Second fear? Regression? Adolescence?
Hi team, feeling a little nervous and stuck so appreciate any advice or direction. My 8.5 month old Lowchen x Cav King Charles (Willow) is suddenly very upset when being left in her crate alone. She starts to pull down the covers and paw at the crate as soon as she realises we are no longer in the room. This started less than a week ago when my partner was away for 4 days on a work trip (she has been away for days-week before but there wasn’t any issue).
Willow has always not enjoyed being alone. Over the months since we’ve had her we’ve been gradually leaving her alone for periods of time with positive reinforcements for alone time, and she has been gradually improving. Being in her crate she can comfortably be in there for hours during the day and overnight completely fine - until this past week.
Apart from that I’ve also noticed she gets triggered a little more than before, barking at little sounds outside/people in the hallway, which she hasn’t really been doing, albeit does occasionally. Just doing a little more than before at the moment.
We made sure all her needs were met, walks, play, food and toilet. Not sure what else we could do? It’s day 4 of her banging on her crate door at night and we are just not sure why? We haven’t brought her to the vet to make sure there’s nothing else going on - should we? I just don’t want to bake in any fears that she might be having and undo all the progress that we’ve made in the past 6 months..
She has not had her first heat as well if that plays a factor.