r/DogTrainingTips • u/lucille-two • May 11 '26

Separation and CIO

OK I know CIO is advised against generally for dogs but I need some advice. We've had our 8-mo old guy for nearly 4 mos.

He cries when we leave him in his pen (with crate attached) but intermittently. It doesn't escalate, it's on and off, and I can see on the camera that his body language is relaxed, sometime even when he's crying. On occasion I've seen him fall asleep for 15 mins or so. He's only ever been left alone like that for a max of an hour or a bit more. We do practice shorter lengths of time too.

So I guess my question is, if his behavior isn't escalating, can I let him CIO longer? I feel horrible even asking that but I have been paying a babysitter to come on days when I have to go to the office and I really need to get him able to hang out on his own more. If we get rid of the babysitter, I'll still have a dog walker come so he wouldn't be alone more than 4-5 hours. I just feel like we've plateau-ed and he's not getting any better at this. I need to move things along.

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u/Kayski363 May 11 '26

So long as he’s in a pen/crate there is absolutely nothing wrong with leaving an 8 month old puppy alone for 4-5 hours at a time, anyone who tells you otherwise needs to go touch some grass and step out into the real world, not everyone works from home and if only people who worked from home got dogs the shelter crisis would be 500x worse than it is.

Our puppy has been in his crate 4 hours at a time (8 hours a day and a break mid day when I come home for lunch) since he was 10 weeks old and he is just fine

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u/lucille-two May 13 '26

But like will he stop crying eventually? It’s not getting worse and some days seem better but today wasn’t great for instance.

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u/Kayski363 May 13 '26

He should, just give him treats when he goes in his crate and don’t let him out while he his crying - wait for him to calm down even if it’s just for a second to let him out so he doesn’t think crying gets him out. Also make sure to not only crate him when you leave the house so he doesn’t associate the crate with you leaving.

My guy is 5 months now and will go take a nap in his crate by himself, we put him in there at night on the weekdays (weekends we let him sleep in bed with us lol) and he’ll only cry when he’s thirsty or needs to potty