Advice on moving to new home with dog

Cocolola

Hey guys. Overly long post ahead but wanted to include detail.

So I have a rescue dog, Ollie, who's roughly 2-3 years old. When I adopted him I was living in the family home which is in the middle of the country with a large enclosed field available to him (and the other family dogs) whenever he pleased.

I started college as a mature student in Galway last September and as I was staying in student accommodation, I could not bring him with me and had to make do with seeing him on weekends. He was well looked after by my mother (despite the constant feeding of scraps ) thankfully and he really does love it here, but he's extremely attached to me and my being gone during the weeks stressed him out (not eating consistently, moping around the house).

My fiancé has gotten a new job in Galway now too and is due to start in a couple of weeks so we're hunting for accommodation at the moment. Obviously we have full intentions of bringing Ollie with us and hope to find somewhere suitable that will accept pets.

It may not be possible to get a place with it's own garden and so I was wondering if it would be cruel to move him from having the run of the outdoors at home to apartment living? Of course he will be walked well in the mornings and evenings and I have sourced pet walkers for the days I can't make it back during lunch although that will only be once or twice a week. Between my timetable and my partner's work hours, he shouldn't be alone for more than 4 hours.

The other thing I'm worried about is how he will react to being left alone. I've caught him howling and screeching here on the few occasions he's been left at home with the other dogs and obviously I want to avoid this as we will have neighbours for the first time As I said, he's quite attached to me, follows me everywhere, even to the bathroom, so I guess this could be separation anxiety? I will have 4 months off from college this summer so I do have the time to do whatever training is necessary to help him get over this.

He's never been crate trained, is this something that we could do or is he too old or anything? Any other advice would be great. Should we look at getting a behaviourist in right at the beginning or wait to see if there's a problem first?

TL;DR Have a rescue dog with possible separation anxiety, moving to new house with him away from family home.

nala2012

There's a doggy daycare in galway if you'd consider that?

Cocolola

I just googled it. Looks great but we could only afford that once, maybe twice a week at most. But it's a great option to have, thanks!

At the moment, we're having a bit of difficulty in finding a suitable house. Most are anti-pets and the ones that aren't, have the idea that dogs are garden gnomes that, at best, will be "permitted" in the utility room at night :rolleyes: