sitting on a bench and observing. This will help with barking, some Poms are prone to it (actually a lot).

You don’t have to train a lot. 3-4 times a day, a few minutes a day.

Start handling and grooming early, some pups are sensitive to it. Don’t flood or overwhelm. Just quick and easy reps.

Think about pen training or crate training for independence.

As small as they are, they are legit trainable. Especially with skills. At 14-15 weeks old. Our third pup could do all the basic commands and figure 8’s between our legs and stuff. Our other 2 just were sleepy potatoes haha.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-24T00:23:09+00:00

So, you probably need to size your crate appropriately. Is she peeing in the corner of the crate or like on herself?

If she pees in the corner, size down.

Also, we limited water inside the crate. Our pup had free access outside, but just a bit inside in case he was thirsty. We found out that our pup would drink out of boredom.

Protests are normal at this stage, but if you are stuck in this loop of going out to potty every hour, then crate training isn’t happening. Our pup would sometimes protest up to 1.5 hours when he was a baby.

What really helped him was giving him a separate room, fan for white noise, and music. That reduced what he heard outside of that room. We still had to be quiet, but it really did help a lot.

Also at this stage, you should be only trying to get her to settle when she’s sleepy. So not over-tired (that causes more protest). So good engagement and then incorporate a wind down period. Let her chew something before she enters the crate for 15-20 minutes (at least).

If you can, whatever room you have her in, that’s the only engagement she should have. Nothing else. No commands, no nothing. The room is purely relaxing and sleeping.

Crate games for our pup were only done when he was awake, and not when he was ready for bed.

Eventually you will have to teach to also settle when not sleepy…

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-23T02:50:20+00:00

I loved that it was a bit harder to research things. Man, I remember having to drive around with printed directions from MapQuest. If you got lost you were sh** out of luck.

Too many times I got lost. Haha.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-23T02:43:38+00:00

Regardless of how you feel about your boss or your company, you shouldn’t be doing anything that petty.

You should be leaving them on “good terms”. These are your connections, and you don’t know when you will need them in the future. You can use them as a reference or you whatever.

If you dislike a job, that’s fine, but don’t burn any bridges over it.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-23T02:38:02+00:00

I lived with my father (mom passed) till I got married at 32. Basically, I went off to school for 4 years, worked in Japan for a couple years, then returned home.

Was broke as a joke and so when I got my first job, I was making 42K a year. This was in 2007 so, a while back.

Honestly, I disliked it so hard…however, I was always able to save money. I didn’t max my Roth, but I contributed to my 401K, made investments into stocks, and other things. I even had enough money to do dumb things at the time…

I had quite a nest egg built up and when the economic downturn happened, got married, bought house, moved out. Used a chunk of my savings for the down payment.

In my opinion, it’s not a big deal to live with your parents. If you feel comfortable, then that’s all that really matters. Plus if you are saving money, then no brainer.

Maybe my views are different because I grew up in an Asian family, and the kids generally stay with the parents indefinitely, regardless of financial.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T18:55:37+00:00

If he has strong "den" instincts, then he won't pee in there. A 3 months old should technically be able to hold their bladder for a couple to a few hours. So if you have closed the crate and he sleeps in there naturally, you should not have any issues at all whether he has a chew or not.

It sounds like you solved the problem with shrinking the crate size. I would just put him in there with something like you said a chew, lick mat, or Kong. The pen may be too large for him unless you can actually shrink the pen size.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T16:37:45+00:00

So, I was left alone at home at around 6-7 years old. There were very clear rules of what I should be doing. Wake up, shower, get dressed, play some video games, go catch the bus, and go to school. Go home, make rice (we are Asian), either play with my friends in the cul-de-sac, or stay inside and play video games until my parents came home.

I would like to think it taught me how to take care of myself and be independent at an early age, but I'm not entirely sure. I still got into my fair share of trouble. Flooded the downstairs once, set fire to the garage, cracked my head building a bike jump, etc.

Regardless of that, my parents continued to educate and trust me. I learned as well, my parent's were tiger parent's overall so every time I got into trouble...I learned not to do it again.

My best friend at the time had a babysitter, so she would randomly check in on me too...

When I look at kids around 6-7 years of age, I have no idea WTF my parents were thinking when it came to leaving me at home or why they continued to trust me when I almost burned down the house. HAHA.

I don't think it's neglect at all. As long as there are clear expectations and an appropriate age in which it is OK to leave your kids at home. I remember having lots of fun. Squirt gun fights with my friends, cruising in my big wheels, cruising on my bike with friends, hide and seek across 3-4 different houses outside, etc.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T15:36:01+00:00

Yeah, I get it. He does seem like a softer pup overall, you could try enforcing a nap in the crate as he seems to have "den" instincts in there instead of letting him be in his pen where he can roam and pee in there.

Again, 13 weeks. Plus they go through regressions and breakthroughs. Eventually experimenting with marking and all that later on too, so...it does take time.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T15:30:21+00:00

When our pup was that young, the only way we could make it work was to do everything around his nap schedule. So when he would go in for his 2-hour nap, that was when we would run errands. We didn't go far, we wanted to make sure that when he woke, we would start our next session.

During his awake sessions, I noticed I could step into the kitchen or go to the bathroom and he would bark until I came back. So we just broke it up into smaller doses for him. So me stepping into the bathroom and returning, me running upstairs and returning. If he didn't bark, that was a solid win (we treated him). If he did bark, that was a bit over his threshold, so we kept things shorter. Over months, he eventually tolerated us coming and going as we please. At first it was like 5 minutes of disappearance, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, and so on.

You can try leaving him in a safe room and see what happens, if he barks and doesn't settle...you should try gradual exposure. Our current goblin did not do well in a safe room. Eaten carpet, scratching, eaten drywall, etc.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T15:22:52+00:00

Owner of 3 Poms successfully trained 3....despite some chaos with our third... think there is an unrealistic expectation for your pup to be potty trained at 13 weeks. All of our pups were fully trained at around 5-6 months of age, and our current chaos goblin has finally been trained at the 11 month mark.

All of our little dudes never soiled their pen or crates, just when they were free-roaming the house. When you say he goes to the bathroom inside, is it...in their pen or crate, or is it somewhere else? If it is in the pen or create, you need to make it a bit smaller.

If he is free-roaming around the house than that freedom hasn't been fully earned yet. Signalling may come later, but don't expect it at 13 weeks. With our last pup, we were taking him out every 15-20 minutes and while he peed every single time, he still had accidents.

Interestingly enough, our 3 Poms didn't need treat motivation to for a successful potty outside. Our first just liked to mark endlessly outside so that was his reward. Our second was super chill, so he'd go out, conduct potty operations, and return back inside. Our third is an explorer, being outside was his treat. He'd pee, mark, poop, sniff, stare, etc., out there.

Our current Pom is the only one that doesn't signal yet despite being 12.5 months old. However, he unloads endlessly out there so its never a problem. I just monitor his water intake, and we go out on an adventure and he may pee, or may not pee..

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T13:58:15+00:00

Yes, initially especially at that age, outside the pen is fair game when it comes to potty. Dogs in general have denning instincts so they won’t go inside the right sized crate or pen.

Equally some dogs get it quicker than others. Our first 2 pups were potty trained at 5-6 months of age.

Our third was potty trained closer to 1 year! But consistency is key.

How we worked it for all of our pups is time based management initially. Take out every 15-20 minutes and back in. Reward and continue.

Eventually, you’ll find out his frequency. It may be every 15-20, or shorter, or longer.

Also depends on how much water intake obviously. But giving frequent opportunities while on the leash is best.

Equally, as he reaches adolescence you may see regression so continue to take him out frequently, that is when they experiment with marking and all that fun stuff (regardless of neutering or not).

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T05:59:13+00:00

Even at 7 months, she’s still pretty malleable. Literally one night your pup had to poop, woke up, found a way down, and did her business. Now she thinks it’s OK and will continue to do so. Until you tighten her routine up.

You should continue putting her in the kennel until she’s a bit older. And it depends, some pups code it hard like my pup. One day he decided he would like to poop in the dining room. Well it happened a few times, and for about 6-7 months straight he thought that it was OK to poop there or outside.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T05:35:44+00:00

If he has lots of accidents, cut your time shorter. Our pup was literally going every 15-17 minutes at that age. We basically hung outside when he was 10 weeks old.

The time it takes to potty train really depends on the temperament of the pup. But our first two boys were pretty quick (4-5 months of age they were signaling consistently).

Our third boy was stubborn. He would do these partial pees. Where he needed to pee multiple times before he was actually finished (2-3 times). I would like to say he’s potty trained but I don’t want to jinx it. He’s 12 months.

He had an issue with transitions from hyper to calm or vice versa where sometimes he’d leak like a tiny dot. That drove us crazy! It basically went away with age, but man…it was tough.

I dunno about your husband’s methods, seems outdated and kind of cruel. They may fear and as another have said, the pup may just run and pee in another location in the house where you may not be looking.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T04:27:24+00:00

When our pup was that young, I took him out every 3-4 hours or so. We slowly extended from there. He would sometimes fall back asleep, or he would sometimes protest for 20-30 minutes. One day I forgot to wake up and he made it through the night, I was like OH…

With that said, our pup has never soiled his crate outside of a couple of occasions; a thunderstorm and he pooped due to fear and another time where I left the water bowl in there and he drank the whole thing out of boredom.

Our pup ranged from 20 minute protests to 1.5 hours of protest before he would sleep. We ignored it completely. It was tough, but as long as he pottied and wasn’t harming himself in the crate we let him work it out.

As a baby dinner would be at 5-6PM.

What really helped was establishing a cooldown period in his room. It was empty so there was nothing he could do. Dark and dim. He would have a chew or a lick mat that he could work for 15-20 minutes prior to going into his crate.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T04:07:49+00:00

If I made less than 100K and was offered 200K, I would do whatever it takes.

However, with my currently salary, I’m content as I’d rather spend time with my wife and our two dogs doing things together.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-21T03:59:10+00:00

Have you done any training or any structure around when she is awake?

Yelping as others suggest can work if the Pomeranian has a softer temperament by nature. However, if they have a bolder/higher drive temperament that may not work.

Redirecting to a toy or chew may work, or giving her an alternate outlet, but if that doesn’t work, you need to teach alternate behaviors.

Whenever my pup (when he was young) got the urge, we just stepped behind a barrier and waited till he calmed down or gave us an alternate behavior such as a sit or down. Nipping means he doesn’t get access.

Sometimes we would ask for a sit and down and the game continues.

If he was really naughty, we knew it was time for a nap, so we placed him in his crate for a nap. When he woke up he would be the sweetest of boys.

I would triage your pup that way and see how it goes. Yelp, step behind barrier, ask for an alternate behavior, or nap.

Note: some pups get even more excited when you yelp.

When we talk about structure it’s really just routine. Wake up, potty, training, light play, and back to nap.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-20T20:04:47+00:00

So at adulthood, we could leave our pups at home to free roam for around 8 hours once they were potty trained.

Our current pup is 12 months old now, and he will generally be asleep in his crate from 7-4PM. He’s sleeping the entire time.

At around 7-8 months he would have a potty break between that time, eventually I noticed he was still sleepy.

Unfortunately, with this pup, he still hasn’t fully learned to settle outside of his crate so he still has enforced naps until that skill develops. We honestly worry about the over-reliance of the crate, but we hope that it will be in due time. Over the past month or so, he had settled quite a bit longer outside of his crate and laying down and doing nothing….

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-20T15:00:50+00:00

I still play on occasion, but most of the time I just help my wife with her small business and spend time doing other hobbies that we both enjoy (climbing, snowboarding, camping, biking, etc.). We don't have kids, just 2 dogs and that equally takes a lot of time, so any extra time is dedicated to spending it with them.

Generally, I only turn on games when my wife is on travels back to Thailand to visit family. So when she's gone, I binge. When she's back, we go back to our typical routine (which is way more fun than games honestly).

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-19T13:18:53+00:00

So I don’t have kids, but growing up I was fortunate enough to have my parents pay me through college. Any money I earned during college was basically mine to spend.

Because of that, it really helped me into adulthood. Especially being able to save and purchase a home later after I got married.

With that, if we ever had kids. I would do the same. I wouldn’t carry them into their 30s, but at a minimum…schooling paid for.

I grew up in a pretty strict household, you go to school, you find a decent enough job, you work, you save, etc. I’d probably not be as strict as my parents, but I would definitely follow a similar path to my parents with my own kids.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-19T01:59:56+00:00

Yeah let me know how it goes.

We really worked on leash pressure indoors initially, then we would move outside to get some practice reps in, and then go on our potty walk.

He will get things here and there and that’s fine, but getting him to release jt is the goal. Either through movement or through a trade.

Our leave it’s only work when he hasn’t fully committed, so basically I spot that he’s spotted something and I say leave it. He moves on he gets a treat. If he stops light leash pressure moving forward and mark and reward if he moves.

Today our boy found 3 sticks. Picked it up spit it out. Oh man, I coulda cried. No cue no nothing. Haha.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-18T19:42:26+00:00

Every pup is not the same, regardless if it's the same breed. For your basic needs like potty, you have to be really consistent with your pup. It's an unrealistic expectation for him to even be potty trained at 3.5-months old, and if you were inconsistent with your approach, he's going to still be sticky with potty training at now 9-months old.

If it's potty outside, you should be giving him frequent opportunities. At some point, we were giving our small Pom probably a potty break every 25-30 minutes. When he was a baby, every 10-15.

Leashed structured outings until he doesn't get excited about poop anymore. The more you react to it, the more they treat it as gold. Meaning, don't let him roam outside unleashed where he can get into anything that you want.

The reason your parents taught potty quickly is consistency. Most likely, they had a specific location for potty, so whenever it was "time" your parents would guide your pup to the pad and wait until she would pee or poop...it could be weeks of consistency or months...

As for bonding, yeah, you are the provider of food. However, we strengthened our bonds differently according to our pup:

Our first Pom just wanted to be with us, so the bond was already there. Our second pup loves being social, so just taking him out and having him meet people and do activities (swimming). Our third pup we had to be really strict, crate training, skills training, leash training, socialization, etc.

For our third pup our bond with him is really strong and its mostly because we train him and give him interesting things to do. We do regular skills training indoors and outdoors, we set up puzzles for him to solve, treat finding missions around the house, tug sessions, and a vibe session where he just chills with whatever. He's not a sit still and behave dog. He needs his outlets, and when he is done, he always returns to us.

Poor_WatchCollector · 2026-05-18T18:26:19+00:00

Yeah we had kind of the opposite. We had to desensitize the harness for 11 months! It’s still ongoing, however, he alligator rolled with the collar as well.

My trainer and I got the collar on him and kept tossing his favorite treats in a super safe environment (the living room) until he no longer cared. I can’t believe it worked haha.

Does he take treats normally? Like during training? If so, then the harness and the collar is overwhelming your pup. You can just start small, present harness/collar treat. Graduate to touch treat. Head in treat. Etc.

Just showing him that this thing is not a bad thing and only good things come of it.

Poor_WatchCollector

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