Start Impossibly Small

Begin with absences so brief the dog has no time to worry. Pick up your keys, step outside, shut the door, and come back within five seconds. Stayed calm? Repeat, then add five seconds. Panicked? You moved too fast.

Stretch the absences in tiny steps over days and weeks: five seconds becomes ten, then thirty, then two minutes. Expect a bumpy line, not a straight one. Some days your dog handles three minutes; the next day he cracks at two. That is completely normal.