What are you doing to prepare for any form of 're-opening'?

[Enzsound]

What are others doing to prepare for any possible re-opening in the next few months? We make a point to leave our 6 month pup alone in the crate once a day, usually at night when she's having her dinner kong to ensure its not a negative. Where I live we won't have large re-openings for the next 4-6 months and I have a permanent WFH situation for some days a week when that happens (plus a dog friendly office). My partner as well worked from home full time before covid and will continue. That being said it is crazy how much time our pup spends with us, and would love to get some tips on doing some more significant separation training that we can take slow/ see what others are planning to do!

[D'Elle]

What you are doing is fine for a start. Just make short trips and then slightly longer trips out of the house, building in increments, until she is comfortable with your being gone for a few hours.

[Enzsound]

Just a brief update, some successes and some failures at 7 months.

1. From the beginning we believed Indie bonded to me a bit more than my partner, I took on the training a little more, and am a bit firmer and consistent with her. However, I work from home, but upstairs where she largely isn't allowed so she's become accustomed to me leaving for several hours at a time, then resurfacing. My partner works downstairs in sight at all times. So even if she's crated or penned, she can see my partner. She is far more distressed at my partner leaving, than me, even when she's not alone. My partner also doesn't leave everyday, I do at least once.
2. Her crate is in her little 'puppy room', which is our mudroom, with the X-Pen acting as the enclosure to limit her access to the rest of the apartment. She has had two bad times being left in her crate while we went for a walk. She had her dinner kong with peanut butter, which we'd hoped would make the leaving a positive. When we returned she was howling, and hiding in the corner of her crate. No drool, but breathing heavy, however she gets like that if shes working hard at the kong and we didn't have a camera, unsure how bad the outburst was.
3. If I'm upstairs with door closed, my partner will sometimes leave and I can hear what she's doing. Howling or barking lasts no longer than 15 minutes, but every 30 minutes she kinda half heartedly howls once or twice. I call this puppy echo location - unsure if she remembers I am upstairs, she is kind of just pinging to see if there's any sympathy to be had 
4. We've left her just in her room, not in the crate, and she's done far better. She has a larger crate- it will be appropriate at full size but she outgrew the puppy crate, so she can do a bit more than stand and turnaround, which I think actually exacerbated her distress. In her room, she lets the empty apartment know of her disapproval, but gives up after a while and rests and chills.
5. If my partner and I are both upstairs, she certainly whines once or twice, however I've known adult dogs that did this, just unhappy to be missing out. However its a huge victory over her baby puppy stage, where at first we couldn't be out of sight, then she couldn't be left alone downstairs etc. Its certainly not where we'd wanted to be training wise, but our hopes if she can become comfortable spending several hours alone downstairs without us, we just keep taking our time, and building up to her being home alone.
6. We aren't doing well with our 'going out' routine, I forget that I have a predictable and practiced routine when I am really going out. Indie knows the 'training step outside' over the real deal, and I need to work on that. When my partner leaves, without fail, she forgets to just walk out and ignore indie, then realizes on the other side of the door. Same with re-entering, and encouraging an excited greeting. More to work on