Transitioning out of the crate.

[fuzzy]

I asked this question before, back on WC and back when I was silly enough to believe that my dog could handle life without a crate at 9 months old. (HA!)

My dog will be two in May and is starting to act like a normal dog (as opposed to a psychotic beast, that is :p ). She's still young, but she's definitely becoming more mentally mature.

She's crated while we are at work. I don't think she's ready to spend an entire day out of her crate, I think it would be feasible to leave for a few hours and have her be content and non-destructive if we baby-gated her in her bedroom, instead of putting her in her crate. I'll probably start experimenting with a few hours here or there this summer.

But I'm wondering, if you did use a crate initially and now allow the dog to access to all or most of your house when you aren't there: 1) what cues did your dog give to show s/he was ready and 2) how did you go about the transition?

TIA!

[TazLuv]

fuzzy, how does he react when you leave the house like to get the mail or go into the garage or backyard?

My Molly is 20 months old and she no longer sleeps in her crate but she is always in her crate when we're not home. In the morning when I leave for work she knows my routine and she's usually in her crate before I'm even ready to walk out the door.

Molly isn't ready to be out and the reason I know this is the way she acts when I step out the door. When I go to get the mail or go into the garage to get something and I'm only gone for a few minutes she has a FIT! Whining and scratching at the door. A lot of people have told me she has seperation anxiety and I should really work on her with it, but we've tried and she's just not there yet. Maybe once she turns two we'll try again.

So those would be my first tests for you, if she could care less when you walk out the door for even 90 seconds then she's probably ready for short periods, maybe while you run to the grocery store would be a good start.

Good luck! :)

[kiddo]

We have a 1 yo lab that we are starting to transition out of the crate. He doesn't try to chew on stuff other than his toys and he hasn't had any accidents in the house, so we diecided it might be time to give some independence.

For the last month or so we have been letting him sleep outside his crate. He is not allowed upstairs in our bedrooms, so he is alone downstairs at night. We decided we were ready because he was already spending good chunks of time alone downstairs while I'm on the computer upstairs and was doing fine. And let just say that if our pup does get into something, he's not very quiet about it, so we figured if he did get into something we would hear it. When we go to bed at night, we still make sure that all shoes, slippers, etc and put away just in case.

Since nightime has been going so well, I've been leaving him home alone outside the crate for an hour or so at a time. We don't make a big deal about leaving, so I think most of the time by the time we've come home, he hasn't even realized we left. :p

[Hello Kitty]

Our dobe has been out of the crate since 5 months. But! She is one of those dogs that hates her crate with an absolute passion - hates it. She makes more of a fuss in it than out of it, so we don't crate her during the day. I seriously think crating her would cause more trauma to her and create bad behaviours out of it.

We started by me running to the grocery for an hour or so, making sure she had gone to the bathroom and that everything was picked up around the house. We gradually moved on to longer stretches, but gating her off in the tiled kitchen just in case. Then we took the gates away. At 1 & 1/2 she's left when we both have to work - she gets to go out once during the day and I usually put a treat in her ball and give her a big ol' frozen kong. When we leave, she cries for a bit (it has improved over time) and she settles in and does her thing. When we come back, we make sure to praise her (we walk around the house with her and tell her 'good girl, no messes') and play with her when we come back.

When she's with us, we train her to behave, and she behaves while we're gone. She doesn't go on the furniture, she doesn't chew our stuff. We have these rules so that she's disciplined even when we're not here.

We still crate her at night (she doesn't mind the crate if she can see us laying in bed too) just because she is a pest. We might start transitioning her out on the weekends and see how that goes.

[katmg]

Our Weim is 4 1/2 years old and he is still in his kennel/crate most of the day. He has two in our house - a large wire one in our bedroom and a smaller plastic travel kennel in the front of the house. He gets to pick which one he wants when I leave for work.

He just is not capable of staying out of trouble while we're gone and we are not good enough about putting things away so that he could be out all the time. We could probably leave him for a few hours and he'd be fine, but then he'd get into the garbage, eat anything left on the counters (including paper towels, etc.), get into anything on the coffee table, eat anything in the dirty laundry, etc.

DH used to leave him in the laundry room with a baby gate - but Beau prefers the kennel to the gated laundry room.

I just wanted to post to say that some dogs may always do best in their crates.

[kam]

Since I'm telecommuting, I was able to keep an eye on them during the day. I corrected them if they did something bad but we crated them when I was gone. We transitioned out of it by taking very short trips and taping them (seriously - it gave us an idea of exactly what went on). It would be for 10-20 minutes max, then get longer and longer. The longest we've left them in the house was 8 hours without issue.

[TazLuv]

katmg, I agree - my Molly is very content in her crate when we're not home. We've recorded her before and she sleeps all day without a whine at all.

[jennylou]

I'd love to say good bye to the crate, but Otis loves to rip things. If the garbage isn't available - he'll take a newspaper, magazine, etc - anything paper.

[whitlockan]

We have two dogs a beagle mix and a smooth fox terrier.

We leave the beagle out all day long,but when we intially started it we started with a crate. When we were ready to transistion him out of his crate we did it in short periods, like for walks and trips to the store. We would put up a camera to monitor his behavior while we were out. When we got back we reviewed the tape and he was good. So it then turned into longer periods of time and eventually an entire day. The transition was never a problem for him! Our terrier on the other hand...........

Our terrier is 1 year old and we are in the midst of transitioning him out of his crate. Since the breed is known for destructive behavior when left with too much energy we have decided that we would start by letting him sleep out of his crate at night confined to our bedroom. At first he had some bad behavior so immediatly when he acted up we would get up and crate him, so he did start out with short periods due to his behavior. We are now able to leave him for an entire night out, however he still has not earned our trust to be left out during the day, simply because he has too much energy and hes too stubborn. Example, if he doesnt feel like going outside he wont, he'll use the bathroom inside and he is housebroken but its just simply stubornness on his end.

Thats our story of transition, good luck with yours!

[bird_feet]

What do you do with your dog at night? If she's crated at night you could start by putting her in your bedroom at night with the door closed. She'd be used to being out of the crate but it's during a non-activity time.

Then I'd move to smaller steps during the day. Make sure things are picked up so she's not tempted to be destructive. Start with a short 5 minutes and see how that goes. Then increase the time. Just by a few minutes or up to 15 at a time depending on how she's adjusting in the beginning.

With all of our dogs we started off with nights in our bedroom and moved on to daytime outside of the crate. We'd go and drive around the block (our dogs were too smart and realized that we weren't really going anywhere when we'd just go into the backyard) and see what happened. We were actually able to quickly increase their alone time in the house with free roam.

We also started off closing all doors to bedrooms, bathrooms, etc. so that they'd have limited access at first. Now they've got free roam and have no problems.

Our biggest clues as to how ready they were for crate free time was that nothing was touched in the house when we came back. We've learned that most of the time they just sleep or look out the window while we're gone.

It only took us a month to two months to be able to leave our dogs an entire day (8-9 hours) without supervision. We started this transition when they were anywhere from six months to a year and a half. Good luck with your transition!

[fuzzy]

Thanks everyone!

Since she's been about 6 months old, she's been baby gated in the guest room at night and sleeps on the bed, rather than in her crate. (We have four cats and the cats and the dog don't get along. Our bedroom has always been kitty territory, so the dog isn't invited in at night. :) )

What prompted my question was that on Tuesday night my husband and I, both battling nagging colds, put the dog to bed (basically told her to go to bed and gave her her nightly treat) and then, because we were so zonked, we forgot to move the baby gate from our bedroom door to "her" bedroom door. So she wasn't gated-in for the night. She never left room (we'd hear her claws on the hardwood) and didn't even come whining at the gate when she heard the alarms go off -- she waited for us to tell her she was allowed to come out of her room.

Also, we've been getting stuff ready for the growing season so we've been spending lots of time in the basement -- another part of the house that is kitty territory where she's not allowed. She's been upstairs unsupervised and has been absolutely fine. She just goes back to her crate and waits for us.

I'm just a little gun shy because when we did try and give her some freedom at the 9 month mark by gating her in her room while we were at work, she ate the wooden bed frame, chewed on a dresser, and tore the oak moulding off the wall. :o We got a new couch about a year and a half ago and it took me SO long to get my husband to agree to the purchase....if she ate the couch, I'd be so upset!

No separation anxiety. She gets confused when we leave the house and don't put her in her crate -- she assumes if she's not crated then she's going with us. But, again, its confusion, not anxiety.

Its kinda hard for me to come home over lunch, but I'm thinking about committing to doing so for the next two weeks. I'll gate her in her room and check on things at lunch...if she's good that then I'll slowly give her more access over the course of the two weeks.

She really enjoys her crate and if she needs to be a crated-for-the-forseeable-future kind of a dog, I'm fine with that. It'd just be nice to know we could travle with her without the crate, yk?

[Chile]

We started by leaving Blade out of the crate at night. He slept on his dog bed with us in the bedroom. He was a little over a year old. (He was born in a November and Christmas Eve of the next year was his first night in the bedroom with us). He was still crated during the day but I went home at lunch almost every day. When he was about 2.5 we left him out for 1/2 day to see how he did (M took a 1/2 day that afternoon). He had stopped bothering things around the house (he used to steal the remote just to do it or would shred part of a magazine for attention). But that morning he was fine, he left everything alone and basically slept in his spot on the couch the entire time. After that he was allowed to be out but it was because of his behavior. If he had acted strange or tore up things while we were out for just an hour or so, then it never would have happened as soon as it did. We were able to trust him just by watching his actions while we were there and also if we left him out for an hour or two while running errands around town.

We did leave the crate out for awhile with the door open in case he wanted to venture back in there. It's still out because of NotCookie and she will actually stay in there sometimes during the day. The rest of the house is closed off though. They can't get into any of the bedrooms, bathrooms or the laundry room. That's just because of what's in those rooms. They have free reign of the kitchen, dining room and living room.

It sounds like Miss Daisy is doing fine though - I think at 9 months she was still in destructive puppy mode hence the chewing of the bedroom furniture. But if there is anything you're really worried about, use bubble wrap. Blade left our rocking chair alone once I wrapped bubble wrap around the rocking legs part. :)

[isagsd]

I'm agree with birdfeet. I have a 4 yr old German Shepherd. She was crated until she was about 2 years old. The only reason we stopped using the crate was I delivered my son & my husband didn't have any company while I was hospitalized. So she came out. At first, she was out at night in the locked bedroom with DH. Then we'd leave her out on short trips (ie grocery store, dry cleaners, etc...) Of course we put up babygates to keep her from going upstairs. When she proved that she she wasn't a terror, we took the gates down and left her out for longer times. It took about a month, but she's never really had a problem. (Except now that we've moved, she's being a bit of a terror during her adjustment period).

[ManteoChik]

We have a 1 year 4 month old lab and she has never been crated. When she was 7 weeks - 5 months she would get baby-gated in the master bathroom on the tile. We never had any problems with her chewing or eating anything she wasn't supposed to (shocking, I know). Around 5 months old we would come home to find that she has "busted out" of the bathroom and was in our bedroom on the bed. After that we tested it for a few days leaving her out in the house for only short amounts of time (around 1-2 hours) with no one there. Each time we would come home and find that she had done nothing wrong.

So I'd say from 5 months on she's been out in the house on her own and she has had free run of the house ever since. She has all access to all the rooms in the house and usually takes her pick of where she wants to nap that day. :rolleyes:

We moved from our apartment to house when she was about 6 months and got a dog door and she lets herself in and out all day even when we aren't home - our backyard is fenced in.