[Mdawn]

None of my dogs get free reign of the house...ever. None of them are allowed upstairs, its always gated off. The stairs are just to steep and Eddie and Uallis have major problems coming down the stairs. I'm afraid they will fall. They go upstairs to get baths and that is it. They have help going up and down the stairs (us holding on to them). We just carry Dan up and down for baths. During the day, for example, if I'm in the computer room, the living room is gated off and there is a gate between the computer room and the kitchen. Eddie and Dan can come in and out as they choose. Uallis is always with someone because he's too little to be unsupervised for more than a few minutes. Also, he relapsed in potty training so we are back to square one with that, so he has to be watched.

At night, Uallis is always crated in the living room. Dan sleeps in the kitchen. Depending on Dan's mood (whether he wants to tolerate Eddie) Eddie may sleep in the kitchen or the mud room Eddie can't sleep in the living room because he pesters Uallis in his crate. I generally keep Eddie and Uallis separated while in the house because they play pretty rough and would destroy/knock things over. I take Uallis and Eddie outside to play several times during the day. I imagine when Uallis is older, the arrangements will change though.

[EXBCMC]

Until just recently we had 3 older dogs that we trusted with the run of the house. Two have passed away and we now have two labs pups and an 8 year old shepherd. She has the run and is totally responsible. The 9 mo old lab was finally trusted to sleep w/the shepherd in the family room at night, but then required hip surg, so now it's the crate until about oct. the 5 mo old lab is totally nuts. nuff said on her.

[poodleholic]

It really depends on the dog and/or the dynamics between two or more dogs. I have three dogs; two Standard Poodles who are 6 yrs. old, and an 18 mo. old Shih Tzu (a recent addition). The Shih Tzu is crated mainly for his safety when I am gone, since he's much, much smaller than the other two. The Standards go into their crates whenever I leave the house, and remain there until I come home (conditioned response from training), but the gates are not locked.

When I'm home, all 3 have freedom of the house, because they've earned it.

[onyxdaily]

My female hound, Brandy, does not now or will she ever be able to have free run of the house. If we're gone, she is either outside in her run (weather permitting) or in our bedroom in her crate. She was a rescue and has some permanent physical and mental / emotional problems from suspected abuse. But when we're home, usually in the evenings, we will bring her inside and gate off a few rooms so that she can run around the house and play.

My 2 boys are still puppies, lab is 13 months and saint bernard is 10 months, and they don't have free run of the house yet, but in time, if they prove trustworthy, they will. We actually tried giving them free run of the kitchen area a few times and that was a disaster. Needless to say we are minus one wooden bench for our kitchen table and we had to repair a few holes in the walls. So they now get crated while we're gone, until they are a little older and past the chewing stage.

[Swissmiss]

At this time none of my dogs get house priviliges when we are not home. Hopefully as they become reliable with chewing etc, they can. For now they are crated, and love it I must add. They spend more time in there crates when they have free access to the house than I would ever think they would.

[wabanafcr]

None of ours have the run of the house when we are away; they are all crated individually. We have given that privilege to some of our dogs in the past, and I can see Bibby earning that right in the future, but not right now.

They are safe in their crates, I know nobody is eating anything they shouldn't (Flatcoats are notorious for eating socks, underwear, dish towels, etc.) and nobody is chewing up anything they shouldn't.