Pup sleeping outside the crate

Grey_Arab

Grey_Arab

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So Spice is now 8 months old and I would like to be able to have her sleep outside the crate. She is really good in the crate (downstairs, she isn't allowed upstairs) and I don't here a peep out of her all night.
She is not destructive and has plenty of toys and such. I am on call once a week at work, so she comes with me then and sleeps on the bed with me and doesn't stir.
So I was wondering whether it would be as simple as leaving the crate door open and letting her pick and choose where she goes or whether there was more method.
She is a lab btw
Thanks
 
Does she get shut in the crate at any point during the day, or just at night? If she does, then you could leave the door open whilst you pop out for a short while and see what you return too.. If not, and as she is fine at your work I would just bite the bullet and leave the door open one night, you'll probably find that she still sleeps in it anyway as for many dogs it becomes their "safe zone" and they like the security it provides them..
 
Just leave the door open. As just mentioned on another thread, my dog is 2.5yo and will probably sleep in a cage for the rest of his natural.

It's unlikely he will start devouring the furniture during the night but I'd prefer not to offer him the opportunity :p he does put himself to bed at around 11pm/11.30pm.

As your pup is still eight months old and a lab, I wouldn't actually trust her completely :p JMO though.
 
What cc said, i personally would not be too hastey, she still has many testing stages ahead, and you see her behave impecably for a month then suddenly start to be destructive and then make a huge issue of returning to crate, for now as suggested leave crate up and door open in gradual build ups.
 
Oh dear, all of you would think I'm mad, my 9 weeks old Lab sleeps on my bed... Tried crate and was actually OK with it but the temptation was too much so 2nd night in he was on my bed. 2 weeks in and hrs been an angel.... Perhaps not the best advice lol
 
Grey_Arab,

why not remove the crate, and place the puppy's bed where the crate is? When you put your puppy in your crate, presumably you give an instruction "Bed" or "Crate", some thing like that, well when the dog knows where it's bed is, and you give her the order, then what you're doing is underlining an important part of a training regime, without realising it. You'll be reinforcing the "lie-down and stay", an instruction which you will have to teach anyway, eventually, but not generally within the useful confines of your kitchen.

Relying upon a crate to contain a dog, rather than teaching it from an early age to stay where it's put, is like the use of leads in training, in that it relies upon the external force of an "aid", rather than teaching a dog to listen to your voice, and an insistence upon compliance. You may even get to the stage when you wonder why you didn't teach the puppy where its bed was, in the first place, and why you even bothered with a cage! ;)

Alec.
 
The concept of phasing the crate out is to do it gradually alec, so after leaving the door open and seeing no ill behaviour you would then just put a bed in its place, your dog aint going to hear the bed command from the super market or work :p why,stress the dog uneccesarily if it finds comfort in the crate and undo a routine so rapidly.
 
The crate thing does intrigue me I have to say. I don't know how many puppies I've had in my life time but I've never kept one in a crate. They've all just had beds. Nothing's ever been damaged through the night by any of the pups I've had.
 
I was very anti-crate before I joined this forum and realised it was my ignorance about the use of them that had formed my opinion. We bought a pup 2 yrs ago and started her off with a crate using Caylas puppy guide, house training was a doddle and even now she still uses it in the house and when we travel. We gradually phased it out as per Caylas post and never had a problem, I guess thats because we never did it all at once and she never had to go cold turkey.
 
CAYLA said:
The concept of phasing the crate out is to do it gradually alec, so after leaving the door open and seeing no ill behaviour you would then just put a bed in its place, your dog aint going to hear the bed command from the super market or work :p why,stress the dog uneccesarily if it finds comfort in the crate and undo a routine so rapidly.
Click to expand...

Whilst I understand that you occasionally take in adult dogs which are strangers to you, I also understand that some of those dogs will need containing, though how adults take to the potentially claustrophobic conditions of a cage, I'd wonder. I've sheepdogs which would turn upon themselves and self harm, or at least they'd stress in a manner which would be cruel.

My only intention in suggesting that there are other ways, with puppies, is only brought on because whenever the question turns up on here, regarding keeping a dog in a house, and then also in a cage, and there are those, and I'm not alone, who feel that there are alternative ways of teaching puppies the ground rules of a domestic environment, and for those who ask for the pros and cons of cages. Though our views are both opposing each other, readers have the right to hear both sides of the argument.

What would have made you smile, was when I visited a very well known equine Stud Farm, and the owners, the most delightful people, had a Labrador chained to the kitchen table! They obviously decided upon a third method, dispensing with teaching the dog where its boundaries were, AND a cage too!

Alec.
 
occassionally is probably an understatement but never the less, we have no issues crate training destructive dogs and believe me its the easiest route to rehome and we allow the owners to out phase the crate under instruction and have to say they are thrilled they can take a dog home (as a brand new strange dog in a strange environment) and have its 1st nights sleep In pure harmony and leave the house without a care, and of course the dog does not bounce back, it gets time to settle in its (familiar/secure space) without being returned for barking and being destructive (one of the man reasons kennel dogs get returned to rescue) you really do have to understand the crate and its benefits to appreciate them and of course people are allowed opinions I never said they did not, I simply said for the dog sake, phase out a crate gradually or it can lead to issues you never had. Your dogs are outside dogs Alec and most sheep dogs live in barns/kennels/ (have free roam) generally although I have to say we have had many farm collies in and crated trained them no bother. You saying (stay) in the bed could be said the same for a kennel (why build the pen) just tell the dog to stay in the kennel and go on your merry way.
 
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So still my answer to the original question, which had nothing re (not being allowed opinions) it was more answering the question the OP asked (phase the crate out indeed) just do it gradually, the dog will appreciate it more and will give the owner a confident answer to the question "should I try and allow the dog to stay out of the crate" (simples);)
 
If my dog wasn't kept in a crate as a pup he would have eaten all the furniture if left unsupervised. Safer for him and I didn't get evicted.
You can't teach a dog not to do something if you're not in the same room as it. He's not naughty, he is just genetically inclined to want to have something in his mouth all the time!!!

Cayla sent me a crate training guide last week. 10mo cross on the verge of being rehomed, was chewing the furniture and cocking his leg on everything when unsupervised, owner resorted to shutting him in garage where he screaming constantly. One week later.....much happier owner and dog :) safe, secure, in sight of his humans.
 
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