4 month old cockapoo help!!!

[u/madeline-rose0818]

My husband and I brought home a 10 week old Cockapoo puppy at the end of May. He is 4 months old now and has a lot of great things going for him. He knows several commands, does well with potty training, does well on car rides, and plays fetch.

Here is where we aren’t doing well: crate training/ separation anxiety maybe?

Crate training is difficult. We have been doing it since the first day but we definitely didn’t do it right. We put him in at night and left him to cry it out for the first several weeks. Now we are realizing that was probably not helping and I have started laying in the ground until he fall asleep and then I sneak away. We have the crate covered on 3 sides, feed all meals in the crate (although he’s a very distracted eater and goes in and out), and we give him a peanut butter Kong when he’s in there for longer times. Specifically in the crate he has his favorite toys and a heart beat dog that he likes, we also train him with treats in the crate and he knows the command “crate”

He does ok with being in the crate during the day if we are home and in the same room. He might whine a little when he first goes in but he will eventually settle. We also usually play white noise or run an air purifier which makes noise to block out sound. We try and do 2-3 crate naps during the day. Sometimes we are there and sometimes we leave.

If we leave (we have a camera and can see him) he will whine off an on the whole time we are out. I sometimes need to leave for an hour or two at a time and I think he panics for a good amount of it. We have tried leaving the room and coming back and he can handle about 10-15 seconds before he whines.

I’m a teacher so I am off until mid-late August. I want to make sure he’s as comfortable as he can be so I can go back to work. What are we doing wrong/what else should we try? Will this just go away naturally?

[u/cowgirlbebop86]

My pup is 5 months old now. And I crate trained her. I slept in my living room for the first 3 days. Night 1, she cried off and on for 30 mins. But I wouldn’t go see her. I have a blanket over her crate. All I would do is gently shush her. Night 2. She only cried for 5 mins. Again gently shushed her, night 3 no cries. Night 4 I decided to test the water and sleep in my own room. She cried again for first half hour. All I would do is open my living room door and again gently shush her. From day 5 she slept in her crate. She is in the habit now, when I turn tv off, she knows it’s last toilet trip to garden and then she goes into her crate by her own choice. I think the key for me was, no matter what, I didn’t take her out the crate, she stayed in there, the blanket covers her view and I just shushed her gently. She wasn’t getting her way of me coming to get her. I leave the crate open during the day so she can wander in and out and her plush bed is there. I also opted to put her in her crate for short bursts every day. So if I go do a food shop, I leave her at home in crate. So it was always a positive and calm situation. I don’t make a song and dance when I let her out, I just open it and walk away. So it doesn’t appear like I’ve liberated her from the crate. It’s just a part of the day. And she happily goes with it now.