Hello.
Apologies in advance for the long post! There are kind of two parts to this.
Firstly, my partner and I adopted a beautiful 1.5 yr old boy 2 weeks ago. He seemed fine being left for short periods for the first 3 days, but then at day 4 he became incredibly anxious whenever he thought either of us were leaving. He would pace and whine and follow us around. If either one of us left the house (even for a minute and even if someone else was still inside with him) he would cry and cry and work himself up into a bark. We live in an apartment unfortunately, so I anticipate noise complaints if this was to continue. I did a deep dive into online research (including Patricia McConnell's book) and decided to start alone training. For the past week we have been working on desensitisation, counter conditioning (up to about 5 minutes max, but with frequent relapses), calm greetings/leavings etc. He sleeps through the night fine on his own and he seems to enjoy spending time alone outdoors (he's been snoozing happily out there for the past 3 hours as I write this!). It is just indoors that is the problem. So, I'm not actually sure if I have just assumed that this is a separation anxiety/isolation distress issue, or if it is just him settling in a new environment? I haven't actually left for a long period to see if the whining/howling/barking continues, because if it is true separation anxiety then with alone training you are suppose to make sure you return before the dog becomes distressed (and I don't want to make the issue any worse for the poor boy!)
Now the second part - I contacted the adoption group about this and they suggested leaving him alone outside for long periods. I originally had not done this because I thought that greyhounds could not cope too well with the temperatures outdoors. However they advised that he would be fine as long as he has good shelter and a coat if it is cold. He actually loves it outdoors too, he often wants to go and hang out there even when my parter and I are home so I think it is his preferred place to be! I live in Melbourne (Australia), so the temperatures here aren't too extreme, but I do think that on hot days he would have to be indoors.
So now for the questions, thank you if you are still here after all of that!
1: Should I keep up alone training or should I just leave him for a longer period (while monitoring on video), and see how he goes?
2: What are your thoughts on greyhounds kept outdoors during the day? He has a huge kennel which is under shelter, warm bed/blankets, warm coats. For summer I was going to get a cooling bed, install a solar powered fan, have a paddle pool and lots of shade. I'm not too on what the max/min temp is that he should be left outside and couldn't find much about this online so any help would be greatly appreciated!. He sleeps inside in the living room.
Basically we want him to be comfortable being inside, alone, on days when it is too hot/too cold for him to be outdoors, and also if my partner and I wanted to leave in the evenings. However I'm also not sure if it will be more difficult to train him to be ok with being indoors alone when he is mostly outdoors during the day (he might be confused by the changes in routine?) We could do the alone training in the evenings and weekends, or also on random days during the week (I am working from home at the moment).
Any help/advise would be very much appreciated! Thank you!
