[dranoel]

How long until you set your dog free from his/her crate at night?

Were there any problems that started once they were removed from the crate at night?

And what did you move on to? A dog bed in your room? A dog bed in another room? Your bed?

 

[Cariboo Puppy]

Bonny is three now and she still sleeps in her crate at night even though the door is open and she could come out if she wanted to. It really depends on the dog and how good they are about lying down and sleeping all night when they are out of the crate and not getting into mischief.

 

[Francl27]

Around 7 months for my 3 dogs. The first two were not allowed on bed so slept on the floor, the 3rd sleeps in the bed for 15 minutes then goes on the floor anyway. We have a dog pad but they pretty much don't use it (I guess the cold floor is more comfortable? Who knows). The only problem was with the 3rd as she wasn't used to carpet (she wasn't allowed upstairs until then) and peed on it a couple times, so we closed our bedroom door for a few months and haven't had a problem since (now she knows not to pee on carpet too).

 

[Canyx]

My first dog (now 12 yrs) was never crate trained and he had run of the house by 6 mo, I believe. But it was a very boring, immaculate house with tiles floors so there wasn't really anything he could get into.

My younger dog (now 1.5 yrs) has been loose at night, with an open crate, for a month or two now. I can't really remember. My current house has a lot of 'stuff' a dog could potentially get into. I think I could have trusted him at the 1 year mark, or even earlier. But I'm all about being 99.9% sure there won't be any mistakes before taking the chance. But long before he got full run, he had a crate+pen setup for many months. That gave him a lot more space but not total freedom.

To each their own. I have friends who don't mind testing the waters and having their dogs destroy a shoe or two in the process. I know dogs who are totally fine loose at night but destructive during the day. Some dogs are busier than others. Every case is different.

 

[DaySleepers]

Somewhere around the 20 week mark, I think? We started by letting him in the bed after his early morning potty break (between 3-5 am) and when he was doing well with that (and sleeping longer through the night) he just spent the whole night there with us. Worked for us and we never had an accident in bed, but I'm also a light sleeper, so the moment he started moving around I would notice and wake up. That and I was working crazy early hours at the time, so he got an early morning potty break regardless. Now he didn't have free range of the apartment at that age. He couldn't even jump on/off the bed on his own, and we sleep with the bedroom door closed, so even now he doesn't technically have free range at night (though he'll sometimes choose to sleep on the floor when it's particularly warm, and we taught him to leave on cue when we want private time or need to change the sheets). And I still wake up if he decides he needs an early morning potty break, but that's pretty rare these days.

 

[lillies]

I removed the dog pen/crate two weeks ago; my puppy is soon 5 months old. Not because of a certain age, but because I felt that there was no use for the crate anymore; she sleeps through the night and if she has to go pee or poo she wakes me up. She sleeps in the bedroom with us, however we keep the door open to the rest of the house. Nothing really changed I think, except that I'm not picking her up from the pen these mornings.

 

[[email protected]]

Usually about 8 months old for me. Both of ours sleep on their own dog beds on floor next to our bed. Ours are trained to stay put on their own beds once bedtime comes around.

 

[Bluemoods]

Never, my dogs sleep in their crates for life and, are crated if I'm leaving them home alone for more than 30 minutes. I'd rather them be safe and in a crate that accidentally get into something they shouldn't or, have them tear up something in the house that I don't want destroyed. They do have crates one size larger than they actually need so that there is room for water and food in there when I have to leave them for more than 4 hours. That's rare but, life happens and, I can't always make my life revolve around my dogs.

 

[Jen2010]

It really depends on the dog. Pepper was over two before we started leaving her out at night - in the same room as her crate, but with the crate door open and the room door closed. She would be fine with being loose in the house, but Kane needs company in the room.

Kane is turning 4 next month and is still crated for the night. We have tried a couple of times to leave his crate door open at night, but he thinks something is wrong and whines and cries until we go put him in his crate and close the door. If we try to wait it out and ignore him until he settles, he starts chewing on random stuff in the room (books, chews, pens, etc.)

 

[Lillith]

When my dog was fully house trained and he didn't tend to get into stuff, I let him free roam at night. He was probably a little over a year old. I removed his crate entirely from our bedroom and put it downstairs (I got him one that is a couple sizes bigger than a dog his size needs, too) and placed a dog bed in our bedroom. As far as I know, he tends to stay in our bedroom all night. Nothing is disturbed in the morning.

 

[Julka7]

I've had dogs most of my life and have never owned a crate. There were several incidents with new rescues when they chewed up a pillow or a hat.. but that behavior stops once they settle in. If your dog continues to be destructive as an adult, it's a pretty good indicator they are not getting enough mental/physical stimulation.

 

[Kathyy]

I adopt adult rescues. The last two were on a 2 week shut down and kept penned most of the time so they didn't have to worry about interacting with resident dogs and making any mistakes. They stayed crated at night until they were mostly out of the pen during the day then they sleep on my bed. They stay in my room at night, don't want any shenanigans in other rooms during the night.

 

[christine_72]

I've had dogs most of my life and have never owned a crate. There were several incidents with new rescues when they chewed up a pillow or a hat.. but that behavior stops once they settle in. If your dog continues to be destructive as an adult, it's a pretty good indicator they are not getting enough mental/physical stimulation.

Exactly the same here. I too have had dogs all my life and have never used a crate, day or night. If my dog needs to go out and pee at night he'll let me know.

 

[+BlueMerle]

My father crated our last dog and his current dog and I intended to follow suite but rushed acclimation (got home late w/ the new pup, looked like it was going well and she was very sleepy but she started whining like mad 10 minutes after I left). She built a negative association with that crate in a snap (only place she won't squeeze into to sleep on her own after a month). I slept on the couch for a night and she didn't chew anything up. I was about to start re-acclimating the crate but I decided to let it ride, the next day I found all her 'likely candidates for destruction' and removed them or hit them with bitter spray, Now we are going on 5 weeks doing constant disruptions and substitutions all day every day but very few problems at night. I also leave a few items that are technically forbidden but I know she wants and that I could care less about, like a cardboard box, or the cheap neck pillow around. A month later, so far so good, a few accidents (okay considering I don't even have pee pads out) I will find the pillow on the ground or some tape ripped off the box if I come down too late in the morning but mostly she ignores anything I hit with the bitter. Also starting with some additional object impulse control exercises. If she gets to be unmanageable as an adolescent then I will bring out the other half of the gate and make it into a pen.