Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

When did you stop with the crate all together? Bella is 4 months old and we leave her in the crate during the day while we are at work, once we get home she is out the entire night, until it's time to go to sleep. We basically give her free use of the entire house while we are home, but we make sure we know where she is at all times. She is basically fully house broken, even if she is upstairs and needs to go, she will run downstairs do her business and come back and play.

It seems to be working great and I am just thinking, if I am being unfair to her that I am still crating her during the day and at night She goes in the crate with no problem, never had an accident in there since day 1 and honestly, she has a hug comfy bed in there that is the size of the entire crate. Let's just say, she gets treated like a princess - LOL.

My thought process, she is only 4-months and puppies get into everything! She also in the past has had a habit of trying to eat her poop, but we make sure we clean up the second she goes and I am just afraid that if she is not crated, she will get back to her old habits.

Any advice?

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Starting after Christmas, we have let Daisy by herself in the house, but gated within the kitchen and EIK. This way, she can play with all the toys she wants and can lay down.

Sometime this summer, we're going to leave her free in the house, just not sure when.

Daisy was about 7-8 months old when we started doing this. She is now around 9 months.

Once she proved to us that she wouldn't have any accidents, we let her out, and she sometimes pees a few drops when we come home, but that is more out of excitement. That happened twice and the other than that, she waits for us to put her collar back on and we take her out to do her business.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

We tried gated Rudy in the kitchen and he would just jump over it So we moved to the crate. He was in there for a few months but I felt bad (it's not a bad thing just the way I felt) so we would leave him out for short periods of time. Like we went to the store he was left out etc. Once we saw he was ok we got rid of the crate.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Kasey is a year plus a few months now, we still crate her whenever we leave the house. She is usually well behaved and completely house-trained while we're home. However, we're afraid of what we'd come home to if we let her stay out all day while we're at work. We think she'll get anxious and start chewing things up, this has happened even if we're in the yard for a few minutes so we can only imagine what she'd do if left alone for hours.

This is the only way she knows and she's happy, the crate is her safe place. It's not as if she knows that other dogs have free reign of their house. It works for us!!

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Message edited 2/26/2008 1:53:23 PM.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Don't feel guilty, a crate is a great way to create a "den" for your dog, which helps them feel safe when you are not there.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Katie was crated when we werent' home and at night till 6 months. Then we just gated her off in the kitchen.
At about 14 months she had full roam of the house. We lock her in her crate at night still. Although she has full roam of the house she goes in there during the day to sleep and she has beds all over the place. It's her safety zone.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Riley is 9mths old and we still crate her when we go to work.
Once and a while we leave her out...however we usually come home to something chewed up
So...we mostly keep her in there.
We tried to keep her out at night, but she gets soooo excited in the morning that she was jumping on our bed and peeing....plus she tends to look to go in there.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Jedi is 1 year and 3 months old and we still gate him in our bathroom when we're both at work. He is just too destructive to let him have free roam.

I have a feeling it will be a long time before we let him roam.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Casey was about 1.5 when we stopped crating her all together...we would leave her out fro short periods of time to test her out..if we went to the grocery store for an hour etc...then we moved up to crating her in the AM and when I came home at lunch leaving her out for the rest of the day. Eventually we had no need for the crate anymore.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Misty was over two years old before we started leaving her out of the crate when we went to work.

Re: Need Advice- For those that crated their dogs??

Tiger was a year when we stopped using it.