Since he was 8 weeks, I have been on point with his potty training. Since he was so young, I make sure he is supervised while he did his business. Once we are out there, he will do his business and we both come back in immediately afterwards.
He is now 5 months old and going to turn 6 months soon. Since I left for a little over a month, my husband has been leaving him outside to do his business without any human present. He says that he needs to learn to go potty by himself.
I thought he was still too young to have that much freedom and independence that he might not know what to do with it. My husband disagrees. Plus, he had a good point.. the North Dakota weather is now slowly turning sour. Neither of us are willing to stand out there in -40.
Let me say that my puppy does NOT have separation anxiety. He is fine being left alone, he sleeps in his own bedroom by himself (with a pen and crate and fav toys) at night, and doesn't cry when we leave, heck he doesn't even care when we come home, he doesn't greet us. He's pretty independent already to begin with, especially for a puppy his age. He didn't come this way either, I worked hard with him to get him this way.
Anyway, I figured I will slowly start doing what my husband says. He just puts the puppy outside and closes the door and leaves him out there for 20 minuets or so. What I wanted to do was babysteps. I do NOT leave him out there every time he needs to potty (he's got a strict potty schedule) but only about twice. I figured this way, he wouldn't expect that outside = alone all the time. I would increase his alone time out there the older he gets.
The times I do let him out by himself, he would just sit by the back door and look inside and look sad. Eventually (especially when he has to go really bad), he would go potty.. but he would potty on patio and come back to the door and sit there and stare.
He would potty much faster if I was out there with him. Poop and pee in the grass then he's done and we both go back in. Why can't he do that on his own without me there?
He's still pretty young at 5 months, though he's almost 6 months. I also think its because he's an only dog so being outside is kind of boring for him without a human. I have no clue. Hopefully he gets better. Im not sure if I should place a treat outside since I didn't want him eating where he goes potty.
