Do Puppies Get Homesick? 5 Signs to Look For (+Help Tips)

Homesickness is a feeling of loss and grief, a low-level depression where things aren’t right or as you expect.

Many young people feel unhappy when separated from their families, even when enjoying a fun activity like a week’s camp.

If you have to go away and leave your puppy in boarding kennels or with someone else, will your puppy get homesick?

What is Home Sickness for a Puppy?

Homesickness is a bundle of emotions, but they all center around loss:

• Loss of familiar surroundings.
• Loss of favorite toys or bed.
• Loss of routine – unfamiliar walks.
• Uncertainty over the rules – where to potty or find water.
• Absence of the puppy’s human pack.
• Change of diet.

Although the change may be for a day, a weekend, or a week, it is not the length of time that matters but the frightening loss of support and confidence for your puppy.

The 5 Signs of Homesickness

A homesick puppy shows all the usual signs of distress:

1. Cowering, trembling, tail between legs.
2. Loss of appetite.
3. Uninterested in playtime or walks.
4. Whimpering or howling.
5. Excess panting or drooling.

An upset puppy is also distressing for the puppy sitter because no one wants to think your puppy is suffering.

Does the Care Option Make a Difference?

When you need to leave your puppy, your options include:

• Boarding kennels.
• Relative or friend in their home.
• Relative or friend in your home.
• Paid dog sitter in their home.
• Paid dog sitter in your home.

Boarding Kennels

Boarding kennels are an affordable and secure option for your puppy, but most boarding kennels have the charm of a prison cell even with the best intentions.

The best boarding kennels typically provide an indoor heated area for the sole occupation of your puppy and access to an outside area. During the day, the puppy is walked and fed on a schedule.

Boarding kennels are not suitable for young puppies as your puppy needs current vaccination certificates to be eligible for boarding.

There is no human contact overnight, and strange dogs surround your puppy.

Most adult dogs (after two years) are reasonably content with a week or two in a boarding kennel with staff who are dog friendly.

Some dogs never accept a trip to the kennels and lose weight and develop behavioral issues associated with boarding.

Relative or Friend Providing Care

Most people prefer to leave their puppy with a trusted person who will treat the puppy as a member of the family.

These arrangements tend to be the most flexible and least disruptive for the puppy.

There may be familiar dogs and people so that the break becomes an enjoyable holiday rather than a prison sentence.

Your puppy can still miss you, but if the person they stay with is familiar, they may be happy that their routine stays the same.

Professional Puppy Sitter

Signing up with a professional puppy sitter gives you reliable and consistent care for your puppy on those occasions when the puppy cannot go with you for work or leisure.

The advantages of a professional puppy sitter are that they are insured (accidents do happen) and typically have extra qualifications – like dog behavior or puppy training.

The primary disadvantages of using a professional puppy sitter are cost (most expensive option) and lack of knowledge of other people’s behavior and attitudes.

Your Home or Elsewhere?

Keeping your pup in its home environment is attractive because it keeps the puppy in a familiar place surrounded by known objects.

But it might not be convenient for a friend or relative to move into your house, or you may be uncomfortable leaving a stranger inside your home while you are away.

Your puppy is adaptable, and if it must move to another home for a week or more, it will cope.

How Can You Minimize or Prevent Homesickness?

Homesickness is an emotional response to loss.

If you want to reduce or prevent your puppy’s feelings of homesickness, you need to look at preventing triggering the emotional sadness of separation.

At some stage, you will need to leave your puppy for several days because of life events.

Many life events like working away from home, hospital appointments, vacations, and family emergencies result in you needing to be absent from your puppy – planned and unplanned.

If you have a friend or relative who will be the alternate caregiver for your puppy when you are absent, you can work with your puppy to form an affectionate bond with that person.

Regular playdates and socialization mean that your puppy may not experience any homesickness if the other person is present instead of you.

If you need to use a puppy sitter when absent from your puppy, it makes sense to build a relationship between your puppy and your preferred sitter before going away.

One night or half a day out every second week is enough to create an association that this person is a routine part of your puppy’s life.

If your only option is boarding kennels or an emergency occurs, and you haven’t had the time to socialize your puppy with their temporary caregiver, then ensure your puppy has its own bedding, toys, and food to reduce the impact of the change.

Don’t Make a Production Out of Leaving

Your puppy does not have a child’s capacity to understand your explaining that you are leaving, but you will be back.

Your pup can learn to associate meaning with over a hundred words, but language and a sense of the future aren’t in your puppy’s grasp.

If you make a drama out of leaving, you encourage your puppy to worry and stress.

The most helpful approach for leaving your puppy relaxed and comfortable on your departure is to be straightforward. Pat your puppy, give it a treat, and hand it over.

Ensure your puppy sees you leave – don’t be tempted to sneak away while it is asleep or otherwise distracted. Your puppy needs to understand that you are leaving it behind, but it is not an issue.

Eventually, your puppy will grow into a dog that accepts sometimes it lives somewhere else, and you always come back.

When you return, make an enormous fuss, your puppy will appreciate it and associate your return with joy.

Does Breed Matter with Homesickness?

Your puppy’s homesickness is a form of separation anxiety – familiarity and routine are super important for dogs.

A temporary change in scenery is a wholesale change in everything the puppy knows, from people to familiar smells outside.

Some breeds like German Shepherds form deep attachments to their human family and feel more homesick than a more friendly breed like the Shih Tzu.

The more social links with other humans in other homes your puppy forms, the easier it is for your puppy to accept occasional separation from its “pack” home.

Will Your Puppy Forget You and Bond with Someone Else?

A puppy can remember people and other dogs, but the younger puppies haven’t formed the depth of attachment of a dog that has lived with you for years.

A week is a long time for a ten-week-old puppy (represents 10% of its life), and it may start to form a caregiver bond during your absence.

When your puppy comes home, it may experience a little homesickness for its temporary hosts, but that means it has a wonderful time and doesn’t miss you too severely.

If you need to leave a young puppy for several months with someone else, you may need to consider if this absence would be better as a transfer of ownership.

More mature dogs will grow fond of their temporary owners over several months but will still welcome you back into their lives.

For short breaks for work or holiday, your puppy may have a fantastic time on its holiday away from you but will be happy to be back to its routine life with you.

Your puppy won’t forget you.

Will Your Puppy Outgrow Homesickness?

Your puppy’s first experience (if you are the first owner) of homesickness is when it leaves its mother to move in with you.

Puppies cry and whimper at night because they miss their mother and littermates. Eventually, they adapt to your home and your routine.

Your puppy forms a bond and understands how life works. Going away to a boarding kennel or another house is a break in the routine the first time it happens.

If your puppy regularly spends time away from you in another location, that practice is part of its normal range of experience and less distressing.

As it grows up, your puppy becomes more able to weather its emotions, like feeling homesick if not at home for a few days.

Your puppy won’t so much outgrow its homesickness as becoming mature enough to cope with minimal distress.

Summary

Life means you will spend some days away from your puppy at some point.

You can help your puppy to adjust to its natural feelings of homesickness by preparing for a safe, secure, and familiar place for your puppy to stay when you need to depart.

If you find a puppy sitter (paid or unpaid) that welcomes your puppy like a member of their family, your puppy will be too busy having fun to worry about being sad.

It is probably you who will be missing your cute pup and demanding regular pup updates.